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Today in Music

May, 20

  • 1999 An autopsy performed on the exhumed body of Tammy Wynette at the behest of her husband George Richey, shows that she died of heart failure caused by damage from repeated blood clots. The role drugs may have played in the country star’s death is impossible to determine since the autopsy took place a year after she died.
  • 1999 More than 20 veteran acts, including Jan & Dean, Pat Boone, Freddy Fender, and the Grass Roots sue K-tel International Inc. for breach of contract and non-payment of royalties in connection with 27 compilation albums.
  • 1998 Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is sentenced to six months in jail and three years’ probation for kicking his soon-to-be ex-wife, onetime “Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson, as she holds their infant son. The verdict also specifies that Lee complete 200 hours of community service and donate $5,000 to a battered women’s shelter.
  • 1998 Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward takes ill and is hospitalized in London. Ward was to join the band for its first European tour since 1978.
  • 1992 Hard rock group Aerosmith donates $10,000 to support “Corporal Politics,” a controversial art exhibition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Funding for the exhibit was denied the previous week by the National Endowment for the Arts because of its graphic images.
  • 1979 Elton John plays Leningrad and becomes the first Western solo pop star to tour the Soviet Union.
  • 1977 The stage show “Beatlemania” opens at the Winter Garden Theater, New York.
  • 1970 The last Beatles film, “Let It Be,” premieres in London. Three songs from the album of the same name reach No. 1: “Get Back,” “The Long and Winding Road” and the title song.
  • 1962 No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: “Stranger on the Shore,” Mr. Acker Bilk. It is the first British hit to make the top of the U.S. charts.
  • 1946 No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: “The Gypsy,” Ink Spots.
  • 1946 Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian La Pier) is born in El Centro, Calif. She records with husband Sonny Bono in the duo Sonny & Cher. She has three solo No. 1 songs in the 1970s: “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves,” “Half-Breed” and “Dark Lady.” Cher launches an acting career in the 1980s and wins a Best Actress Oscar in 1987 for “Moonstruck.”
  • 1944 Joe Cocker (John Cocker) is born in Sheffield, England. His biggest hit is “Up Where We Belong,” a duo with Jennifer Warnes. The song, the love theme from the film “An Officer and a Gentleman,” tops Billboard’s Hot 100 for three weeks.