This Date In Music History- August 13

Birthdays:

Dave "Baby" Cortez ("Happy Organ") is 70.

Danny Bonaduce of the Partridge Family (though he never actually sang) turns 49.

Jimmy McCracklin ("The Walk") is 87.

History:

In 1924, "The Prisoner's Song" by Vernon Dalhart, became the first country music record to sell one million copies.

Anti-Beatlemania followed Lennon's remark that the group is "more popular than Jesus" in 1966. A Cleveland reverend says he will demand excommunication for any parishioner caught listening to the Fab Four.

Two days after John Lennon's apology for saying the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, radio station KLUE in Longview, Texas organizes a Beatles Bonfire, where the group's records and memorabilia were destroyed. The next morning, the station's transmission tower was struck by lightning, halting all broadcasting.

In 1952, Big Mama Thornton recorded the first version of "Hound Dog," which becomes an R&B No. 1. It's the first composition by the young rock 'n' roll songwriting team of Leiber & Stoller to make an impact on the charts.

In 1938, Robert Johnson died three days after he was poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman he began seeing during a stint at the Three Forks juke joint in Greenwood, Mississippi.

The Matrix, a pizza parlor turned rock club, featured Jefferson Airplane as its opening act in 1965. Vocalist Marty Balin is a co-owner, and the still-legal hallucinogen LSD is sold at the bar.

In 1966, "Summer in the City" topped the charts for three weeks, displacing "Wild Thing," by the Troggs. The song started out as a poem written by John Sebastian's brother, Mark, before the band changed some words and then set it to music by the Lovin’ Spoonful.

The Jackson 5 won an amateur-night competition at Harlem's famed Apollo Theatre in 1967.

In 1971, King Curtis was stabbed to death outside his apartment on New York's Upper West Side.

Curtis Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down after high winds cause a lighting rig to fall on him at a concert in Brooklyn, New York in 1990. Mayfield passed away on December 26, 1999.

Crosby, Stills & Nash returned to the scene of an early triumph, performing at the Woodstock '94 festival. This year was the 25th anniversary of both Crosby, Stills and Nash's formation and the original Woodstock festival.

Bobby Darin signed a six-picture deal with Paramount Studios worth $1 million in 1959.

In 1972, John Lennon and Stevie Wonder performed at New York's "One-To-One Concert" to aid the retarded.

Todd Rundgren, best remembered for his 1978 hit, "Hello, It's Me", was held hostage while his house is robbed by four masked men in 1980. Rundgren, his girlfriend and three houseguests were bound and gagged during the theft. It was reported that one of the intruders had been humming Todd's hit "I Saw The Light" during the robbery.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played the first of five sold-out nights at the Bottom Line in New York City in 1975. The shows received rave reviews and created a buzz in the music industry.

Tubes release their self-titled debut album in 1975, featuring the band's anthem "White Punks On Dope.”

Legendary Stax soul singer Joe Tex ("The Love You Save [May Be Your Own]") died of a heart attack in Navasota, Texas in 1982. He was 44.