1889, the first jukebox debuts at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco...
1955, RCA Victor pens the deal of the century, signing Elvis Presley away from Sun Records for $40,000...
1956, Fats Domino appears on the Ed Sullivan Show performing his hit,
"Blueberry Hill"... 
1957, a Chicago chapter of the Elvis Presley Fan Club pickets radio station WCFL for banning Elvis records from the air ... the station ignores them and sticks to its ban ...
1959, Alan Freed won't say he never accepted payola and is canned from WABC television in New York for refusing to tell a lie...
1960, it's a big week for Ray Charles who has four songs in the Hot 100: "Georgia On My Mind," "Ruby," "Hard Hearted Hannah," and "Come Rain or Come Shine"...
1961, the country's twist fever has inspired a number of movie companies to sign up twist artists for twist movies ... Chubby Checker inks with a British-American film company ... Joey Dee & the Starlighters are tapped by Paramount for Hey, Let's Twist, and Dion is signed to star in a Columbia film Twist Around the Clock ... all are hoping to cash in on what has become an international craze...
1966, Spinout premiers ... it is Elvis Presley's 22nd film and just like all the others, makes some money but fails to enhance The King's reputation as a fine actor...
1968, The Jimi Hendrix Experience ... Electric Ladyland goes gold this week, the band's third gold album in a row...
1970, Jerry Lee Lewis and Myra Brown call it splitsville in Memphis ... the marriage had stirred some controversy because they are cousins and she was fourteen when they married ... according to the former Mrs. Lewis, the marriage "had become a nightmare"...
1971, B.B. King celebrates his 25th year of playing the blues, marking the occasion with a concert in London, the start of a European tour...
1978, Linda Ronstadt's anthology A Retrospective goes gold this week ... it is her eighth album to reach gold status...
1981, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood realize a dream when they jam with blues giants Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy at Chicago's Checkerboard Lounge ... it was Waters' "Rollin' Stone" that inspired the band's name...
1987, U2 opens for U2 at a Los Angeles concert, performing as a country-rock band, The Dalton Brothers...
1988, Phil Collins makes his screen debut in a starring role when the film Buster opens this week ... his first screen appearance was as an extra in A Hard Day's Night...
1990, David Crosby crashes his motorcycle breaking his leg, ankle, and shoulder ... he apparently was speeding and wore no helmet...
1990, Paul McCartney's birth certificate is sold at auction ... it fetches $18,000...
1995, The Rolling Stones become the first band to broadcast a concert via the Internet ... The Beatles release Beatles Anthology I and set a first-day sales record, moving 450,000 albums ... Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day earns his rock credentials by lowering his trousers on stage in Milwaukee ... the stunt gets him arrested and eventually fined $141...
2001, Britney Spears performs for her first TV concert, "Britney Spears: Live from Las Vegas" on ABC...
And Last week was...
1960, in an odd bit
of synchronicity, singer Johnny ("Battle of New Orleans") Horton dies in an auto
wreck after playing a date at the Skyline Club in Austin, Texas, the same venue
that hosted Hank Williams' final gig ... Horton's widow had once been Mrs.
Williams...
1963, "Louie Louie" is released by the Kingsmen ... one of the
most-covered songs
of all time,
it is charged that the slurred lyrics are obscene ... the song is banned on some
radio stations especially in Indiana where Governor Matthew Welch determines
that the ditty is definitely dirty ... even the FBI gets caught up in the
controversy though the Bureau ultimately wraps up its 31-month investigation
inconclusively stating that they are "unable to interpret any of the wording in
the record" ... in 2003, 754 guitarists play a 10-minute rendition of the song
at Tacoma, Washington's Cheney Stadium ... the event is thought to be the
world's largest jam session...
1966, Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco opens its doors ... the venue is destined to become the focal point for psychedelic music...
1967, the movie How I Won the War starring John Lennon opens in the US ... it is the first film to feature a solo performance by a Beatle...
1970, Bob Dylan records "George Jackson" a tribute to the black militant leader killed in a California prison shootout...
1972, James Taylor and Carly Simon tie the knot in her Manhattan apartment ... they will separate 10 years later...
1972, Johnny Paycheck starts pulling down a regular salary when he officially joins the cast of the Grand Ole Opry...
1977, during a London concert Elton John announces that he is retiring
from live performance ... he gets back in the road game in February 1979...
1977, Martin Scorcese's film The Last Waltz commemorating The Band's last concert opens to rave reviews in New York ... Ozzy Osbourne quits Black Sabbath then rejoins the proto-metalists a few weeks later...
1978, Donna Summer's
cover of "MacArthur Park" becomes the Billboard #1 Pop Hit ... a decade
earlier actor Richard Harris had taken his bombastic reading of the Jimmy Webb
tune noted for its incomprehensible lyrics to #2...
1985, the theme from the TV show Miami Vice rides the top of the Billboard Hot 100 ... the soundtrack LP also goes to #1 in the album chart where it will reside for 11 weeks beating the former TV-theme record-holder, The Music from Peter Gunn...
1986, Willie Nelson plays a corrupt cop in a guest appearance on TV's Miami Vice...
1991, a crowd of more than 300,000 attend a free show in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to commemorate the death of rock promoter Bill Graham ... the bill includes the Grateful Dead; Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young; Joan Baez; Santana; and Journey who reunite for the memorial show ... Graham died on October 26 when the helicopter in which he was traveling hit a utility tower...
1991,
blues, soul, rock, and country are all well represented when the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame inducts Bobby "Blue" Bland, Booker T & The MGs, Jimi Hendrix,
Johnny Cash, The Isley Brothers, The Yardbirds, and Sam and Dave...
1992, Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin sign a $39 million publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music ... Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" reaches the end of the #1 road when it makes its 13th and final appearance in the Billboard Hot 100 chart's top slot...
1995, Hootie and the Blowfish and Bob Dylan reach an out-of-court
settlement over the b
and's
unauthorized use of Dylan's lyrics in their song "Only Want To Be With You"...
that same day Michael Jackson's ATV Music catalog and Sony Corp. merge to form
the world's third biggest music publishing company worth an estimated $300
million...among the goodies Jackson brings to the table are a raft of classic
Beatles tunes ... that evening The Wizard of Oz in Concert is performed
at the Lincoln Center in New York ... the cast includes Jewel as Dorothy,
Jackson Browne as the Scarecrow, and Roger Daltrey as the Tin Man...
1996, Michael Jackson announces that he and friend Debbie Rowe are expecting a child ... the King of Pop denies reports that the baby was conceived using artificial insemination and that Rowe was paid to bear the child...
1998,
Little Jimmy Dickens's appearance at the Grand Ole Opry marks his 50th year as a
member of the cast ... Dickens is best-remembered for his 1965 hit "May The Bird
Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose" ... Rick James has a stroke when a blood vessel in
his neck ruptures during a head-banging performance in Denver ... Old Dirty
Bastard of Wu Tang Clan is arrested for threatening to kill his former
girlfriend ... he is apprehended while climbing over a security gate at the
woman's place of employment ... Michael Jackson settles his suit against the
London Daily Mirror over pictures and stories run by the scandal sheet
claiming that the star's face has been disfigured by plastic surgery ... a
lawyer representing the Mirror says, "The photographs were taken honestly
and were not tampered with, but the Mirror has since met with the
plaintiff in person and acknowledges that the photographs do not accurately
represent the plaintiff's true appearance"...
1999, as a follow-up to her tersely-titled debut album, Tidal,
Fiona Apple releases her sophomore
effort, When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows
Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He'll Win The Whole Thing 'Fore
He Enters The Ring There's Nobody To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When
You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of
Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You'll Know Where To Land And If
You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right...yeah,
right...whatever...
1960, Greg Allman turns 13 and gets a guitar for his birthday ...
14-year-old brother Duane eclipses him quickly on that instrument while Greg
excels at organ and vocals ... they'll play together in the Kings, the Allman
Joys, and Hourglass before they rule the southern rock universe with the Allman
Brot
hers Band, which
they'll form in 1969...
1961, "Crazy" hits the country charts for Patsy Cline...
1966, providing incontrovertible evidence that audiences are not
necessarily any smarter than critics, a made-for-TV make-believe pop band hits
#1 with their debut 
album,
The Monkees ... to be fair, the band did contain a couple of actual
musicians--Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork...Jones had made an obscure solo
recording as well ... and some serious talent was employed to write their tunes,
namely Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Bobby Hart, and Tommy Boyce ...
Nesmith gets a few of his tunes on their records and has a hard time swallowing
the vocals-only rule imposed by the producers ... by their third album, the
Monkees will start playing their own instruments ... Leon Russell even produces
some of their records...
1969, Janis Joplin is arrested in her dressing room at a concert in
Tampa for cussing at the man ... earlier,
in the auditorium, a cop is screaming through a bullhorn at her fans to sit down
and she tells him "Don't @#&* with these people. Hey mister what are you so
uptight about? Did you buy a five-dollar ticket?" ... she is similarly
disrespectful addressing police backstage when they insist that SHE tell the
audience to sit down ... she gets
out on a $50 bond and the
charges of "vulgar and indecent language" are eventually dropped...
1969, Jim Morrison gets blotto on a plane trip from L.A. to Phoenix to see the Stones ... he's such a royal pain that he's arrested on arrival and charged with interfering with the flight and public drunkenness, having harassed a stewardess ... the charges are eventually dropped...
1972, riding his motorcycle in Macon, Georgia, Allman Brothers bass man Berry Oakley crashes into the side of a city bus only three blocks from where Duane met his demise in a motorcycle accident the previous year ... Oakley refuses treatment at the site and goes home only to die of a brain hemorrhage later that night in the hospital...
1972, the album Moving Waves by Dutch prog-rock band Focus, featuring fiery guitarist Jan Akkerman, arrives on the LP chart in the U.K. driven largely by the popular song "Hocus Pocus"...
1973, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr., son of the Killer, meets his demise on a rural highway near Hernando, Mississippi ... at 19, he's developed some chops on the drums and has just played on TV's Midnight Special with his dad's band ... it's the second time Lewis has lost a son, eleven years earlier his only other son drowned in the family swimming pool...
1974, while Deep Purple's Richie Blackmore plays a concert in San Francisco, someone impersonating the smokin' guitar man smashes up a borrowed Porsche in Iowa City...
1978, Queen plays Madison Square Garden ... during their hit number
"Fat Bottomed 
Girls,"
they are accompanied by semi-nude women riding bicycles...
1979, Fleetwood Mac's album Tusk hits #1 in the U.K....
1981, the Police top the charts in the U.K. with "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"...
1984, Madonna's album Like a Virgin comes out, leaving listeners wondering in what way she is...
1987, Sly Stone turns up an hour late for an L.A. comeback concert and is promptly arrested for failing to pay child support...
1988, Whitney Houston's debut album goes multiplatinum with 9,000,000 copies sold ... only Boston has ever matched this performance with a debut LP...
1988, Stan Love, former Beach Boys manager and brother of lead singer Mike Love, gets five years probation for embezzling $300,000 from the group...
1990, German producer Frank Farian reveals that Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, collectively known as Milli Vanilli, never sang on their debut record, Girl You Know It's True ... the producer goes on to say the duo lip-synced during personal appearances ... Eventually Milli Vanilli will give back their Grammy and lapse into obscurity...
1992, Axl Rose is found guilty of assault and property damage in connection with a concert riot in St. Louis ... he gets probation and is ordered to pay out $50,000 to charity...