Pick a Day

2 AUGUST

In Music History

2025 Jack White, a huge baseball fan, completes his quest to see a game at every Major League stadium when he watches the Phillies play the Tigers in Philadelphia.

2019 Tool put their songs on streaming services for the first time, becoming the last major artist to sit out the digital music revolution. "Our obsession with, and dream of, a world where BetaMax and Laser Disc rule has ended," frontman Maynard James Keenan says. "Time for us to move on."

2019 Skillet release their 10th album, Victorious, featuring the songs "Legendary" and "Save Me." The album is produced by the band's frontman, John Cooper, and his wife/bandmate, Korey Cooper.

2019 With a show in Hannover, Germany on the 246th date of his ÷ (Divide) tour, Ed Sheeran breaks the record for highest-grossing tour, surpassing the $735.3 million U2 earned on their 2009-2011 360 tour (they did it in just 110 shows). Sheeran finishes the tour August 26 with a final tally of $775.6 million.

2010 Arcade Fire release The Suburbs, their third studio album. It's almost universally lauded by fans and critics alike, with the latter feeling that the album fully realizes the great artistic potential hinted at by Funeral and Neon Bible, the band's first two albums.More

2009 Rockabilly musician Billy Lee Riley dies of colon cancer at age 75. Known for the 1957 hit "Red Hot."

2007 Elvis Presley Enterprises announces plans to revamp Graceland, the singer's home, with a visitor's center, convention hotel, and high-tech multimedia displays.

2004 Eric Clapton bails out Cordings clothing store in London, a favorite of his since his teenage years, by purchasing a 50 percent share in the retailer.

2001 Ron Townson (of The 5th Dimension) dies of renal failure as a result of kidney disease at age 68.

1997 Fela Kuti, a multi-instrumentalist and pioneer of Afrobeat, dies of AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma, at age 58.

1992 Charli XCX is born Charlotte Aitchison in Cambridge, England ("XCX" was her screen name on chats). She's known for high-energy hits like "Boom Clap" and "Speed Drive," and for co-writing and singing the hook on Iggy Azalea's #1 hit "Fancy."

1991 Rick James is arrested on a variety of charges when he's accused of imprisoning a woman at his home for three days while he and his girlfriend binged cocaine. He ends up serving two years in jail.

1987 David Martin (bass player for Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs and co-writer of "Wooly Bully") dies of a heart attack at age 50.

1983 Motown bass player James Jamerson dies at age 47 from a host of ailments, including cirrhosis of the liver and heart failure. Unheralded during his lifetime (he had to buy a ticket to see the Motown 25 special, Jamerson is later recognized as an integral part of the Motown sound; in 2000 he is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1982 José Feliciano marries Susan Omillian in California.