This Day in Music History: The Stooges make their live debut, Queen releases “Bohemian Rhapsody”

1952 – When his original guitarist has a stroke just before a New Year’s Eve gig, popular St. Louis boogie-woogie pianist Johnnie Johnson hires a 26-year-old hairdresser named Chuck Berry.

1958 – The Flamingos record “I Only Have Eyes For You.”

1962 – For the first and only time, a spooky song is #1 in America on Halloween, as “Monster Mash” tops the chart.

1963 – The Beatles return to London from Sweden and are greeted by hundreds of screaming fans and a mob of photographers and journalists. American television host Ed Sullivan, who is at Heathrow as The Beatles arrive, is struck by the sight of Beatlemania in full swing and decides to book the group on his television show.

1967 – The Stooges make their live debut at a Detroit Halloween party.

1968 – Paul McCartney’s new girlfriend, Linda Eastman, moves into his London home.

1969 – David Bowie appears at the General Gordon in Gravesend, England for about 15 minutes. He sings “Space Oddity” to everyone’s delight, then drags a stool on stage, sits, and reads poems out of a huge book. He is booed off stage.

1975 – Queen releases “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

1976 – Elvis Presley makes his last recording. He sings Jim Reeves’ “He’ll Have To Go” over a pre-recorded backing track in the Jungle Room of his Graceland home.

1989 – Material for the very first episode of MTV Unplugged, featuring Squeeze, is recorded in New York. It airs on Nov 26, 1989.

1993 – Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea is at the scene of actor River Phoenix’s fatal collapse in Los Angeles.

2000 – Napster announces a deal with entertainment giant BMG to make its illegal file-sharing software into a paid subscription service.

Information for this post was gathered from This Day in Music, The Music History Calendar, On This Day, and Wikipedia.