5 SEPTEMBER
In Music History
1972 Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway's duet "Where Is The Love?" is certified Gold.
1971 While Wishbone Ash are on stage at an outdoor concert in Austin, Texas, hot dog vender Francisco Carrasco is shot dead. The tragedy inspires the song "Rock 'N' Roll Widow."
1969 Country blues singer Josh White dies during a surgery to replace heart valves in Manhasset, New York, at age 55. Known for the 1944 hit "One Meat Ball."
1969 Rock guitarist Dweezil Zappa is born Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa in Los Angeles, California, to singer/songwriter Frank Zappa and his wife, Gail.
1968 Brad Wilk (drummer for Rage Against The Machine) is born in Portland, Oregon.
1968 Tiny Tim sues Bouget Records, his first label, for releasing some of his early recordings without permission.
1967 The Beatles start recording "I Am The Walrus" for their Magical Mystery Tour album. Sound effects and sundry overdubs, including a bit from a BBC radio broadcast, are added later.
1966 R&B singer Terry Ellis (of En Vogue) is born in Houston, Texas.
1966 John Lennon flies to Germany for his role in the movie How I Won the War - the only major non-documentary film he ever appears in. His character wears glasses that he would use as the basis for his distinctive eyewear.
1957 Elvis Presley records "Treat Me Nice" and "Blue Christmas."
1957 Elvis Presley, flush from his new fame, gives his mother, Gladys, his pink 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood.
1949 Rock guitarist Dave "Clem" Clempson (of Humble Pie) is born in Tamworth, Staffordshire, England.
1946 Folk rocker Loudon Wainwright III is born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Life magazine columnist/editor Loudon Wainwright Jr. and his yoga teacher wife, Martha.
1946 Rock drummer Buddy Miles (of The Electric Flag and Jimi Hendrix's Band Of Gypsys) is born George Allen Miles Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska. His grandmother calls him "Buddy" after jazz drummer Buddy Rich.
1946 Dean Ford (lead singer for Marmalade) is born Thomas McAleese in Coatbridge, Scotland.
The Animals Take Folk Song "The House Of The Rising Sun" To #1
1964British group The Animals hit #1 in America with "The House Of The Rising Sun," a folk song set in New Orleans about either a brothel or a prison.
Read more5 SEPTEMBER
Featured Events
2008 The first Fender Stratocaster set alight on stage by Jimi Hendrix is auctioned. The guitar sells for $575,000 to collector Daniel Boucher - less than the $1 million predicted. It is one of only two guitars definitively burned by Hendrix - the other was at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
1991 Guitarist C.C. DeVille is kicked out of Poison after he sabotages their performance at the MTV Video Music Awards by playing "Talk Dirty To Me" instead of "Unskinny Bop" as planned. DeVille rejoins the band five years later.More
1989 Soundgarden release Louder Than Love, the first grunge album on a major label (A&M).
1981 Soft Cell hit #1 in the UK with an electronic cover of "Tainted Love," a song originally released by the American soul singer Gloria Jones in 1964. The song also charts in America, reaching #8 in July 1982. It's the only hit for the duo in the States, but they have many more in their native UK.
1976 Garry Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd falls asleep at the wheel of his new Ford Torino and hits a tree and a house. The incident inspires their song "That Smell."
1946 Queen frontman Freddie Mercury is born as Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar (a set of islands off the coast of Africa).More
1945 Boudleaux Bryant and Felice Scaduto get married. The couple become one of the most successful songwriting teams in pop music, with over 700 songs published, including "Wake Up Little Susie" and "Bye Bye Love."
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