Today in 1969, John Lennon returned his Member of the Order of the British Empire medal as, in his accompanying note,  “a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.”

The number one single today in 1972 should have been part of my blog about the worst music of all time:

Today in 1976, The Band gave its last performance, commemorated in Martin Scorsese’s film “The Last Waltz”:

The only birthday worth mentioning today is Percy Sledge:

There is no record I can find for the specific birthday, other than November, for Dennis Coffey. But Coffey wrote a ’70s instrumental that deserves his mention sometime this month:

One death of odd note today in 1974: Nick Drake, a 26-year-old singer/songwriter, of an overdose of an antidepressant. Two years before his death, Drake recorded an album, “Pink Moon,” that is apparently considered a classic in Britain. Twenty-six years after Drake’s death, Volkswagen used the title track, “Pink Moon,” in a TV ad, and within a month Drake had posthumously sold more records than he sold in the previous 30 years.

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