Today in 1963, Little Stevie Wonder became the first artist to have the number one pop single and album and to lead the R&B charts with his “Twelve-Year-Old Genius”:

Today in 1974, one week after the catchy but factually questionable number one single (where is the east side of Chicago?) …

… the previous week’s number one sounded like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony compared with the new number one:

Today in 1990, at the beginning of Operation Desert Shield, Sinead O’Connor refused to sing if the National Anthem was performed before her concert at the Garden State Arts Plaza in Homdel, N.J. Radio stations responded by pulling O’Connor’s music from their airwaves. To one’s surprise, her career never really recovered.

That was the same day that Iron Maiden won a lawsuit from the families of two people who committed suicide, claiming that subliminal messages in the group’s “Stained Class” album drove them to kill themselves.

As a member of the band pointed out, it would have made much more sense to insert a subliminal message telling listeners to buy the band’s albums instead of a message that, had it been followed, would have depleted the band’s fan base.

Birthdays start with Fontella Bass:

John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service, who played …

… with David Freiburg, who later played with Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship:

Joe Chambers was one of the Chambers Brothers:

Mike Derosier was the first full-time drummer for Heart:

Jim Capaldi of Traffic:

Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep:

Mollie Duncan of the Average White Band:

Jim Fox, drummer of the James Gang:

Mark Bedford of Madness:

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