It’s May 4th and these are some of the things that happened on this day in pop music history:
- In 1979, James Lance Bass was born in Mississippi. He sang in a Baptist church choir when he was a boy and later in various school show choirs. In 1995, he was invited to replace Jason Galasso in NSYNC. The boy band went on to have hits like “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me.”
- In 1959, the first Grammy Awards were held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills and at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City. Ella Fitzgerald won three awards, including Best Vocal Performance, Female.
- In 1974, Grand Funk Railroad’s cover of “The Loco-Motion” was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of two weeks. Little Eva’s original recording of the song was No. 1 for a week in August 1962 – and Kylie Minogue went to No. 3 with her version in 1988.
- In 2012, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys died of cancer in New York City. He was 47.
- In 1990, an episode of The Joan Rivers Show aired in which David Bowie’s ex-wife Angela revealed that she once walked in on Bowie and Mick Jagger naked in bed together.
- In 1991, Phil Collins was given an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston.
And that’s what popped on this day.