22 DECEMBER
Featured Events
2002 Joe Strummer of The Clash dies of a heart attack at age 50. The Clash are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few months later.
1995 Three years after her feature film debut in The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston gives her second acting performance in Forest Whitaker's romantic drama Waiting to Exhale, leading an all-African American cast that includes Angela Bassett and Dennis Haysbert.More
1987 After a night of debauchery with Robbin Crosby of Ratt and Slash from Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe bass player Nikki Sixx suffers a drug overdose and his heart stops beating. He is declared clinically dead, but comes back to life.More
1967 The Graduate, starring Anne Bancroft and newcomer Dustin Hoffman, premieres in US theaters. It spawns a hit soundtrack featuring songs from Simon & Garfunkel, including "Mrs. Robinson."
1949 The twins Maurice and Robin Gibb are born in Douglas, Isle Of Man, and raised in Manchester, England. They join older brother Barry to form the Bee Gees.
22 DECEMBER
In Music History
2025 Barry Manilow, 82 and in the middle of his farewell tour, reveals that he's been diagnosed with lung cancer. It's treated successfully with surgery, but part of his left lung is removed, making it difficult to sing.
2020 Mountain guitarist Leslie West dies at 75 after suffering a heart attack.
2014 Joe Cocker dies of lung cancer at age 70 at his home in Colorado.
2012 Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood marries his girlfriend Sally Humphreys; Wood at age 65 and Humphreys at 34. Coincidentally, the world did not end on the day before, as proponents of the Mayan calendar would have it. Perhaps this bolstered their optimism?
2007 Eleven years after her death, Eva Cassidy goes to #1 in the UK with "What a Wonderful World," a duet blending her recording of the song with fresh vocals from Katie Melua.
2006 At the beginning of their last day in space for the STS-116 mission to the International Space Station, the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery is greeted by Perry Como's "(There's No Place Like) Home For The Holidays."
2006 The producer Swizz Beatz and his wife, the singer Mashonda Tifrere, have their first child, Kasseem Dean Jr. In 2016, Kasseem's stepmother Alicia Keys writes a song for him called "Blended Family (What You Do For Love)."
2003 Country singer Dave Dudley dies of a heart attack in Danbury, Wisconsin, at age 75.
2000 The Coen Brothers movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? hits theaters. With the song "Man Of Constant Sorrow" a centerpiece of the film, it ignites interest in bluegrass music. The soundtrack, produced by T-Bone Burnett, sells over 7 million copies in America.
1998 Terrence Mallick's WWII film The Thin Red Line has its Beverly Hills premiere. The critically acclaimed movie earns a raft of Oscar nominations, including a nod to Hans Zimmer's haunting score. The emotional cue "Journey To The Line" becomes one of the most-used and most-imitated pieces of film music in Hollywood.
1998 Singer/rapper Latto is born Alyssa Stephens in Columbus, Ohio. Raised in Atlanta, she lands her big break as the first winner of Jermaine Dupri's reality series The Rap Game. After changing her stage name from Miss Mulatto to Latto, she hits the mainstream with the pop-infused rap song "Big Energy."
1993 Meghan Trainor is born on the island of Nantucket in Massachusetts. She starts as a songwriter, penning tunes for Rascal Flatts and Sabrina Carpenter before landing a huge hit as a solo artist with her debut single, "All About That Bass," in 2014. In 2022 she grows an enormous following on TikTok, with videos of her song "Made You Look" earning hundreds of millions of views.
1993 Vince Gill meets Amy Grant when she appears on his televised Christmas special, where they duet on "Tennessee Christmas." Sparks fly, but they're both married. They grow closer over the next few years and start dating in 1999 after both are divorced; in 2000 they wed.
1991 Gregg Allman (of The Allman Brothers Band) makes his acting debut as a drug kingpin in the movie Rush.
1990 At the Moore Theatre in Seattle, Pearl Jam, still known as Mookie Blaylock, open for Alice in Chains. Chris Cornell comes on stage and puts Eddie Vedder on his shoulders at one point.
Cartoon Rodents Land #1 Christmas Song
1958The Chipmunks hit #1 on the Hot 100 with the squeaky-clean festive favorite "The Chipmunk Song." It's the last Christmas song to top the chart until "All I Want For Christmas Is You" 61 years later in 2019.
The Chipmunks are the creation of Ross Bagdasarian, who uses the stage name David Seville. By speeding up recordings of his voice, he is able to simulate the sound of cartoon rodents - at least what they would sound like if they could speak English and sing. Seville is already a legitimate songwriter, having written a hit for Rosemary Clooney called "Come-On-A My House." He came up with the Chipmunk vocal sound by recording his voice into a tape recorder running at half speed. His first squeaky single, however, had nothing to do with furry animals - it's called "Witch Doctor," and the voice belongs to a shaman who shares a love chant ("Oo ee, oo ah ah...). That song went to #1 in April of 1958, a particularly strong year for novelty songs ("The Purple People Eater" was also a chart-topper that year). Taking his concept to the next level, Seville created different voices and started calling his act "The Chipmunks" (he claimed that a Chipmunk in the road gave him the idea). He developed personalities for the creatures, including the impetuous Alvin, the Diana Ross of this Supremes. Thanks to "The Chipmunk Song," they become a sensation, and in 1961 get their own TV show. Chipmunk fatigue sets in by the end of the '60s, and they are largely forgotten in the '70s. They go back on the air in 1983 with another cartoon series, which lasts until 1990. The '00s mark another Chipmunk resurgence, with a series of movies and some successful songs, including a new version of "The Chipmunk Song" in 2007. In 2015, they get their third TV series: ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks. "The Chipmunk Song" stays at the top of the chart for three more weeks - well into January, holds the claim as last Christmas song to hit #1 until 2019, when Mariah Carey's 1994 song "All I Want For Christmas Is You" goes to the top thanks to gaudy streaming numbers.
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