Pick a Day

28 DECEMBER

In Music History

2021 Dr. Dre's divorce is settled, with the rapper/producer agreeing to pay his ex wife, Nicole Plotzker-Young, $100 million. They were married from 1996-2020.

2019 Fine Line, the second album by Harry Styles, debuts at #1 in the US, making him the first male artist from the UK to debut at #1 with his first two albums.

2016 Singin' in the Rain star Debbie Reynolds dies of a stroke at age 84, one day after losing her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher, to a fatal heart attack.

2014 Singer Frankie Randall, who often played piano for the Rat Pack in the '60s and entertained in Frank Sinatra's home, dies of lung cancer at age 76.

2010 Southern rocker "Mean Gene" Kelton dies at 57 when his SUV collides with a school bus in Crosby, Texas.

2009 Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan (drummer and co-lead vocalist for Avenged Sevenfold) dies from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol at age 28. The coroner also notes cardiomegaly (an enlarged heart) which may have contributed to his death.

2005 Barry Cowsill (of The Cowsills) is found under a wharf in the Mississippi River. Cowsill, living in New Orleans, survived Hurricane Katrina but drowned in the flooding following the storm.

2004 On his 26th birthday, John Legend releases his debut solo album, Get Lifted. The lead single is the kiss-off song "Used to Love U," but the second single, the tender ballad "Ordinary People," is the most enduring song. The album is the first released on Kanye West's GOOD Music label.

2003 Pete Townshend of The Who reveals to a London newspaper that he seriously considered suicide after a 2002 arrest for child pornography charges. The guitarist had claimed he was visiting child porn websites as research for a book dealing with his own sexual abuse as a child.

2002 Cambodia deports Gary Glitter and extradites him back to the UK to face a conviction in London on child pornography charges.

2002 Meri Wilson, known for the 1977 hit "Telephone Man," dies in a car crash at age 53.

1998 Suffering from alcoholism and depression, Atlanta Rhythm Section lead singer Ronnie Hammond gets in an altercation with police in Macon, Georgia, who shoot and wound the singer.

1985 Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time" goes to #2 in the US, held back by Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me." Written and produced by Rick James, it charts higher than any other James composition.

1981 The cost of a two song 45-rpm single reaches $1.98 (about the same as the cost of downloading two songs today).

1979 The Kate Bush Christmas Special, also known as Kate, airs on the BBC. The singer performs songs from her first three albums and introduces the holiday tune "December Will Be Magic Again." Peter Gabriel guest stars, singing "Here Comes The Flood" and, with Bush, a duet of Roy Harper's "Another Day."