8 MAY
In Music History
1990 A jury orders Frito-Lay to pay the famously anti-advertising Tom Waits $2.6 million for imitating his voice in a Doritos radio commercial that transforms his song "Step Right Up" into an ad for their SalsaRio flavor chips. In 1992, the verdict is upheld on appeal.
1982 The orchestral instrumental "Chariots Of Fire - Titles," by the Greek composer Vangelis, goes to #1 in America.
1982 In Los Angeles, Dean Martin is arrested when police find a loaded .38 pistol in the trunk of his Rolls Royce. He pleads guilty to carrying a concealed weapon and is sentenced to a year's probation.
1982 Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart dies of cancer and lymphoma at age 39.
1979 The Cure release their debut album, Three Imaginary Boys. It opens with "10:15 Saturday Night," the track that earned them a record deal.
1978 Donny Osmond gets married at the age of 21 to Debra Glenn. The union is bad for his career as his teen fanbase loses interest when he's no longer an eligible bachelor, but it's great for his personal life. The couple enjoys a happy marriage and welcomes five children.
1977 The Grateful Dead play a show at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, that becomes legend among Deadheads when the soundboard recording is widely distributed. In 2011 it's entered into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, and in 2017 is officially released as Cornell 5/8/77.
1977 Blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa is born in New Hartford, New York, where he'll start playing the guitar at age 4.
1976 Carly Simon becomes the first Saturday Night Live musical guest who doesn't play live when a bout of stage fright keeps her from going on. Instead, NBC runs prerecorded renditions of "You're So Vain" and a new song called "Half A Chance."
1975 Enrique Iglesias is born in Madrid, Spain, to Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and journalist Isabel Preysler.
1974 British R&B musician Graham Bond dies in an apparent suicide at age 36 when he's hit by a train at Finsbury Park station in London, England.
1972 Darren Hayes (frontman for Savage Garden) is born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
1972 Billy Preston becomes the first rock star to headline at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
1971 Candice Night, who forms Blackmore's Night with her husband, Ritchie Blackmore, is born Candice Lauren Isralow at Hauppage, New York.
1968 George Dewey Hay, founder of Nashville's Grande Ole Opry radio program, dies at age 72.
Dylan Makes Original Lyric Video
1965D.A. Pennebaker films Bob Dylan in one of the earliest music videos ever shot, the famous "flashcard" clip for "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
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Featured Events
2015 In Tulsa, Rush begin their R40 Live tour, playing their newer songs first and working backward to "Working Man," the song that launched them in America. It ends up being their last tour, as drummer Neil Peart develops brain cancer and dies in 2020.
1993 The comeback is complete as Aerosmith's Get a Grip album debuts at #1, marking their first trip to the top of the albums chart.
1981 Lionel Richie and Diana Ross meet at a Reno, Nevada recording studio at 3:30 a.m., where they record vocals for "Endless Love," needed quickly so it can be inserted into the film of the same name. Richie flew in from Los Angeles; Ross drove up after her concert in Lake Tahoe. The song becomes one of the biggest hits of the decade.
1976 John Sebastian's "Welcome Back," the theme song to the TV series Welcome Back, Kotter, hits #1 in America. The series was originally called Kotter, but after Sebastian wrote the song, the title was changed to accommodate (Sebastian tried writing a song called "Kotter," but could only rhyme that word with "otter").
1970 The Beatles release their final studio album, Let It Be, in the UK. Its American release date is May 18.
1965 On their first American tour, The Rolling Stones stop in Jacksonville, Florida. In the audience is 17-year-old Ronnie Van Zant, who decides then and there that he wants to be a singer in a rock band. He later forms Lynyrd Skynyrd.
1963 The Beatles land their first #1 hit when "From Me to You" tops the UK chart. The song goes nowhere in America, where word of The Beatles is still just a whisper.
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