Pick a Day

10 DECEMBER

In Music History

1985 Three Dog Night's Danny Hutton and Cory Wells fire third vocalist Chuck Negron.

1983 Tina Turner's first solo hit, a cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," charts at #6 in the UK as her comeback gets going.

1980 John Lennon's body is cremated. There is no funeral, but a worldwide vigil is held four days later.

1979 Kool & the Gang's "Ladies' Night" is certified Gold. It's their first single with lead singer J.T. Taylor, brought in to give them a vocal focal point as they make their funk sound more accessible.

1976 Queen release their fifth album, A Day At The Races, in the UK (US release is December 18). Like their previous album, A Night At The Opera, it's titled after a Marx Brothers movie.

1976 Wings release Wings Over America.

1976 Billy Idol's Generation X play their first live performance, at London's Central College of Art.

1975 The Who's The Who by Numbers album is certified Gold.

1974 Hawkwind begins their UK tour, A Dead Singer, at Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells, England.

1974 Meg White (of The White Stripes) is born Megan Martha White in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.

1973 The nightclub CBGB opens on Manhattan's Lower East Side. A former flophouse, it becomes ground zero for East Coast punk rock, with Patti Smith, the Ramones, Television and Blondie often performing there.

1972 Roberta Flack and two members of her backup band are injured when her bass player totals her new Citroen near Manhattan.

1971 At the "Free John Sinclair Rally" in Ann Arbor, Michigan, John Lennon debuts his new song, fittingly called "John Sinclair." Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and Phil Ochs also appear at the rally, which is an effort to get Sinclair, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of two marijuana joints, out of jail. Sinclair was released two days later.

1971 Davy Jones of the Monkees guest stars on The Brady Bunch episode "Getting Davy Jones," where Marcia tries to get the dreamy singer to perform at her prom.More

1971 During a concert in London, Frank Zappa is thrown into the orchestra pit by a fan's jealous boyfriend, breaking his leg and ankle and fracturing his skull. Zappa takes months to recover.