Some albums sound so different from anything that came before them that the first time you hear them sticks with you. This is one of them. Released on this day in 1978, the Cars debut album spent nearly the next 6 months on the Billboard album chart, spawning several of the biggest Rock radio tracks of the year and earned the group Best New Artist of the Year from Rolling Stone - back when the magazine still had musical cred.

 

1942 Canned Heat's Larry Taylor born.

1944 Big Brother & the Holding Company's Peter Albin born.

1951 Dwight Twilly born.

1960 Steve Vai born.   

1962 Beatles audition for EMI Records.   

1966 The Beatles record Eleanor Rigby.

1969 Rod Stewart signs solo contract with Mercury Records while still in the Jeff Beck Group.   

1971 John Lennon & Yoko join Frank Zappa on stage during Mothers of Invention concert at Fillmore East. 

1979 A Def Leppard concert in Sheffield, UK lands them a record contract.

1982 Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks and Stevie Wonder play the Peace Sunday; We Have a Dream concert at the Rose Bowl.

1989 Paul McCartney releases Flowers In The Dirt.   

1987 Heart releases Bad Animals.   

1989 Stevie Ray Vaughan In Step released.  1989 Queen releases The Miracle. 

1993 The Velvet Undergound reunites for a live set at Wembley Stadium. 

1998 Chris Robinson of Black Crowes gets in brawl with two men at Sunset Marquis Hotel bar in LA. 

2000 Ron Wood enters rehab.

2004 Eric Clapton stages his Crossroads Festival in Dallas. 

2006 Cheap Trick releases Rockford.   

2006 Billy Preston dies of hypertension and kidney complications.

2016 Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield do the national anthem before game 4 of the Stanley Cup in San Jose.

2017 Original Woodstock Festival site added to National Register of Historic Places....