This Date In Music History- August 25

Birthdays:

Billy Ray Cyrus, he of the massive hit "Achy Breaky Heart," was born in Flatwoods, Ky in 1961.

Declan Patrick McManus was born in London in 1954. Taking the most famous first name in Rock and his grandmother's maiden name, he becomes Elvis Costello.

Robert John Arthur Halford, better known as Rob Halford (Judas Priest), has a birthday (born in 1951).

Def Leppard guitarist, Vivian Campbell was born in Belfast in 1962.

Gene Simmons of Kiss ("Rock And Roll All Nite") is 59.

History:

'Brothers and Sisters,' by the Allman Brothers Band, was released in 1973. It is their highest charting (#1) and longest charting (56 weeks) album.

Bobby Darin performed his final concert, at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1973. He would die at the age of 37 on December 20th following his second open heart surgery.

Arthur Brown accidentally sets himself on fire while singing "Fire" onstage in Lewes, England, in 2007. Ooops, it's a crazy world.

A Staten Island, New York doo wop group called The Elegants saw their re-worked version of the Mozart lullaby, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" hit the top of the US record charts in 1958 as the re-titled "Little Star". The group spent the following 18 months milking the song for all it was worth with TV appearances and live shows, but follow up records, "Please Believe Me", "True Love Affair" and "Little Boy Blue" could not match the success of "Little Star". Although The Elegants would be around in one form or another until the 1980s, they never had another hit record.

After Cameo Records producers passed on the opportunity to have Dee Dee Sharp record a Gerry Goffin / Carole King song called "The Loco-Motion", Don Kirshner at Dimension Records decided to take a chance on it. He liked the demo record's singer, Eva Boyd, who was Goffin and King's babysitter, and had her re-record it. The result was a US number one hit, this week in 1962.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer made their world debut at Plymouth Guild Hall in Plymouth, England in 1970.

Bruce Springsteen's album "Born to Run" was released in 1975.

Boston released its self-titled album in 1976, which became the best-selling, debut rock album of all time.

2001 - Aaliyah and eight others were killed when their plane crashed in Marsh Harbor, in the Abacos islands of the northern Bahamas. The cause appeared to be engine failure due to the plane being overloaded.

Nine weeks after being released, The Knack's infectious tune "My Sharona" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979, where it would remain for six weeks. Billboard would later name the record as the number one single of 1979. In the UK, it reached number six. Lead singer / guitarist Doug Fieger would say he was inspired to write the tune by Sharrona Alperin, a 17 year old senior at Los Angeles' Fairfax High.

Elton John made his performing debut in America at Los Angeles’ Troubadour nightclub in 1970 (Neil Diamond introduced him).

Producer Jack Nitzsche died in Los Angeles in 2000. As well as working with Neil Young and the Rolling Stones, he won an Oscar in 1982 for co-writing "Up Where We Belong" from An Officer and a Gentleman.

Former Left Banke keyboard player Michael Brown lead his new group, Stories, back to the top of both the Cashbox Magazine best sellers chart and the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973, with a song called "Brother Louie". The gritty lead vocal for the song was supplied by Ian Lloyd, who would later be heard on tracks by Billy Joel, Foreigner and Peter Frampton.