this day in music

50 years ago today, Jethro Tull stepped onstage to play their inaugural performance in the United States…and apparently either they liked it or America liked it, because five decades later, they’re still playing dates across the U.S. of A.! The...

49 years ago today, Judy Collins caused a completely ridiculous courtroom controversary in the midst of the trial of the so-called Chicago 7. Being as she was friends with both Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and appeared at their press...

62 years ago today, one of the most famous nightclubs in the world – and certainly the most famous nightclub in Liverpool – opened its doors for the first time. Opened by Alan Sytner, The Cavern Club came into existence...

39 years ago today, Hugh Cornwell – best known as the former lead singer of The Stranglers – received the unfortunate news that he’d soon be spending some time behind bars. In late 1979, Cornwell was fronting The Stranglers, a...

39 years ago today, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Chicago, and J.D. Souther took the stage of the San Diego Sports Arena to stump for Ronstadt’s then-beau, Jerry Brown. It was one of the great pop-meets-politics romances of the century –...

20 years ago today, a certain rock ‘n’ roller performed with a couple of his buddies at a Phoenix eating establishment that had just opened its doors. The restaurant was called Cooper’stown, and the rocker… Well, if we told you...

51 years ago today, The Grateful Dead delivered “Dark Star” unto a concert audience for the very first time. It would not be the last. One of the most iconic songs in the Dead’s back catalog (as if they aren’t...

30 years ago today, a small cavalcade of top-notch musicians united to pay tribute to Roy Orbison, who had passed away five days earlier. We describe it as a small cavalcade only because the Wiltern Theater, where the tribute in...

51 years ago today, The Stooges played their first show, but to say that it was an actual concert would probably be an overstatement: it was at a house party in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it was, uh, something else....