June 29th

Musical birthdays today include composer Vyacheslav Artyomov (79), Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice (71), Dokken frontman Don Dokken (66), ex-Men at Work lead singer Colin Hay (66), former Go-Betweens frontman Robert Forster (62), DJ & music broadcaster Mark Radcliffe (61), Bad Religion lead guitarist Greg Hetson (58), classical violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter (56), former Static-X guitarist Tripp Eisen (52), Matthew Good (48), Flight of the Conchords co-founder Bret McKenzie (43), Phantom Planet bassist Sam Farrar (41), ex-Pussycat Dolls vocalist Nicole Scherzinger (41), former Danity Kane vocalist Aundrea Fimbres, (36), and Suburban Legends drummer Derek Lee Rock (35).

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for Nelson Eddy, born on this day in 1901... for Broadway composer Frank Loesser [best remembered for Guys and Dolls], born in 1910... for film score composer Bernard Herrmann, born in 1911... for Eva Boyd AKA Little Eva, who would have been 76 today... for classical pianist Jan Paderewski, who died on this date in 1941... for Eric Dolphy, who passed away in 1964... for Tim Buckley, who died of a drug overdose today in 1975 at the age of 28... for Little Feat founder & frontman Lowell George, who died in 1979... and for Rosemary Clooney, who left us today in 2002.  

Also on June 29th: 13-year-old Franz Liszt gives a demonstration of inventor Sebastian Erard's new and improved piano-forte at London's Drury Lane Theatre (1824)... In London, Edison collaborator and envoy George Edward Gouraud plays a section of a piano arrangement of Handel's oratorio Israel in to Egypt for a wax cylinder phonograph ~ the result is the oldest known surviving example of recorded classical music... Wagner's first opera Die Feen [The Fairies], written when the composer was 21, premieres at the Hoftheater in Munich five years after his death (1888)... A free concert is held in London's Hyde Park with Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Roy Harper on the bill. The one-day event is the first free festival to be held in Hyde Park. The concert was organised to coincide with the release of Pink Floyd's second album, A Saucerful of Secrets... The Small Faces start a six week run at № 1 on the UK album chart with Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (1968)... Peter Frampton breaks his arm and cracks several ribs when he is involved in a car crash in the Bahamas (1978)... Bruce Springsteen kicks off the first leg of his Born in the USA Tour with a three night run at the Civic Center in St. Paul, MN. Springsteen & the E Street Band will play a total of 156 shows and close on October 2, 1985 in Los Angeles (1984)...  David Bowie and Mick Jagger record a version of the Martha and the Vandellas 1964 hit 'Dancing In The Street.' for the forthcoming 'Live Aid' fundraising event. The single goes on to become a № 1 UK hit. The original plan was to perform a track together live, with Bowie performing at Wembley Stadium and Jagger at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, until it was realized that the satellite link-up would cause a half-second delay that would make this impossible unless either Bowie or Jagger lip-synched their contribution, something neither artist was willing to do... John Lennon's 1965 Rolls-Royce Phantom V limousine, complete with psychedelic paintwork, sells for a record sum of $3,006,385 at a Sotheby's auction in NYC (1985)... Oasis make their Top of the Pops debut performing their new single 'Shakermaker' (1994)... George Martin receives a knighthood, and Van Morrison an OBE (1996)... Eminem's mother files a a $10 million defamation of character lawsuit, after taking exception to the line 'My mother smokes more dope than I do' from her son's single 'My Name Is' (2000)... Canada Post issues the limited edition Joni Mitchell stamp. She is being recognised in a series along with three other iconic Canadian recording artists: Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray (2007).