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Click on a date below to find out what happened on that day in music history... |
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The compilation Now 20 - stuffed with hits by Missy Elliott, Pussycat Dolls and others - tops the U.S. album charts. The highest new entry is 16-year-old R&B sensation Chris Brown with his self-titled debut landing at No. 2.
Chris Brown
Missy Elliott
Pussycat Dolls
Welsh rockers The Stereophonics announce they have replaced drummer Stuart Cable, who was sacked in 2003, with the Argentine skinsman Javier Weyler.
Stereophonics
The Grammy nominations are announced, with Kanye West snagging 10 nods for his debut album The College Dropout. Usher and Alicia Keys are in second place with eight nominations each.
Kanye West
Usher
Alicia Keys
Godfather of Soul James Brown and country star Loretta Lynn receive lifetime achievement awards at the Kennedy Center Honors. LL Cool J says Brown, "made it possible for me, a black kid from Queens, to stand in front of a president and say, 'I'm black and I'm proud.'"
James Brown
James Brown (Soul)
Loretta Lynn
LL Cool J
Ozzy Osbourne tells the Los Angeles Times that his stuttering and physically unstable condition was caused by a cocktail of prescription medicine. Osbourne was put on an array of tranquilizers and amphetamines to combat depression after his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
Ozzy Osbourne
Whitney Houston summons police to her home in Alpharetta, Georgia, alleging her husband Bobby Brown hit her in the face during an argument.
Whitney Houston
Bobby Brown
Gritty soul singer Mary J. Blige marries record producer Kendu Isaacs in a secret ceremony at her home in Bergen County, N.J.
Mary J. Blige
In a New York TV studio, B.B. King performs with Elmo and Big Bird for an episode of Sesame Street.
B.B. King
Dance duo Basement Jaxx turn on the Christmas lights that decorate the London suburb of Brixton.
Basement Jaxx
Rapper Mobb Deep is robbed at gunpoint in New York. The thieves make off with more than $250,000 worth of jewelry.
Basement Jaxx
Mobb Deep
Barry White cuts short an English tour because he is suffering from exhaustion. The soulman is promoting an album with the ironic title of Staying Power.
Barry White
The Eagles hold a press conference to announce that their first Greatest Hits package has become America's best-selling album. Glenn Frey says, "I hated popularity contests when I was in high school, and I hate them now."
Eagles
Glenn Frey
Despite protests, Guns N' Roses say that their cover of Charles Manson's "Look at Your Game, Girl" will stay on the album The Spaghetti Incident? Royalties from their recording will go to the son of a Manson family victim.
Guns N' Roses
Charles Manson
R&B singer Dee Clark, who in went to No. 2 with "Raindrops," dies from a heart attack.
Dee Clark
Motley Crue's Vince Neil crashes his '72 Ford Pintero in Redondo Beach, Calif. His passenger, Hanoi Rocks' Nick "Razzle" Dingley, is killed. Neil is later found guilty of vehicular manslaughter.
Hanoi Rocks
Vince Neil
Mötley Crüe
Having recently arrived in New York, Mark David Chapman moves from a YMCA to the Sheraton Centre Hotel. The next day he shoots John Lennon to death.
John Lennon
Linda Ronstadt records "You're No Good." The song becomes one of her signature hits, peaking at No. 1 the following year. That's Andrew Gold ("Lonely Boy") you hear on the guitar solo.
Linda Ronstadt
Andrew Gold
Fleetwood Mac manager Clifford Davis declares that he owns the rights to the band's name and assembles a second Fleetwood Mac to tour around the country. After a lengthy legal fight, the second Fleetwood Mac become Stretch. .
Stretch
Fleetwood Mac
Led Zeppelin perform at the Manchester Hardrock in England. "The world's most overrated band," sniffs a Melody Maker reviewer, who goes on to dismiss John Paul Jones' bass as "lifeless thudding" and John Bonham's drums as sounding like someone "bashing away at leather suitcases and dustbin lids." Not a fan, we figure.
John Paul Jones
Led Zeppelin
Eric Burdon announces that he will break up the Animals following a concert at Newcastle City Hall, in England, on December 22. This will free Burdon to move to California and start an acting career.
Eric Burdon
The Beatles
The Animals
The Beatles' self-titled double album, referred to as The White Album because of its cover, tops the British albums chart.
The Beatles
Swinging London is officially open for business as the Beatles open the doors on their Apple Boutique, located at 94 Baker St.
The Beatles
Guitarist/vocalist Brian Futter of the Catherine Wheel is born.
Catherine Wheel
Brian Wilson has a nervous breakdown while on a flight from Los Angeles to Houston. He decides to stop touring with the Beach Boys.
The Beach Boys
Brian Wilson
The No. 1 album in the U.K. this week is With the Beatles. The Beatles themselves appear on the British TV program Juke Box Jury. Passing judgment on the current singles, the group votes Bobby Vinton's "There! I Said It Again" a miss. Ironically, in two months' time they will knock the record out of the No. 1 spot in the U.S.
The Beatles
Bobby Vinton
The Rolling Stones audition bass players at the World's End pub in Chelsea, London. One candidate is Bill Wyman. He gets the job partly because he has tons of cool equipment the band can use.
Bill Wyman
The Rolling Stones
Tom Waits - perhaps the worst Louis Armstrong impersonator in the world - is born in Pomona, Calif. As he likes to point out, it's the eighth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Tom Waits
Louis Armstrong
Literate songwriter Harry Chapin is born in New York's Greenwich Village. His hand-wringing song "Cat's in the Cradle" is known to give fathers the creeps.
Harry Chapin
Drummer Jim Ayoub of the Canadian power trio Mahogany Rush is born.
Mahogany Rush
Louis Prima, whose unhinged performances and trumpet prowess made him a swing icon, is born in New Orleans.
Louis Prima
 
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