We're celebrating birthdays today…

1926: Chuck Berry
1937: Cynthia Weil (songwriter)
1947: Laura Nyro
1949: Joe Egan (Stealer’s Wheel)

1967: Brian Epstein’s funeral is held in Liverpool. Fearing their appearance would become a media circus, the Beatles do not attend out of respect for the Epstein family’s privacy.

1986: Two days before his actual birthday, Chuck Berry headlines a special 60^th Birthday Concert arranged by Keith Richards.

Along with Richards, Berry is joined on stage by Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray, and Linda Ronstadt at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis. The preparations and the show itself are filmed by veteran filmmaker Taylor Hackford and released as the rock documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll!

1960: While in Hamburg, Wally Eymond, a guitarist in the Liverpool band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, decides to record a version of the Gershwin brothers’ song “Summertime.”

For some reason, he wants the Beatles to be his back-up band at the recording session. The lads are fine with that, but drummer Pete Best can’t make it. So Eymond brings along the Hurricanes' drummer, Ringo Starr. Today marks the first day the Beatles would play with Ringo on drums.

The boys would not ask him to formally join the group until 1962.

1955: Bill Haley and the Comets give a concert in Lubbock, Texas. A local group is hired to open for Haley. Buddy Holly (and the sidemen later known as the Crickets) make such a good impression as the opening act that Nashville talent scout Eddie Campbell, who is in the audience, arranges for them to get studio time to make their first demo.

1990: In a sign that the times really have “a-changed,” Bob Dylan performs for the cadets at the West Point Military Academy. And yes, he does perform his scathing anti-war song “Masters of War.”

During the concert, the cadets also engage in an impromptu singalong with Dylan on his other anti-war classic “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

1957: After surviving a scary plane ride to Sydney, Australia, where one of the engines caught fire, Little Richard vows he is giving up rock ‘n’ roll, telling the audience at his concert that night, “If you want to live for the Lord, you can't take rock 'n' roll, too.”

1962: On this same day five years later, Little Richard, rocking and rolling again, meets the Beatles who are one of his opening acts. He dislikes John and George, finding them “rude.” But he’s quite smitten with young Paul, allegedly to the point of trying to seduce him.

1960: A young woman who previously had only sung gospel and religious music, performs secular music for the first time at New York City’s Village Vanguard. Aretha Franklin begins her journey to become “the Queen of Soul.”

1902: Raise your glass to Kalamazoo resident Orville Gibson, who founded the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company, Ltd. on this day. Thirty-four years later (1936), the company introduces the first commercially produced electric guitar.

A great day for rock & roll birthdays!

1940: John Lennon

1944: John Entwistle

1948: Jackson Browne