Category: Today in Music History

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Today in Music History

November, 5

  • 2000 U2 races to No. 1 on the U.K. album chart with “All That You Can’t Leave Behind,” pocketing an eighth No. 1 on that survey and denying Blur its fifth in the process.
  • 1999 The members of Van Halen announce that Gary Cherone is leaving the band. The musicians and the singer maintain that the departure is without rancor.
  • 1996 Jazz saxophonist, Eddie Harris dies of bone cancer at County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles. Harris wrote most of the music for the much celebrated “The Cosby Show.”
  • 1995 Queen releases its first studio album since the death of Freddie Mercury. “Made In Heaven” includes Mercury’s final vocal track on a song titled “Mother Love.” The lead vocalist and sometimes pianist died Nov. 24, 1991 of AIDS.
  • 1995 “The Wizard of Oz in Concert” features Jackson Browne as the Scarecrow, Roger Daltrey as the Tin Man, Nathan Lane as the Cowardly Lion and Jewel as Dorothy for a Children’s Defense Fund benefit at New York’s Lincoln Center.
  • 1989 Pianist Vladimir Horowitz dies in his Manhattan townhouse at age 86. He wins 24 Grammys during his lifetime, more than any other classical performer or conductor except Sir Georg Solti. In 1990 he is posthumously honored with a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
  • 1977 Bandleader Guy Lombardo dies at age 75. Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians were one of the most popular dance bands of 1920s through ‘50s and remain the only dance band to sell more than 100 million records.
  • 1963 Singer actress Andrea McArdle is born. McArdle starred as the original “Annie” on Broadway
  • 1960 Singer Johnny Horton dies in an auto accident after performing at the Skyline Club in Austin, Texas, the same club where Hank Williams made his final appearance. Coincidentally, Horton’s widow was once married to Williams.
  • 1959 Bryan Adams is born in Vancouver, Canada.
  • 1947 Peter Noone, the lead singer of Herman’s Hermits, is born. The group’s two No. 1 hits are “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” and “I’m Henry VII, I Am.” In the late 1980s, Noone hosted the VH1 nostalgia series “My Generation.”
  • 1946 Gram Parsons (Cecil Connor) of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers is born in Winter Haven, Fla.
  • 1941 Art Garfunkel is born in New York.
  • 1936 Ike Turner is born in Clarksdale, Miss. He is married to Tina Turner from 1958-76. The duo’s biggest hit, “Proud Mary,” hits No. 4 in 1971. They are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.