Music History for
December 8


Today's:


1731 - Composer Frantisek Xaver Dusek was born.

1813 - Ludwig van Beethoven's "Opus 92: Symphony No. 7 in A major" had it's premiere in Vienna.

1865 - Composer Jean (Johan) Julius Christian Sibelius was born.

1882 - Composer Manuel Maria Ponce was born.

1890 - Composer Bohuslav Martinu was born.

1914 - Watch Your Step opened in New York at the New Amsterdam Theatre. It was the first musical revue to feature a score completely by Irving Berlin.

1960 - Fabian visited Elvis Presley at Graceland and lent him his pants when Elvis ripped his demonstrating karate.

1963 - Frank Sinatra, Jr. was kidnapped. He was released after a $240,000 ransom was paid.

1967 - Traffic's Mr. Fantasy LP was released.

1967 - The Rolling Stones album Their Satanic Majesties Request was released in the U.K.

1968 - Graham Nash announced the formation of Crosby, Stills and Nash three days after he quit the Hollies.

1969 - Testifying at his trial for possesion of hashish and heroin in the Toronto Supreme Court, Jimi Hendrix claimed that he had now "outgrown" drugs. The jury found him not guilty after eight hours of deliberations.

1972 - Frank Zappa Sr. placed an advertisement in Variety Magazine claiming he will give private instruction in craps, roulette, keno and blackjack.







1976 - John Denver appeared on the Carpenters' ABC-TV special.

1980 -In New York City, Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon to death. Earlier in the day, Lennon had autographed an album for Chapman.

1991 - The musical Nick and Nora opened at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway. It closed after only nine performances.

1995 - Courtney Love was interviewed by Barbara Walters for ABC's "10 Most Fascinating People of 1995." During the interview Love told Walters that she wished she had done "eight thousand million things" differently to prevent husband Kurt Cobain's death.

1995 - The surviving members of the Grateful Dead announced they were disbanding. Jerry Garcia had died the previous August.

1998 - The FBI opened its files on Frank Sinatra to the public. The file contained over 1,300 pages.

1998 - It was announced that Bruce Springsteen would tour again with the E Street Band for the first time in nearly a decade.

1999 - Prince appeared on NBC's Today.

1999 - James Brown made his new MP3-only holiday album "James Brown Christmas For The Millennium & Forever" available exclusively through EMusic.com.

2000 - Sting received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2002 - Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme opened on Broadway.

2003 - In England, Ozzy Osbourne was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His injuries included a fractured left collarbone, eight fractured ribs and stable fracture to one of the vertebrae in his neck.

2004 - Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott (Pantera) was murdered onstage while performing with Damageplan at a club in Columbus, Ohio.

2014 - Metallica became the first band to perform a concert on all seven of Earth's continents. On this day, Metallica performed at the Argentine Carlini Station in Antarctica.