Categories
Today in Music History

July, 6

  • 1998 Indonesian pop star Iwan Fals gives a free concert in Jakarta. More than 5,000 economically devastated people break out in a riot and charge the stage, hurling bottles and sticks and shoes. Fals barely escapes the mob and flees with his band to a nearby hotel.
  • 1998 Acclaimed cowboy singer and actor Roy Rodgers, 86, dies in his sleep at his home in the desert community of Apple Valley, Calif. The “King of the Cowboys” had been ill with congestive heart failure for some time.
  • 1991 Van Halen’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s pop album chart.
  • 1976 The Damned give their performance debut at the 100 Club in London.
  • 1971 Trumpeter Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong dies. He had turned 71 two days earlier. He wins a Grammy in 1965 as Best Male Vocal Performance for “Hello Dolly,” a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1972 and is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 as a forefather of rock music.
  • 1965 No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” The Rolling Stones. It is the Stones’ first No. 1 single in the U.S.
  • 1964 The Beatles’ first film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” premieres in London.
  • 1937 “Duke of Earl” Gene Chandler (Eugene Dixon) is born in Chicago. His biggest hit is “Duke of Earl,” which tops Billboard’s Hot 100 for three weeks in 1962.
  • 1925 Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Bill Haley (William John Clifton Haley Jr.) is born in Highland Park, a section of Detroit. The biggest hit for Bill Haley & His Comets is the rock ‘n’ roll classic “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock,” a No. 1 song for eight weeks in 1955. He is posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.