This Day in Music
2003 – Blue-eyed soul icon Bobby Hatfield, one-half of the Righteous Brothers, dies of natural causes. He is 63. Hatfield is discovered in a hotel room in Kalamazoo, Mich., where he and partner Bill Medley were to perform that night on the Western Michigan University campus.
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.
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