27 DECEMBER
Featured Events
1986 "Reet Petite," a #6 UK hit for Jackie Wilson in 1957, goes to #1 29 years later when it is re-released, and stays at the top for four weeks. Wilson died three years earlier after being incapacitated by a heart attack.
1985 The Krush Groove Christmas party becomes the first rap show held at Madison Square Garden. A tie-in with the movie Krush Groove, the concert features performances by LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Whodini and other acts who appeared in the film. The event makes headlines for the violence that follows, as 14 people are arrested for various crimes.
1980 Weeks after his death, John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" goes to #1 in America.More
1975 The #1 song in America is "Let's Do It Again," a surprisingly lubricious song by the gospel group the The Staple Singers. The song was written by Curtis Mayfield for the film of the same name starring Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier.
1967 After establishing his career as a poet and writer, Leonard Cohen releases his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, on Columbia Records. The album doesn't sell particularly well at first, peaking at #83 on the Billboard charts, but Cohen's powerful voice and lyrics in oft-covered tracks like "Suzanne" and "So Long, Marianne" become highly influential.
1960 Returning from Hamburg, Germany, The Beatles play a show in their hometown of Liverpool, England, with Chas Newby filling in for Stu Sutcliffe, who stays in Germany and never rejoins the band. The show gets a lot of attention, and is an early taste of Beatlemania.
27 DECEMBER
In Music History
2023 Nelly and Ashanti get married but keep it secret - TMZ breaks the news months later after discovering the marriage certificate. The couple dated on and off from 2003-2013, then rekindled their romance early in 2023.
2016 Actress Carrie Fisher, known for her iconic role as Princess Leia in Star Wars, dies of a heart attack at age 60. The daughter of Singin' in the Rain actress Debbie Reynolds and former wife of Paul Simon (see "Hearts And Bones"), she also inspired the Blink-182 song "A New Hope": "Princess Leia where are you tonight; and who's laying there by your side."
2014 Alicia Keys gives birth to a second son, Genesis Ali Dean, with husband Swizz Beatz.
2013 Britney Spears debuts her Las Vegas show, Britney: Piece of Me, which runs for four years at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.
2013 Vanessa Carlton marries John McCauley of Deer Tick in a ceremony officiated by Stevie Nicks.More
2008 Delaney Bramlett (of the '70s blues-rock duo Delaney & Bonnie) dies from complications of gall bladder surgery at age 69.
2004 Hank Garland, a Nashville session guitarist who performed with Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, dies of a staph infection at age 74.
2003 Dick St. John (of the '60s pop duo Dick & Dee Dee) dies at age 63 after a fall from the roof of his home.
1999 Puff Daddy is involved in a New York City nightclub shooting that injures three people. He and his girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, are arrested after fleeing the scene. Puff is put on trial for weapons possession and attempted bribery, but is found innocent in March 2001 after a six-week trial.
1989 Chuck Berry is sued by the former cook of his restaurant - The Southern Air, in Wentzville, Missouri - who claims Berry installed hidden cameras in the ladies restrooms and collected the videos. Over 200 former customers take part in a class action suit against Berry, which is eventually settled out of court.
1988 Hayley Williams is born in Meridian, Mississippi. She moves to Franklin, Tennessee when she's 13 and, two years later, signs a record deal and forms Paramore. She's still a teenager when they break out with the song "Misery Business" from their second album, Riot!, in 2007.
1983 Rock 'n' roll singer Walter Scott (of Bob Kuban & the In-Men) is shot in the back and left floating in a cistern, where he is found four years later. James H. Williams Sr., who married Scott's second wife, JoAnn, after the singer's disappearance, is found guilty of the murder. JoAnn also receives a five-year prison sentence for hindering the prosecution.
1982 Billy Joel plays a benefit concert in Allentown, Pennsylvania as his song "Allentown" makes its way up the charts.
1981 "Georgia On My Mind" composer Hoagy Carmichael dies of heart failure at age 82.
1978 The BBC comes under fire when it plays part of the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen," which has been banned on the network, on a show called "Listen To The Banned." The educator Dr. Rhodes Boyson calls it "another sign of the declining public morality which so rightly worries the general public."
Show Boat Becomes First Modern Musical
1927Show Boat opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway, changing the paradigm for modern musicals.
Early musicals are usually two-act shows with an emphasis on song and dance. Plots are kept simple: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. The young lovers always have at least one duet, and there is always a comic character to lighten the plot. Show Boat changes all that, as Jerome Kern combines multiple forms of ballet, music and theater to invent the modern musical. The first massively popular musical comedy, Show Boat tells a serious dramatic story about the lives of a family of showboat performers from the 1880s to the 1920s. With lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, it points the way to the musical plays of the 1940s and 1950s.
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