On this day in 2013, legendary country singer and songwriter George Jones, whose numerous hit songs include “White Lightning,” “Walk Through This World With Me” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” dies at age 81 in Nashville. In a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Jones had more than 140 Top 40 country hits, including […]
On this day in 2012, singer and songwriter Donna Summer, who rose to fame during the 1970s with such disco anthems as “Love to Love You Baby” and “Hot Stuff,” dies at age 63 in Naples, Florida, after battling cancer. Also known for such 1980s hits as “She Works Hard for the Money,” the five-time […]
On this day in 2010, J.D. Salinger, author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” the classic American novel about a disillusioned teenager, dies of natural causes at age 91 at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. Prior to his death, the best-selling writer spent some 50 years shunning the spotlight and living reclusively on a […]
On July 19, 2003, three days after her death from cancer at the age of 77, Latin music legend Celia Cruz has one of her final wishes granted when her body is flown to Miami, Florida, for a special public viewing by tens of thousands of fans prior to her burial in New York City. […]
Long before his stature in the world of show business earned him the nickname “Chairman of the Board,” Frank Sinatra was known simply as “The Voice.” During a career that saw him go from skinny teen idol to middle-aged playboy, Sinatra’s personality and looks were certainly major factors in his success, but they could never […]
In presenting his $12.5 billion budget proposal for fiscal 1999 to the Georgia state legislature on January 13, 1998, Democratic Governor Zell Miller covered all of the expected basics, such as schools, roads, hospitals and the like. And then he got to an interesting and unexpected item: a request for $105,000 of taxpayer money to […]
On June 24, 1997, the Walt Disney Corporation orders one of its subsidiary record labels to recall 100,000 already shipped copies of an album by a recently signed artist—Insane Clown Posse—on the day of its planned release. The issue at hand: the graphic nature of the Detroit “horror-core” rap duo’s lyrics. Those not familiar with […]
Representatives of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) were not in attendance at the 1995 christening of the infant technology that would shake their business model to its core just a few years later. Known formally as “MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3,” the technology in question was an efficient new format for the encoding of […]
On April 8, 1994, rock star Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home outside Seattle, Washington, with fresh injection marks in both arms and a fatal wound to the head from the 20-gauge shotgun found between his knees. Cobain’s suicide brought an end to a life marked by far more suffering than is generally […]
On this day in 1993, the band Fleetwood Mac reunites to perform at the recently elected U.S. President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural gala. Fleetwood Mac had faced much intra-band squabbling since their 1970s heyday, why they released one of the biggest albums of all time—Rumours—and a string of decade-defining hits like “Landslide,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You […]