Births
1932 Producer Arif Mardin is born in Istanbul, Turkey.
1940 Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh is born in Berkeley, Calif.
1944 Sly Stone is born in Dallas.
1944 Beach Boy Mike Love is born in Baldwin Hills, Calif.
1946 Howard Scott, guitarist with the Latin funk group War, is born in San Pedro, Calif.
1947 Ry Cooder is born in Los Angeles.
1953 Fabulous Thunderbirds bassist Preston Hubbard is born in Providence, R.I.
1955 Twisted Sister frontman, DJ Daniel "Dee" Snider is born in Massapequa, N.Y.
1962 Terence Trent D'Arby is born in New York.
1964 Rockwell is born in Detroit to Motown founder Berry Gordy.
1968 Singer Sabrina is born in Salerno, Italy.
1972 Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 is born.
Deaths
1929 Boogie-woogie poineer Pinetop Smith is shot dead in a Chicago dance hall.
2002 Marshall Leib of the Teddy Bears died of a heart attack on March 15th at the age of 63. Leib, along with Carol Connors and Phil Spector scored a Billboard chart topper in 1958 with "To Know Him Is To Love Him".
Events
1945 "Billboard" magazine began listing a top albums chart. The first #1 was "The Nat King Cole Trio."
1955 Fats Domino records "Ain't It A Shame" which will top the US R&B standings and reach #10 on the Pop chart by July. Pat Boone's cover version, "Ain't That A Shame" would rise to #1 on the Pop chart the same month.
1956 Colonel Tom Parker became Elvis Presley's manager.
1956 The Lerner and Loewe musical "My Fair Lady" opened on Broadway.
1966 At the 8th annual Grammy Awards, Album of the Year is Frank Sinatra's September of My Years. Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass' recording of "A Taste of Honey" is named Record of the Year.
1966 Sandy Posey records "Born A Woman", which will rise to number 12 in the US and become the first of her four Top 40 hits.
1968 "LIFE" magazine called Jimi Hendrix "the most spectacular guitarist in the world."
1969 Tommy Roe led both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Cashbox Best Sellers list with "Dizzy", a record that would sell 6 million copies. His first chart topper was "Sheila" in 1962.
1972 Los Angeles radio station KHJ is raided by L.A. police after calls from listeners who feared there'd been a take over at the station. DJ Robert W. Morgan had played Donny Osmond's "Puppy Love" over and over for 90 minutes straight. The police left without making any arrests. The record would eventually rise to number three on Billboard's Hot 100, one position shy of the original Paul Anka recording.
1974 The Emerson, Lake and Palmer movie "Pictures at an Exhibition" premiered in Los Angeles, CA.
1975 Mickey Finn leaves T.Rex. Marc Bolan says he will carry on under his own name.
1975 Robert Wyatt begins recording Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, his third solo album and the follow-up to the acclaimed Rock Bottom.
1975 Led Zeppelin sell 30,000 tickets to their shows at London's Earls Court in six hours.
1975 The Doobie Brothers have the first of their two Billboard #1 singles with "Black Water", a song that was issued as the "B" side of "Another Park, Another Sunday". Four years later, they would duplicate the feat with "What A Fool Believes".
1976 "Destroyer" was released by KISS.
1980 The Clash's feature film Rude Boy opens at the Prince Charles Cinema in London.
1982 Bob Dylan is inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame during a ceremony held at New York's Hilton Hotel.
1983 Bonnie Tyler had her only UK #1 single with "Total Eclipse Of The Heart".
1986 Although they never had a number one hit under their original name, Jefferson Airplane, the newest incarnation of this band, Jefferson Starship enjoyed the second of three chart toppers with "Sara". It reached #66 in the UK.
1989 The Rolling Stones signed a $70 million contract to play 50 North American dates. At that point, it was the largest contract in rock history.
1999 Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, and Dusty Springfield are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
1999 Relatives of Buddy Holly filed a suit against MCA Records for allegedly hoarding royalty payments, forging contracts and illegally producing albums without the consent of the family.
2002 A rare autographed copy of The Beatles album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, sold at auction for ?34,000. (about 59,000 US dollars)
2002 Yoko Ono unveiled a 7 foot bronze statue of John Lennon overlooking the check-in hall of John Lennon Airport in Liverpool. The re-naming of the airport featured a sketch of Lennon's face with the words 'Above Us Only Skies'.
2004 A federal judge denied Axl Rose's request for a restraining order to block the release of a Guns N' Roses greatest hits collection. Rose sued because he said he had not approved the album. Universal Music Group said that they had every right to release the album since Rose had not delivered the contracted album "Chinese Democracy." The album has been in the making for more than seven years.
2006 A crew of workers with the Louisiana State Museum recovered what was left of three pianos in Fats Domino's New Orleans home, which was submerged in almost 10 feet of water when Hurricane Katrina caused a levee break near his neighborhood in August. Museum officials were hoping the Domino family would donate a black Steinway baby grand for inclusion in a traveling exhibit about hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
