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Music Timeline

A A A Comments By Jackie McCarthy Wednesday, Sep 22 1999

1928:
Delta bluesman Son House begins a two-year stint in Parchman Farm prison after fatally shooting a man at a house party in Lyon, Mississippi.
May, 1937:
Honky-tonk singer Rex Griffin records "The Last Letter," a suicide note set to music.
1943:
In downtown LA, a clash between sailors from Chavez Ravine Naval Base and local Hispanic gangs—"zoot suiters"—explodes into several nights of rioting. Fifty-five years later, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies exploited the incident and started a different sort of "Zoot Suit Riot."
1952:
Future legend Merle Haggard declared incorrigible by the courts and sent to the high-security Preston School of Industry for 15 months. With another PSI "graduate," the 16-year-old Haggard robs and beats another teen, landing him back in PSI.
April 3, 1961:
Self-proclaimed "King of Western Swing" Spade Cooley stomps his wife to death as their daughter watches.
May 26, 1968:
R&B singer Little Willie John dies of pneumonia in Washington State Penitentiary, where he's serving time for stabbing a man.
1962:
Brooklyn girl group the Crystals releases their third single, a Carole King/Gerry Goffin song called "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)," setting an unfortunate precedent for everyone from Tina Turner to Pamela Anderson Lee.
Summer, 1963:
Shortly after breaking up the Louvin Brothers, the gospel/country duo he started with his brother Charlie, Ira Loudermilk gets drunk and argues with Faye, his third wife. The resulting shooting nearly kills Ira.
December 11, 1964:
LA motel manager Bertha Franklin kills Sam Cooke. Franklin claims that she is acting in self-defense after seeing Cooke rape another woman. The shooting is ruled justifiable homicide.
1966:
Tom Jones releases A-tom-ic Jones, with a cover depicting him in front of a nuclear explosion.
July 18, 1966:
Loraine Fuller discovers the body of her son, surf guitarist Bobby Fuller, bloody and in rigor mortis, draped across the front seat of her Oldsmobile.
1974:
Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" becomes a number-one hit, launching a pop music flirtation with martial arts that continues to this day.
February, 1977:
Pete Townshend scuffles with a London photographer who's trying to take a picture of the Who guitarist talking to Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook.
Oct. 11, 1978:
Former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious stabs his girlfriend Nancy Spungeon in room 100 of New York's Chelsea Hotel.
Dec. 3, 1979:
Fans stampede into concert by the Who at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum. Eleven die.
March 1980:
Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde spends night in jail after kicking out the window of a police car.
January 18, 1981:
Plasmatics singer Wendy O. Williams is charged with battery in Milwaukee after the local cops try to arrest her for onstage obscenity.
April 1, 1984:
The day before his 45th birthday, soul legend Marvin Gaye is shot and killed by his father, Rev. Marvin Gaye, Sr. during a domestic dispute.
October, 1984:
A Rolling Stone article lists suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Jerry Lee Lewis's fifth wife, Shawn Michelle Stevens: blood and bruises on her body, broken glass on the floor, and a sack of bloodstained clothes nearby.
July 31, 1987:
The best-selling debut album in history, Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction, is released. The cover artwork, a Robert Williams cartoon depicting the aftermath of a rape, causes so much controversy that the band moves it to the inside jacket.
February, 1989:
Groundbreaking Jamaican producer King Tubby is murdered outside his house during a burglary.
July 3, 1990:
Slick Rick shoots his cousin on a Bronx street corner, then crashes his car during the ensuing police chase.
1991:
Agonized screams become all the rage when Nirvana's Nevermind knocks Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, U2, and Hammer from the top of the charts.
1991:
Puff Daddy promotes an AIDS benefit basketball game at the City College of New York, where a stampede for seats leaves nine people dead and 29 injured.
May, 1993:
British drummer Hugh Whitaker is found guilty of assaulting one James Hewitt with an axe and setting fire to his house three times.
1993:
The brutal rape and murder of singer Mia Zapata leads to the formation of self-defense organization Home Alive.
July 4, 1995:
Backstage at the Gorge Amphitheater, Hole singer Courtney Love punches Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna.
Sept. 13, 1996:
Death Row recording artist Tupac Shakur is shot at close range while being driven to a charity event in Las Vegas. Suspicion immediately falls on East Coast rival Puff Daddy's Big Boy posse. Tupac dies six days later. The murder remains unsolved.
March 9, 1997:
Big Boy recording artist the Notorious B.I.G. is shot and killed in a car while returning from the Soul Train Awards in Los Angeles. Suspicion immediately falls on West Coast rivals in the Death Row camp. The murder remains unsolved.
Sept. 20, 1997:
A crowd of 700 loots and vandalizes several downtown Seattle businesses. The riot is alleged to have begun after several people are turned away from a local DJ's private party at the Showbox.
Nov. 23, 1998:
Then-Spin editor Craig Marks is allegedly threatened by Marilyn Manson and assaulted by two bodyguards.
April 15, 1999:
Three men burst into Interscope Records exec Steve Stoute's office and beat him with chairs, a telephone, and a champagne bottle. The next day Puff Daddy is arrested. Two months later, the rapper settles out of court.
July 25, 1999:
The Woodstock '99 music festival concludes in a conflagration of rioting, rape, and vandalism. Members of the crowd start fires with candles that were handed out for an anti-gun violence demonstration.
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