January 20th

Musical birthdays today include jazz trumpeter and bandleader Ray Anthony (92), jazz drummer Jimmy Cobb (75), Zager and Evans co-member Rick Evans (71), former 10cc guitarist Eric Stewart (69), ex-Poco drummer George Grantham (67), Judas Priest bassist Ian Hill (63), Paul Stanley (62), ex-Fear bassist Scott Thunes (54), country singer John Michael Montgomery (49), M People lead singer Heather Small (48), L.A. Guns founder Tracy 'Tracii Guns' Ulrich (48), Manic Street Preachers bassist Nicky Wire (45), Edwin McCain (44), Gary Barlow (43), Slipknot turntablist Sid Wilson (37), Bullet for My Valentine lead singer Matthew Tuck (34), Cobra Starship keytarist Victoria Asher (30), and rapper Jo-Vaughn 'Joey Badass' Scott (19). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for Huddie Ledbetter AKA Lead Belly, born on this day in 1888... Slim Whitman, who would have been 91 today... for 5th Dimension founding member Ron Townson, who would have been 81... former Barclay James Harvest drummer Mel Pritchard, who would have been 66... for pioneering rock 'n' roll DJ Alan Freed, who died on this date in 1965... for former Lemon Pipers drummer Bill Albaugh, who passed away in 1999... and for Etta James, who left us two years ago today.

Also on January 20th: Meet the Beatles! is released in the USA (1964)... The Monkees TV show airs in Britain for the first time... The Rolling Stones release the Between the Buttons album in the UK (1967)... Bob Dylan makes his first public appearance in more than a year and a half, playing a 3-song set with the Band [billing themselves as 'The Crackers'] at the Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall (1968)... One hit wonders John Fred and the Playboys are at no. 1 in the US with 'Judy in Disguise' (1968)... Led Zeppelin play the Wheaton Youth Center in Wheaton, MD on their first US tour before a reported audience of 55 people. The turnout, the smallest of the band's career, is blamed on the weather, Richard Nixon's inaugural, and the fact that it is Monday night. Zeppelin take home $250 for the gig... Bruce Springsteen has two of his poems published in the Ocean County College Literary Yearbook 'Seascapes'. Springsteen is in his second semester at the Toms River, NJ community college (1969)... Pink Floyd kick off their UK 'Dark Side of the Moon' tour at the Dome in Brighton, but are forced to abandon the show after 'Money' because of technical problems (1972)... During an Ozzy Osbourne concert in Des Moines, IA, a member of the audience throws a bat onto the stage. Stunned by the lights, the bat lies motionless; the singer, thinking it is a rubber fake, picks it up and attempts to bite its head off. As he does so, the bat starts to flap its wings and Ozzy soon realizes it is not fake but in fact a living thing. After the show, the former Black Sabbath frontman is immediately rushed to the nearest hospital for rabies shots (1982)... Def Leppard release Pyromania (1983)... Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder headline a concert in Washington, DC to celebrate America's first Martin Luther King Day (1986)... The Beatles are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Yoko, Sean, and Julian Lennon all attend. Paul McCartney absents himself, sending instead a letter stating that continuing business differences with the other ex-Beatles are the reason for his failure to show (1988)... The first no. 1 single of the '90s in the US is Michael Bolton's 'How Am I Supposed to Live without You' (1990)... 

Ben and Jerry's introduce 'Phish food', a new flavour of ice cream named after the rock group Phish. The ingredients are chocolate ice cream, marshmallows, caramel and fish-shaped fudge (1997)... Tourism operators in Liverpool are banned from putting up motorway signs saying 'Liverpool, the Birthplace Of The Beatles', because the Highways Division of the Ministry of Transport is concerned that the signs will distract motorists (2000)... George Harrison has a posthumous UK No. 1 single with the re-release of his 1971 chart-topper 'My Sweet Lord'. Harrison's single replaces Aaliyah's 'More Than A Woman', the only time in chart history that one deceased artist has taken over from another at No. 1 (2002).