27 SEPTEMBER
In Music History
1994 Egyptian-Canadian singer-songwriter Raffi releases Bananaphone, an album of children's music. Nothing very notable at the time seems apparent; however, the title song becomes a viral Internet craze in 2004 when a Flash animation featuring the song is posted on the website Newgrounds. After this, Raffi becomes internationally famous, and "Bananaphone" makes it onto the radio and later radio and TV shows including The Opie & Anthony Show, The Colbert Report, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
1993 With punk rock pushing into the mainstream, Danzig re-release "Mother," originally issued five years earlier on their debut album. The song earns airplay on rock radio and MTV, and pushes into the pop charts, going to #43 in the US.
1990 Marvin Gaye receives a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street.
1990 Singer-songwriter Mitski is born Mitsuki Laycock in Japan. Her dad works for the US State Department, so she lives in several countries before settling in America and becoming a top indie artist, breaking through with her 2018 album Be The Cowboy.
1987 Austin Carlile is born in Pensacola, Florida. He fronts the metal groups Attack! Attack!, and later, Of Mice & Men, leaving in 2016 when his genetic condition called Marfan syndrome becomes too much to bear.
1984 Alphaville releases "Forever Young."
1984 Avril Lavigne is born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. She is raised in Napanee, Ontario.
1982 Rapper Lil Wayne is born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana. At age 9, he becomes the youngest member of Cash Money Records.
1981 Gracie Fields dies on the island of Capri aged 81.
1979 Jimmy McCulloch (lead guitarist for Paul McCartney & Wings) dies of heroin-induced heart failure in Maida Vale, North West London, at age 26.
1979 While performing (ominously) "Better Off Dead" at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, Elton John collapses at his piano and is rushed offstage. He returns 15 minutes later to finish the show, citing "exhaustion" as the cause of his collapse.
1978 3 Doors Down lead singer Brad Arnold is born in Escatawpa, Mississippi. He's 15 when he gets the idea for their hit "Kryptonite." "It's easy to be there for someone when they're down," he says of the song, "but it's not always easy to be there for somebody when they're doing good."
1976 After appearing on the The Porter Wagoner Show for seven years, Dolly Parton gets her own TV variety show, Dolly!, which premieres on ABC. The show lasts one season; Parton returns in 1987 with another variety show, this time unexclaimed: Dolly.
1976 Ringo Starr releases Ringo's Rotogravure.
1975 John Denver's "I'm Sorry" hits #1, giving him his second chart-topper of the year, following "Thank God I'm A Country Boy."
Dylan Plays For Pope
1997Bob Dylan plays "Knocking On Heaven's Door" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" for Pope John Paul II and an audience of 300,000 at the World Eucharist Congress in Bologna, Italy. For the 77-year-old Pope, it's a chance to connect with young people, and the pontiff does so by invoking Dylan's song "Blowin' In The Wind" during his sermon. Dylan's invite is not without controversy, as the future Pope Benedict fears the "rock prophet" and his music are at odds with the Roman Catholic faith.
Read more27 SEPTEMBER
Featured Events
2025 Zach Bryan breaks the record for largest ticketed concert, drawing 112,408 fans to his show at Michigan Stadium (the "Big House") in Ann Arbor. It's the first concert in the 98-year history of the stadium, which is primarily used for University of Michigan football games.
2004 Legendary rock producer Phil Spector, best known for creating the "Wall Of Sound" on hits like The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," is indicted for the February 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson at his estate in Alhambra, California.
1995 With gangsta rap drawing negative publicity, Time Warner sells their share of Interscope Records to the founders, Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field. The next release is Dogg Food by Tha Dogg Pound, which goes to #1 in America.
1986 Cliff Burton (Metallica's second bassist) dies in a bus crash in Sweden during Metallica's Damage Inc. tour in support of the Master of Puppets album. Burton, age 24, is asleep in his bunk when the bus skids off the road. He is thrown from the window and crushed when the vehicle rolls over him.
1986 The Beatles' re-released version of "Twist And Shout" peaks at #23 thanks to its use in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
1980 Kurtis Blow becomes the first rapper to perform on national television when he does "The Breaks" on Soul Train. Host Don Cornelius is flummoxed. "It doesn't make sense to old guys like me," he tells Kurtis in the interview segment.More
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