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Today in Music History

July, 28

  • 1999 Simon “Mahlathini” Nkabinde, lead singer of South African group Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens, dies in Vosloorus of complications from diabetes. He is 62.
  • 1999 Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard is arrested for bouncing a check for a portion of his bail in his ongoing terrorist threat case in Santa Monica Superior Court.
  • 1998 It is announced that after 12 years and six albums, the members of Columbia Records act Toad The Wet Sprocket will go their own ways. Of the split, the band’s singer/guitarist Glen Phillips says, “We came together as kids but have grown in different directions as adults.”
  • 1996 Fashion designer and musician Harold C. Fox dies at the age of 86.
  • 1995 The TV special premiere of Michael Jackson’s video “You Are Not Alone” features a semi-clad Jackson cavorting with his bride, Lisa Marie Presley.
  • 1992 Patti LaBelle abruptly ends a concert in Warwick, R.I., after complaining on stage about backstage food.
  • 1979 The World Series of Rock is held at Cleveland Stadium, with Journey, Ted Nugent and Thin Lizzy.
  • 1973 A crowd of 600,000 gathers for a rock festival at Watkins Glen Raceway, N.Y., to hear the Grateful Dead, the Band and the Allman Brothers Band.
  • 1957 Jerry Lee Lewis makes his TV debut on the “Steve Allen Show.”
  • 1945 Rick Wright of Pink Floyd is born in London. Billboard ranks the group’s 1973 album “Dark Side of the Moon” as the longest-charting album of all time. It stays on the magazine’s pop album chart for more than 10 years and sells more than 10 million copies.
  • 1944 Blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield is born in Chicago. He dies on Feb. 15, 1981, in San Francisco of an accidental drug overdose.