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Today in Music

June, 7

  • 1999 James Eugene “Rosy” McHargue, a prolific jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and singer, dies in Los Angeles. He is 97. McHargue played with the bands of Benny Goodman and Kay Kyser.
  • 1999 VH1 links its Save The Music campaign with NBC’s “Today” show for a weeklong instrument drive. Donated instruments are collected during the program at the “Today” studios in New York’s Rockefeller Center, for distribution to public schools. A different musician collects the instruments each day. Musicians include Natalie Merchant, Meatloaf, Tony Bennett, Reba McEntire and others. Over 1,000 instruments are collected.
  • 1998 Country music’s first stadium tour, the Nokia Presents the George Strait Chevy Truck Music Festival Brought to You by Wrangler, wraps at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas. Tim McGraw, John Michael Montgomery, Faith Hill, Lee Ann Womack, and Asleep at the Wheel join featured Headliner Strait.
  • 1994 A son, Aden Gunnar Augustus, is born in Nashville to Mark and Lisa Miller. Mark Miller is the lead singer of country group Sawyer Brown.
  • 1992 An estimated 2,000-3,000 people attend the dedication of the sod house in Strasburg, N.D., where bandleader and accordion player Lawrence Welk was born. A private group restored the farm after Congress scrapped a proposed $500,000 grant for a German-Russian museum in Strasburg amid criticism over wasteful spending.
  • 1991 Jimmy Osmond, at 28 the youngest of the singing Osmonds, marries 24-year-old college student Michelle Larson in Salt Lake City.
  • 1979 Chuck Berry performs at the White House at President Carter’s request. Little more than one month later he is sentenced to four months in jail for income tax evasion.
  • 1970 The Who performs its rock opera, “Tommy,” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House.
  • 1969 Blind Faith makes its live debut in a London park. 150,000 people attend the free performance.
  • 1969 Johnny Cash debuts his own network variety show on CBS-TV.
  • 1958 Prince (Prince Roger Nelson) is born in Minneapolis. His biggest hit is “When Doves Cry,” which tops Billboard’s Hot 100 for five weeks and sells more than 2 million copies. On his 35th birthday in 1993 he changed his name to a symbol.
  • 1940 Singer Tom Jones (Thomas Jones Woodward) is born in Pontypridd, South Wales. He wins the 1965 best new artist Grammy. He has three million-selling singles, the biggest of which, “She’s a Lady,” reaches No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100. After a nearly 12-year drought, he reaches the top 40 in 1988-89 with “Kiss,” a song written by Prince that he records with the British techno-pop group Art of Noise.