The amazing Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble released their third album on this day in 1985. 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on the last day of September include...

1942 Buffalo Springfield's Dewey Martin born.

1947 T-Rex's Marc Bolan born.

1955 James Dean dies in crash of his Porsche in California desert.

1982 Bruce Springsteen releases Nebraska. 

1989 Neil Young plays Saturday Night Live.  1993 George Harrison guests on The Simpsons.

1997 Rolling Stones release Bridges To Babylon.

1997 Bob Dylan releases Time Out Of Mind.     

1998 John Fogerty awarded star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2006 Eddie Van Halen hosts release party for Sacred Sin, adult movie he contributed to soundtrack of, in his Hollywood home and jams with Guns N' Roses keyboard player Dizzy Reed and John Corabi.

2017 Bruce Springsteen joins Bryan Adams on Badlands and Cuts Like A Knife during closing ceremony of Invictus Games in Toronto...

On this day in 1976, Rush released All The World's A Stage, the outstanding live album recorded at the trio's three  Massey Hall concerts in Toronto in June of that year.  

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 29 include...

1935 Jerry Lee Lewis born.

1948 Grand Funk Railroad's Mark Farner born. 
1971 Keith Godchaux starts rehearsing with Grateful Dead.

1974 John Lennon sits in as guest DJ on New York's WNEW.
1975 Jackie Wilson has heart attack while performing in Cherry Hill, NJ.

1976 Jerry Lee Lewis accidentally shoots bass player while target shooting with 357  Magnum.

1997 Blues Traveler's Bobby Sheehan charged with cocaine possession at Canadian border crossing.

2007 Bono and Bill Clinton appear together during forum at Apollo Theater in Harlem. 

2009 Genesis Live 1973-2007 10 disc box set released. 

2009 Lynyrd Skynryd releases God & Guns.

2023 U2 does inaugural concert at the Sphere, the $2.3 billion venue in Las Vegas.

On this afternoon in 1975, a crowd estimated at 50,000 gathered in the Lindley Meadow area of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park for a free concert featuring the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Starship.

Other Noteworthy September 28 events include...

1938 Ben E King born.

1943 Steppenwolf bassist Nick St. Nicholas (Klaus Karl Kassbaum) born.
1953 Mahogany Rush bassist Paul Harwood born.

1954 Dokken's George Lynch born.

1968 Janis Joplin parts ways with Big Brother and the Holding Company.

1976 George Harrison is sued by his record company over delays in release of new album 33 1/3. It finally gets released in November.

1989 Jimmy Buffett publishes Tales From Margaritaville.
1991 Bryan Adams honored with Order of Canada award.

1993 Police release Message In A Box set  

2008 Neil Young  releases le Noise.

2008 Eric Clapton releases Clapton.

2008 Doobie Brothers release World Gone Crazy.

2008 Ron Wood releases I Feel Like Playing.

2008 Kenny Wayne Shepherd releases Live In Chicago.

2014 Def Leppard plays before Raider-Dolphins game at Wembley Stadium...

Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive veteran Randy Bachman was born on this day in 1943 in Winnepeg, Manitoba.  He was barely out of diapers when he got started in music at age 3, winning a singing competition. At 5, he took up violin and continued with it until becoming a teenager. Though he never learned to read music, Randy developed the ability to commit note sequences to memory on just one listen to a song.  When he jettisoned violin in favor of becoming a guitarist during his high school years he also lost all interest in academics.  That coincided with Bachman connecting with Chad Allen and forming a group named the Silvertones, the band that would become the Guess Who in 1965.  The group became the first Canadian band with a #1 track in the US with American Woman in 1970.  Bachman and Allen parted ways shortly after that and Randy recruited  his brother Robbie to play drums, Tim Bachman on guitar and Fred Turner on bass to form Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 27 include...

1947 Meat Loaf (Marvin Aday) born.

1976 Allman Brothers release Wipe The Windshield, Check The Oil, Dollar Gas. 

1979 Wings guitarist Jimmy McCullough dies of a heroin OD. 

1979 Blondie releases Eat to the Beat.

1979 Elton John collapses during his set at the Universal Amphitherter in LA, but returns to complete the set.

1986 Metallica's Cliff Burton dies in crash of tour bus in during European tour.

1994 Moody Blues honored with star on Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

1997 Bob Dylan performs for the Pope during the World Eucharist Conference in Bologna, Italy.

2000 U2 plays Beautiful Day and Elevation on the roof of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin.

2004 Producer Phil Spector indicted in murder of actress Lana Clarkson on the grounds of his estate.

2005 Neil Young releases Prairie Wind.

2007 Ozzy Osbourne does guest DJ appearance for BBC's anniversary.

2008 Pink Floyd manager Bryan Morrison dies in a polo accident at 66.   

2010 Jimmy Page auto biographic photo book published.

2019 Metallica announces James Hetfield  re-entered rehab.

On this day in 1969, the Beatles once again morphed into an almost entirely different sounding group with the release of another groundbreaking album, Abbey Road.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 26 include...

1945 Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry born

1954 Jefferson Starship's Craig Chaquico born.
1965 The Beatles  awarded Order of the British Empire status by the Queen.

1968 Beach Boy Brian Wilson convicted on marijuana charge.

1969 Bill Graham opens the Fillmore West in San Francisco.

1970 Pink Floyd opens third US tour in Philadelphia.

1974 John Lennon releases Walls & Bridges.

1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show premieres.
1981 Bruce Dickinson joins Iron Maiden.

1983 Motley Crue releases Shout At The Devil.

1989 Paul McCartney's Get Back tour opens in Dramen,Norway, becoming his first featuring many Beatles songs.

1995 AC/DC releases Ballbreaker.

2003 Robert Palmer dies of a heart attack.

2008 Little Feat releases Join The Band. 

2014 AC/DC's Phil Rudd allegedly threatens to kill a a man and his daughter in a phone call.

2015 Georgia Music Hall of Fame inducts Gregg Allman.

2017 An unspecified Steven Tyler medical problem has forces Aerosmith to cancel the remaining four South American tour dates.

2017 Billy Joel joins Paul McCartney on Get Back and Birthday at Nassau Coliseum concert...

Quantum advances in recording equipment and techniques between the sessions for their debut album and its follow-up had Doors members excited about getting into the studio to work on Strange Days, the album the group released on this day in 1967.  Engineer Bruce Botnick had gotten an advance pressing of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and was blown away by the way the Beatles took creative advantage of the 8 track recording capabilities of Abbey Road Studios, and Sunset Sound in Hollywood had upgraded to 8 track in time for Botnick and Producer Paul Rothchild to plot how to make the most of it when work began on the second Doors album.

The highly anticipated album came out while sales were still strong for the group's debut, which spent 122 weeks as one of the top 10 albums on the charts.  Strange Days would have a 63 week chart run, fueled by strong FM play of the title track,  Love Me Two Times, People Are Strange, Moonlight Drive and the 11 minute closing track When The Music's Over.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 25 include...

1943 Spirit's John Locke born.

1969 Cold Turkey recorded by John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and Klaus Voorman.

1970 Ringo Starr releases Boucoups Of Blues. 1974 King Crimson disbands.

1972 Black Sabbath releases Black Sabbath Vol. 4

1976 U2 forms. 

1980 Led Zeppelin's John 'Bonzo' Bonham dies after a vodka binge at Jimmy Page's house.

1982 Queen performs on Saturday Night Live, doing Under Pressure and Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

1992 Two stabbed and 20 arrested after violence breaks out during Ozzy Osbourne's Oklahoma City concert.

1995 Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ed King hospitalized in Atlanta with heart failure.

2008 Paul McCartney does Tel Aviv concert 43 years after Beatles were banned form performing in Israel.

2015 Jewel joins Foo Fighters on Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love in Phoenix.

2015 Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler join Taylor Swift on stage in Nashville.

The Long Run from the Eagles got released on this day in 1979.  The group's 6th album was the first for Timothy B. Schmit and the last that Don Felder's last in the group.   It would also be a long run before the band put out another album. Its follow-up wouldn't come for another 28 years.  The lp also was a long time in the making.  Work on it began in 1978 with a plan for it to be a double album.  It took a year and a half to complete and the recording was done in several different studios before the band decided to settle on a single disc release and selected the 10 songs that made the cut.  According to Don Henley, the process left the group so "...completely burned out", and "...physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively exhausted" that they disbanded in 1980 and did not regroup until fourteen years later.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 24 include...

1941 Linda McCartney (Eastman) born. 

1965 Bob Dylan opens US tour in Dallas, Texas.

1967 Traffic's live debut takes place in London.

1971 T-Rex releases Electric Warrior.

1975 Rush releases Caress Of Steel.

1988 James Brown is arrested in Georgia following a 2 hour high speed chase by police. 

1990 AC/DC releases The Razor’s Edge.

1993 Steven Adler gets $2.5 million in settlement over his firing by Guns N' Roses

1994 Van Morrison releases Hymns To The Silence.

1994 Eric Clapton plays Saturday Night Live.

1998 Steven Tyler of Aerosmith throws out ceremonial first pitch before Expos-Cardinals game in St. Louis.

2003 Dave Matthews Band draws close to 100,000 to Central Park concert.

2008 Come Dancing, a musical by Ray Davies of the Kinks, opens at England's Royal Stratford Theatre.

2010 Heart's Nancy Wilson and Cameron Crowe divorce...

Bruce Springsteen was born on this day in 1949 in Long Branch, New Jersey. The son of a bus driver who held other jobs and held little regard for his rambunctious son's musical aspirations and a  mother that worked as a legal secretary and was more understanding and supportive of Bruce's ambitions.  Enrolling him a Catholic school served only to spark more rebellion in their son.  Watching Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan showc onvinced Bruce to go all-in on becoming a musician.  His mother rented him a guitar and  allowed him to go to public school in Freehold, where he managed to scrape by academically and earn a diploma.  A concussion he suffered when he dumped a motorcycle at 17 resulted in a draft deferment.  His parents moved to the west coast in 1969, but Bruce and his sister elected to stay in New Jersey. 

After seeing the Beatles on the Sullivan Show, Bruce bought his first guitar and worked himself into a band named the Rogues before moving into a co/lead singer spot in the Castiles, a band with a significantly bigger regional following.  After a short stint in a band named Earth, Bruce hooked up with future E Street Band members Vini Lopez, Danny Federici and, eventually, Steve Van Zandt in the band Steel Mill.  That group gained more traction playing frequently in Jersey clubs including the Stone Pony, and developed a following along the eastern seaboard that helped punch their ticket into bookings in larger markets in Tennessee, Virginia and other states.  The group also landed a gig at the Matrix, the San Francisco club operated by Jefferson Airplane member Marty Balin.  In attendance that night was music critic Phillip Elwood, whose review in the San Francisco Examiner proclaimed of Springsteen, "I have never been so overwhelmed by a totally unknown talent."

After a couple of years fronting other bands, Bruce elected to put his name out front, forming the Bruce Springsteen Band in 1971.  Springsteen's solo audition for John Hammond in the spring of 1972 and his subsequent signing by Columbia Records changed everything for Bruce.  Columbia wanted a singer-songwriter album out of him, but Springsteen insisted on his debut being a fully band backed rock record.  That October, the lineup that would become the E Street Band came together to record the sessions that would become the Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. album.

Neither of the group's first two albums were big sellers, but live performances of the songs on Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle were just blowing people away in concert.  The opening set Bruce and the band did at Bonnie Raitt's May 1974 Harvard Square Theater concert in Boston was so compelling and powerful that critic Jon Landau's review gushed, "I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen", and adding, "...he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time".

Within the following few months, awareness and interest in Bruce and the E Street Band sky rocketed, but the band was bogged down trying to capture the right sound for a record that would impress fans as much as their live performances did.  The struggle to nail it down was solved when Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes guitarist Steve Van Zandt was invited in to harness the horn section arrangement on Tenth Avenue Freeze-out.  The result impressed Bruce so much that he added Van Zandt to the E Street Band lineup.   The band did a 10 night run of shows at The Bottom Line in New York City leading up to the August 25th release release of Born to Run.  It included a live radio broadcast on WNEW-FM and select other FM rock stations that had been early supporters of the band.  Things broke wide open for The Boss and his Band right after that. 

Other Noteworthy classic rock events on September 23 include...

1930 Ray Charles born.
1939 Roy Buchanan born. 
1963 Rolling Stones do opening night of tour with Bo Diddley.
1966 The Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds and Ike & Tina Turner play Royal Albert Hall.
1970 Allman Brothers Band releases Idlewild South.
1970 Mick Jagger meets Bianca Macias when the Stones play the Olympia in Paris.
1974 Average White Band's Robbie McIntosh dies at LA party Gregg Allman also attended. 
1980 Bob Marley collapses on stage in Pittsburgh in what would prove to be his last concert appearance.
1982 Billy Joel releases Nylon Curtain.
1986 Boston releases Third Stage.
1991 Izzy Stradlin leaves Guns N' Roses and is replaced by Gilby Clarke. 
1997 Rolling Stones open Bridges To Babylon tour in Chicago.
2008 John Mellencamp does flood relief benefit show in a small theater in  Ohio.
2013 Paul McCartney plays on the roof of the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

2022 Elton John does a live set on the south lawn of the White House and is awarded a National Humanities Award by President Biden.
2022 Billy Idol releases The Cage EP.

The inaugural Farm Aid concert took place on this day in 1985 in Champaign, Illinois.  The idea of staging a benefit concert to help family farms facing tough times was said to have been something Willie Nelson enlisted John Mellencamp and Neil Young to help him put on because Bob Dylan had remarked that he hoped some of the money raised at the Live Aid concert staged earlier that summer could be used to help farmers at risk for foreclosure. Ironically, Dylan's last name was misspelled on the poster for the event, which took place at the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium with a crowd of 80,000 on hand to hear performances by the hosts, Dylan, Tom Petty, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, John Fogerty, Charlie Daniels, Foreigner, Sammy Hagar, Don Henley, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Eddie Van Halen, B.B. King, and dozens more.  The 12 hour concert raised more than $9 million.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 22 include...

1951 Deep Purple & Whitesnake's David Coverdale born. 

1960 Joan Jett born.

1962 Bob Dylan plays at a Hootenanny concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

1965 Grace Slick and The Great Society do their first live performance in North Beach, California.

1965 Roger Daltrey slugs Keith Moon during a Who concert in Scandinavia.

1969 Story in University Of Illinois student newspaper starts Paul McCartney is dead rumors. 

1972 David Bowie opens US Ziggy Stardust tour in Cleveland.  

1975 George Harrison releases Extra Texture.   

1979 Joe Walsh announces presidential candidacy. 

1989 Bob Dylan releases Oh Mercy.   

1990 Creedence Clearwater Revival's Tom Fogerty dies of TB.

1999 Bono meets with the Pope.

2005 Jimmy Page's work aiding homeless children in Rio de Janeiro earns him honorary citizenship there.

2009 Pearl Jam releases Backspacer.

2014 Aaron Lewis escapes injury when chartered jet skids off runway of Texas airport.

2017 Van Morrison releases Roll With The Punch.

2015 Bruce Springsteen joins Jackson Browne on two songs during Red Bank, NJ concert.

Fans attending the Laid Back Festival in Holmdale, New Jersey on this night in 2017 are treated to an unannounced appearance of The Boss when Bruce Springsteen joins Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul on Tenth Avenue Freeze Out and It's Been So Long, Jackson Browne on Take It Easy, and Peter Wolf during encore of all musicians doing the J Geils Band's Freeze Frame.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 21 include...

1932 Frank Zappa Mothers Of Invention's Don Preston born.   
1934 Leonard Cohen born.
1947 Eagles Don Felder born.   
1974 Jeff Baxter joins the Doobie Brothers.

1980 Bob Marley collapses while jogging in Central Park.

1995 Steve Walsh of Kansas arrested on cocaine charge after car wreck in Georgia.
2000 Genesis reunites for an appearance at the British Music Honors presentation.

2004 John Fogerty releases Deja Vu All Over Again.

2006 King Crimson & Bad Company's Boz Burrell dies in Spain.
2006 Tom Petty is awarded key to his hometown in Gainesville, FL.
2009 Eddie Van Halen on episode of CBS sitcom Two And A Half Men.

2009 Jimmy Buffett performs a pre-game set at home opener for the Miami Dolphins at recently re-branded  LandShark Stadium.
2010 Carlos Santana releases Guitar Heaven.

 

AD/DC's third album, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, got its Australian and European release on this day in 1976.  Bizarrely, the US release of it would not come for another five years.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 20 include...

1948 Styx members Chuck (bass) and John (drummer) Panozzo born.

1966 Extreme's n

Nuno Bettencourt born.

1968 Soundgarden bassist Ben Shepherd born.

1969 John Lennon tells band mates he is leaving the Beatles.

1970 T-Rex headlines the first Glastonbury Festival in place of the Kinks.

1970 Jim Morrison convicted of lewd behavior but acquitted of indecent exposure. 
1971 Peter Frampton leaves Humble Pie. 
1972 Paul & Linda McCartney arrested on marijuana charges in Scotland.   

1973 Jim Croce killed in plane crash in Texas.
1973 Neil Young performs the opening show at the Roxy in LA. 

2005 John Fogerty, Jimmy Buffett, Paul Simon & Neville Brothers do Big Apple for the Big Easy benefit to aid Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans. 

2003 Cream veteran Jack Bruce gets a liver transplant.

2006 Rolling Stones open another leg of Bigger Bang  tour in Foxborough MA. 

2008 Farm Aid staged in Mansfield, MA with Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Willie Nelson, the Pretenders, Steve Earle, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Jakob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, moe and others.

2010 Leonard Skinner, high school teacher Lynyrd Skynyrd adapted name from, dies at 77. 

2016 Bassist Cliff Williams quits AC/DC after the last date of the Rock Or Bust tour in Philadelphia.   

2017 Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley reunite with KISS for four songs during St. Paul MN benefit concert for children's charity.

2021 Genesis members Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks open reunion tour in Birmingham, England.

2021 The Rolling Stones do their first concert set without Charlie Watts at a party for 300 invited guests of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA.

After the Gold Rush from Neil Young got its release on this day in 1970.  Young's third solo album was mostly recorded in the basement of his Topanga Canyon home just north of LA.  CSN&Y bass player Greg Reeves was in on the sessions as was Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina and Grin member and future E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren, who played piano on Young's album.  The title track, Don't let It Bring You Down, When You Dance I Can Really Love, Tell Me Why and Only Love Can Break Your Heart all became FM Rock radio staples, but Southern Man, Young's scathing song about southern bigotry was far and away the album's biggest and most enduring track.  That song also provoked a musical rebuke of Young from Lynyrd Skynyrd in the song Sweet Home Alabama a few years later.  

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 19 include...

1934 Beatles manager Brian Epstein born.   

1941 Mamas and Pappas Cass Elliott born. 

1947 10cc's Lol Creme born.

1951 Producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Neil Young, ZZ Top) born. 

1952 Producer Nile Rogers(David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, B-52s, INXS, The Vaughan Brothers) born.   

1958 Lita Ford born.   

1970 T-Rex headlines the first Glastonbury Festival in place of the Kinks. 

1973 Gram Parsons dies of morphine and alcohol overdose at Joshua Tree Monument, California. 

1974 Max Weinberg makes drumming debut as member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band in Philadelphia.  

1979 Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty play Musicians United For Safe Energy - No Nukes concert in New York City. Other performers include Bonnie Raitt, the Doobie Brothers,  Stephen Stills and David Crosby, Poco, James Taylor, Carly Simon, John Hall, Ry Cooder, Jesse Colin Young and Nicolette Larson. 

1981 Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel reunite for a Central Park concert in New York City.

1987 Farm Aid in Lincoln, Nebraska features Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Joe Walsh, Lou Reed, Steppenwolf, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett.

2009 LA-Miami flight makes medical emergency landing after Scott Weiland suffers a seizure. 

2015 The record contract Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Pete Best signed in 1961 sells for $75,000. 

2017 Bruce Springsteen does rehearsal performance for his Broadway residency shows for 200 invited guests at Monmouth College in Long Branch, NJ...

Jimi Hendrix checked-out of this life on this day in 1970 in London.  The legendary guitarist was one of the few musicians who it could truly be said reinvented the instrument he played.  Born Johnny Allen Hendrix (his father later changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix) on November 27, 1942 in Seattle, Hendrix took up the guitar at the age of 15.  Four years later, he enlisted in the Army for several months, then moved to Clarksville, Tennessee where he landed a gig in the Isley Brothers band. Stints with Little Richard and Curtis Knight and the Squires followed.  His career had a major pivot when Animals bassist Chas Chandler heard him play, offered to manage him and invited him to London with the promise that Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and other UK guitar greats would accept his invitation to see Jimi do a showcase club performance.  On seeing his jaw dropping performance in November, 1966 in London, all were amazed.  Jeff Beck was said to have been so blown away that his first thought was that he would have to learn another instrument or find another career. 

The meteoric rise to prominence of the bashful Hendrix took a toll and drugs and alcohol increasingly his way to cope.  The Jimi Hendrix Experience's last concert was at the Denver Pop Festival on June 29, 1969.  He went on to form the short-lived Band Of Gypsys.  His relationships, fraying, Hendrix moved to London.  On September 17, 1970, he had a late night dinner with German figure skater Monika Dannermann. Following dinner, she reportedly drove Jimi to the home of another acquaintance before returning him to her apartment at about 3am.  She said the two of them talked until nearly 7am. When she woke close to four hours later, Hendrix was unconscious.  He was pronounced dead at 12:45pm on the 18th.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 18 include...

1949 Kansas guitarist, keyboard player and songwriter Kerry Livgren born. 

1952 Ramones drummer Dee Dee Ramone born Douglas Glenn Colvin.

1958 Lita Ford born.

1968 The Beatles record Birthday.

1970 Black Sabbath releases Paranoid.

1970 Fleetwood Mac releases Kiln House. 

1974 John Lennon does a guest DJ stint on WNEW in New York City.

1978 Neil Young opens a US tour in Detroit.

1978 KISS members all release solo albums.

1981 Genesis releases Abacab.

1983 KISS members appear without makeup on MTV on the day the Lick It Up album is released.

1987 KISS releases Crazy Nights.

1994 Farm Aid VII is staged in New Orleans with Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson. Kris Kristofferson, the Neville Brothers, Gin Blossoms, Spin Doctors and others.

1996 Julian Lennon submits the top bid for an auction of Paul McCartney's hand written Hey Jude Lyrics sheet.

1997 Rolling Stones play warm-up date for tour in Chicago club. 

2004 Farm Aid concert in Auburn, Washington includes sets from Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis and others.

2005 Neil Young tears up copies of Chicago Tribune to protest paper's negative coverage of Farm Aid concert series as the 20th anniversary of the benefit for family farms concert takes place in Tinsley Park, Illinois with sets from Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, James McMurtry, John Mayer, Los Lonely Boys, Widespread Panic, Susan Tedeschi and more.

2007 David Gilmour releases Remember The Night DVD of 2006 Royal Albert Hall concerts. 

2007 Mark Knopfler releases Kill To Get Crimson.

2010 Eddie Vedder marries Jill McCormick in Hawaii. 

2015 Keith Richards releases Crosseyed Heart.   

2015 David Gilmour releases Rattle That Lock.

2020 Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs release debut album Reckless Abandon.

2020 Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets releases Live at the Roundhouse.

1931 RCA issues the first 33 1/3 lp.

1935 Ken Kesey born.

1946 Doobie Brothers Michael Hoosack born.

1950 Tubes Fee Waybill born.

1967 Doors appear on Ed Sullivan Show and are banned from future appearances after Jim Morrison ditches his pre-show agreement not to sing the line "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" when the group does Light My Fire.

1967 Pete Townshend's hair smoked and hearing damaged when flash pot ignites early during Who appearance on Smothers brothers TV show. 

1969 U.S. papers pick up on the Paul McCartney is dead rumors.

1975 Scorpions release In Trance.

1976 Queen plays for 150,000 in London's Hyde Park. 

1976 Ringo Starr releases Retrogravure

1980 Doobie Brothers release One Step Closer.

1987 Yes releases Big  Generator.

1996 Pearl Jam  opensNo Code Tour in Seattle. 

1997 Fleetwood Mac launches The Dance tour at the Hartford Civic Center in Connecticut.

1996 ZZ Top releases Rhythmeen. 

1997 Fleetwood Mac opens reunion tour in Hartford, CT.

2000 Bistow, Virginia hosts Farm Aid with Crosby Stills, Nash & Young, Willie Nelson, Arlo Guthrie, Barenaked Ladies, Sawyer Brown and Travis Tritt.

2003 Bono meets with George Bush to spur more donations to eradicating AIDS.

2003 David Lee Roth suffers tour ending injuries when he smacks himself in the face doing a Samurai maneuver.

2007 Paul McCartney does guest DJ session during BBC 40th anniversary series.

2009 Eric Clapton joins Bruce Hornsby on the Jay Leno Show.

2016 Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson honored at opening of Lee Lifeson Art Park in Toronto neighborhood they grew up in.

2017 Bob Weir named Goodwill Ambassador by United Nations during New York City ceremony.

2018 Dickey Betts seriously injured in a fall while playing with his dog. Suffers bleeding on the brain after hitting his head in a fall.

2022 Ringo Starr releases EP3...

We celebrate the birth date of Riley B. King on this day in 1925 in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He wasn't a classic rock musician but admiration of him and his influence on them run deep in the ranks of many guitar greats. 

Raised by his maternal grandmother, King was a member of the gospel choir in his Baptist church and got his first guitar instruction from its minister on a Silvertone guitar used during services.  Blues man Bukka White, King's mother's first cousin, helped him develop his skills and King honed them further with encouragement from Sonny Boy Williamson, who gave performing slots on his radio show.  Riley got a gig as a DJ on a Memphis stations and soon after adopted the nickname Beale Street Blues Boy, which got shortened to B.B.

Being on the air in Memphis was an avenue for King to meet and become friends with a number of influential musicians. His 1952 recording of 3 O'Clock Blues became a #1 R&B song and put King on the way to international acclaim. 

He opened for the Rolling Stones on the groups 1989 US tour, worked with U2 on When Love Comes to Town, got inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock Hall Of Fame in 87, but he never took it for granted, spending upwards of 200 nights a year on the road playing live well into his 80's.

Complications from diabetes caused his death on May 14, 2015. Fittingly, he was heralded in a funeral procession down Beale Street in Memphis with a band playing When the Saints Go Marching In before the hearse bearing his body traveled down the fabled blues highway, Rt. 61 to his adopted hometown of indianola for his funeral and internment on the grounds of the B.B. King Museum.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 16 include...

1948 Faces and Who drummer Kenny Jones born. 

1948 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers bassist Ron Blair born.   
1966 Original bassist Pete Quaife leaves the Kinks.

1970 Jimi Hendrix makes last public appearance, jamming with Eric Burdon at Ronnie Scott's London club. 

1972 Peter Frampton makes US solo debut a year after leaving Humble Pie.

1977 Talking Heads release Talking Heads 77.

1977 Marc Bolan of T-Rex killed in car wreck.

1982 Dire Straits release Love Over Gold. 

1984 Deep Purple releases Perfect Strangers.

1987 Guns N Roses release Use Your Illusion I & II. 

1993 Grace Slick's Mill Valley, California home destroyed by fire.

1996 Pearl Jam opens No Code tour in Seattle.

1998 Mott the Hoople reunites for the first time in 24 years to play the Virgin Records Store in London.

2005 Paul McCartney opens world tour in Miami.
2006 R.E.M. inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

2008 BB King Museum opens in Indianola Mississippi on the guitar legend's birthday.

2014 Slash releases World On Fire.

2014 U2 releases Songs Of Innocence through iTunes during iPhone 6 announcement.

2022 Creedence Clearwater Revivaal's April 1970 Royal Albert Hall concert gets DVD release.
2022 Pink Floyd releasesthe expanded edition Animals set...

On this day in 2019 Rock lost one of its cleverest, most inventive song stylists when Ric Ocasek, front man for the Cars, died of pulmonary emphysema.  Ocasek was 75 and died peacefully in his sleep in his lower Manhattan apartment. A perfectionist who pushed boundaries, Ocasek and his band introduced a whole new sound forged from New Wave with pop undercurrents on their smash debut release in the spring of 1978.

Other Noteworthy September 15 events in Classic Rock include...

1942 Iron Butterfly bassist Lee Dorman born.

1952 Night Ranger drummer and vocalist Kelly Keagy born.

1964 A fan invasion of the stage interrupts a Beatles concert in Cleveland.

1968 The Doors do a set without Jim Morrison in Amsterdam after Morrison collapses during the Jefferson Airplane's opening set.

1971 Band releases Cahoots. 

1978 Bob Dylan opens a US tour in Augusta, Maine.

1980 David Bowie makes Broadway debut in The Elephant Man. 

1980 John Mellencamp releases Nothin’ Matters And What If It Did.

1982 Queen plays the last U.S. concert with Freddie Mercury at the Great Western Forum.

1986 Talking Heads release True Stories.

1986 Elvis Costello releases Blood & Chocolate. 

1988 Mark Knopfler goes solo, Dire Straits beaks-up.

1990 Bruce Hornsby starts his part-time gig as the grateful Dead keyboard player.

1996 Pearl Jam does surprise club date in Seattle two days before opening No Code tour. 

1996 Bonnie Raitt arrested during protests over the cutting of virgin timber in California. 

2004 Johnny Ramone (John Cummings) dies of prostate cancer at 55.

2006 US vs John Lennon movie premiers. 2008 Rick Wright of Pink Floyd dies of cancer. 

2009 Mark Knopfler releases Get Lucky. 

2009 Roger Waters opens The Wall anniversary tour with a sold out show in Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.

2017 Foo Fighters release Concrete & Gold...

Production started on Pink Floyd's The Wall movie on this day in 1981.  The original plan to cast Roger Waters in the lead role was scrapped after producer Alan Parker and director Gerald Scarfe reviewed his screen test and decided it would be better to have Boomtown Rats front man Bob Geldolf play the part.  There were reportedly frequent clashes within the production ranks during the making of the film.  Parker later described the project as "...one of the most miserable experiences of my creative life."  The movie was screened at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and had its official screen premiere  on July 14, 1982 at the Empire Theatre on Leicester Square in London. Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason attended. Richard Wright did not. Also in attendance at the opening were Pete Townshend, Sting, Andy Summers and Roger Taylor.  Gilmour later said the the rift that developed between him and Waters grew out of conflicts the pair  had about the making of the movie.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 14 include...

1946 Nazareth bassist Pete Agnew born.

1949 Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist  Steve Gaines born in Miami, Oklahoma.

1950 Free and Backstreet Crawler guitarist Paul Kossoff born.

1968 Pete Townshend reveals Who plans for Rock Opera Tommy in Rolling Stone magazine.

1969 Genesis gets its first paying gig at the home of Peter Gabriel's childhood Sunday school teacher.

1975 Supertramp releases Crisis, What Crisis?

1978 Grateful Dead play first of 3 concerts at Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt.

1979 Jethro Tull release Stormwatch.

1981 Billy Joel releases Songs in The Attic.

1981 Injunction granted to block unauthorized bio about Queen.

1981 Rolling Stones do tour warm-up at Worcester, MA club, performing under the name Blue Monday & The Cockroache.

1984 ZZ Top's Leggs wins best group video MTV Music Award.

1993 Counting Crows release August and Everything After.

1995 David Bowie opens his Outside tour in Hartford, Connecticut.

1997 Plaque unveiled outside London apartment Jimi Hendrix lived in.

1999 The Guitar John Lennon played the day he met Paul McCartney sells for $225,000.

2000 Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Paul Simon play at a fund raiser for Al Gore at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

2005 Johnny Van Zant has surgery in Nashville to remove polyp from vocal chord.

2008 Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson pilots on a flight to return British tourists to the UK after their tour operator files for bankruptcy, 

2010 The Promise, a documentary about the making of Darkness on The Edge Of Town, premiers at Toronto Film Festival. Springsteen does hour long interview with actor Ed Norton before the screening.  

The 5th album from Yes, Close to the Edge, was released on this day in 1972.  The epic 18 minute title song that fills side one of the lp composed by Jon Anderson and Steve Howe is said to have been a song Anderson conceived of while reading Lord of the Rings with a symphony by one of his favorite classical composers playing in the background.  It also drew inspiration from the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.  Side two only had two songs; And You and I, and Siberian Khatru.   Despite not being an 'airplay friendly' album with several more and shorter songs, Close to the Edge became the group's best selling album.  It was also the final album featuring Bill Bruford.  Allan White took over as drummer for the 1972-73 tour the group did in support of the release.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 13 include...

1941 Blood Sweat & Tears David Clayton Thomas born.

1944 Chicago's Peter Cetera born.

1957 Drummer Vinnie Appice (Dio, Black Sabbath) born.

1961 Metallica & Megadeath's Dave Mustine born.

1965 Zak Starkey (Who, Oasis) born.

1969 John Lennon, Eric Clapton, The Doors, Alice Cooper, Alan White, Klaus Voorman, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bo DIddley came together in concert in Toronto. Highlights are released on Plastic Ono Bnad: Live Peace in Toronto album in December.  It was the first live album released by a Beatles member and pre-dated future live releases of music by group.

1974 Fleetwood Mac releases Heroes Are Hard To Find.

1974 Supertramp releases Crime Of The Century.

1974 Jackson Browne releases Late For The Sky.

1976 Lynyrd Skynyrd releases One More For The Road.

1983 Huey Lewis & The News release Sports.

1989 Sting opens in Three Penny Opera in Washington, DC.

1991 Alice Cooper releases Hey Stoupid.

1995 Blues Traveler's John Popper popped for dagger and hollow point bullets after expired registration traffic stop in New Jersey.

2015 REO Speedwagon guitarist Gary Richrath dies.

2017 Eddie Vedder joins Pete Townshend and Billy Idol on The Real Me during Chicago Quadrophenia concert.

2018 Eddie Money dies of escophigal cancer...

1952 Neil Peart of Rush born on this day in 1952 near Hamilton, Ontario.  The future drummer and primary lyricist for Rush grew up glued to a transistor radio dialed in to radio stations in Canada and Buffalo, New York, just a Great Lake away from his hometowns of Hamilton and St. Catherines, Ontario.  He started with piano lessons early on, but was so much more inclined to be banging on things that his parents got him a rudimentary drum and arranged for lessons with a promise to buy him a drum set if he kept at it for a full year.  The full kit was his 14th birthday present.  At 18, he moved to England, but got little traction developing a musical career, so he returned to Canada and enlisted in a bar band named Hush before auditioning to be the replacement for John Rutsey in Rush.  Peart became a member of Rush just two weeks before the band embarked on its first US tour in 1974.

The Rock world was stunned on January 7, 2020 with news that Peart died of brain cancer.  News of the Rush drummer having the disease had been kept under wraps since it was diagnosed three years earlier.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 12 included...

1970 Pink Floyd has $40,000 in equipment stolen in New Orleans. 

1975 Pink Floyd releases Wish You Were Here.   

1980 David Bowie releases Scary Monsters. 

1980 Ozzy Osbourne releases Blizzard Of Oz. 1989 Aerosmith releases Pump. 

1990 Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie announced they will  leave Fleetwood Mac at end of current tour.   

1995 Red Hot Chili Peppers release One Hot Minute.

1996 Kenny Wayne Shepherd does unannounced club concert when his tour bus breaks down in Athens, GA.   

1996 Oasis cancels remaining US tour dates after Gallagher brothers get into a fist fight. 

1999 Graham Nash breaks both legs in boat accident in Hawaii.     

2006 Peter Frampton releases instrumental album Fingerprint.   

2006 Bob Seger releases Face The Promise.   

2006 Who open US tour in Philadelphia.   

2008 Metallica releases Death Magnetic.

2018 The Maton Mastersound guitar George Harrison played at the last Beatles performance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool is auctioned for $455,000.

Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw was born on this day in 1953 in Montgomery, Alabama.  Shaw got on the radar of other members of Styx when they saw him in a group named MSFunk during a two week club stint that band did in Chicago.  When Styx guitarist and vocalist John Curulewski bailed on the band just when Styx was about to open a tour, Shaw got invited to audition. He flew in the following day and got hired without singing or playing a note at the 'audition' because a listen to the demo he had sent convinced them he could hit all the notes they depended on Curulewski for.

Other Noteworthy September 11 Classic Rock events include...

1943 Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart born.

1947 Jethro Tull's Gerry Conway born.   

 1964 Charlie Watts hit by shot fired from a pellet gun during Rolling Stones Cardiff, Wales concert.     

1967 Beatles start shooting Magical Mystery Tour for British TV.   

1969 Janis Joplin releases I Got Dem Ol' Kosmic Blues Again.

1970 A week before his death, Jimi Hendrix does his last interview. Talks about future projects with Miles Davis and Paul McCartney.

1977 David Bowie and Bing Crosby record Little Drummer Boy. It gets released in 1982.     

1979 Foreigner releases Head Games.     

1987 Peter Tosh shot to death during robbery in his Kingston, Jamaica home.   

1987 Jethro Tull releases Crest Of A Knave. 

2001 Bob Dylan releases Love & Theft.   

2005 Jimi Hendrix childhood home moved from Seattle to Renton, Washington.     

2010 Allman Brothers Band keyboard great Chuck Leavell sits in with the Black Crowes on She Talks To Angels and Georgia On My Mind during performance at Georgia Music Hall Of Fame set.   

2011 Paul Simon and James Taylor play at World Trade Center site on 10^th anniversary of terror attacks that took down the twin towers. Simon does Sounds Of Silence, Taylor performs You Can Close Your Eyes.

2021 Bruce Springsteen sings I'll See You in My Dreams at the 20th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks in New York City.

Happy birthday to guitar slinger Joe Perry of Aerosmith, the Joe Perry Project and the Hollywood Vampires, born Anthony Joseph Pereira on this day in 1950 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Known as 'The Admiral', Perry aspired to be a marine biologist, a dream that faded when he struggled as a student. Enrolling him at a boarding school in Vermont in hopes his academic abilities would improve did not improve his grades. It would be many years before Perry came to recognize that his scholastic and disciplinary issues in high school were caused by ADHD.

Attending a school that included students from bigger cities that the small village his family lived in gave him the chance to gain a much broader appreciation of what was happening musically in America. He'd been playing guitar since age 10, but the bands and artists classmates turned him on to got Perry to dedicated himself to getting much better. He spent countless hours riffing to albums by the Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, the Who and others.

His first band experience was with Tom Hamilton in a group named The Jam Band that eventually also attracted Steven Tyler, Joey Kramer and Brad Whitford and they switched the group name to Aerosmith and started making Classic Rock history.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 10 include...

1942 Three Dog Night's Danny Hutton born.

1944 Mothers of Invention percussionist Art Tripp born.

1946 Slade drummer Don Powell born.
1949 Jethro Tull drummer Barrie Barlow born

1955 King Crimson, XTC, Mr, Mister drummer Pat Mastelotto born.

1966 Rolling Stones play on The Ed Sullivan Show. 
1974 New York Dolls break-up.
1975 KISS release KISS Alive. 

1976 Bob Dylan releases Hard Rain.  

1980 Peter Comita takes over on bass for Tom Petersson in Cheap Trick.

1991 Dire Straits release On Every Street.   

1991 Eddie Money releases Right Here.

1996 John Mellencamp releases Mr. Happy Go Lucky. 

1996 Rush releases Test For Echo.   

1996 R.E.M. releases New Adventures In Hi-Fi.   

2004 Jimmy Buffett plays Fenway Park in Boston. 

2004 Carlos Santana donates more than 200 instruments for Andre Agassi's Academy in Las Vegas.

Rush was out with its ninth studio album on this day in 1982. Signals sold strongly based on the strength of Moving Pictures, the Canadian trio's previous studio lp.  New World Man and Subdivisions were the biggest songs on it from an airplay and popularity standpoint.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 9 include...

1941 Otis Redding born.   

1946 Buffalo Springfield's Bruce Palmer born. 
1946 Billy Preston born.     

1971 John Lennon releases Imagine.     

1973 Todd Rundgren records 1,000 singers in Golden Gate Park for left channel of the song Sons of 1984. 5,000 recorded for right channel in Central Park earlier.     

1990 Neil Young releases Ragged Glory.  
1992 Elton John joins Guns N Roses on November Rain at MTV Awards.     

1996 Tom Petty's wife files for divorce. 
2007 Kid Rock and Tommy Lee brawl at MTV Video Awards in Las Vegas.

2007 Foo Fighters record an 11 song set performed in their hotel suite at the MTV Awards in Las Vegas.   

2007 Outlaws guitarist Hughie Thomasson dies of apparent heart attack.     

2009 Beatles remastered catalog reissued. 

2008 Peter Buck’s Rickenbacker guitar stolen from stage of REM after band’s set at a Helsinki stadium.

2022 Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay stages a free concert at LucasOil Stadium showcasing iconic collectible instruments he owns and performances by a host of musicians including John Mellencamp, Buddy Guy, John Hiatt, Heart's Ann Wilson, Kenny Aranoff, and Mike Mills of R.E.M.

2022 Ozzy Osbourne releases Patient Number 9.
 

Ronald Charles 'Pig Pen' McKernan, the co-founding organ, harmonica and occasional percussionist of the Grateful Dead was born on this day in 1945. Mckernan was credited for convincing Jerry Garcia to switch from the acoustic jug band music the pair had been playing at San Francsico Bay Area clubs, to playing electric Rock. A subsequent shift from Blues based material with McKernan handling most vocals to the emerging psychedelic sound got other group members to add Tom Constanten, a keys player they considered a better fit for the band's new musical direction. McKernan stayed on in a diminished role, taking lead vocals on only a few songs during concerts that Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia sang the majority of songs in.

His heavy drinking caused a downward spiral in McKernan's health and ability to perform. He took a physician advised break from the band for much of 1971 and was sidelined permanently in June of the following year. A gastrointestinal hemorrhage killed him at age 27 on March 8, 1973.

Other Noteworthy classic rock events on September 8 include...

1945 Electric Light Orchestra bass player Kelly Groucutt born.

1946 Atlanta Rhythm Section's Dean Daughert born.

1947 Cars bassist Benjamin Orr born

1976 Peter Frampton invited to White House by Gerald Ford's son Stephen. The two reportedly mostly watch TV.

1977 Jimmy McCulloch splits with Wings to reunite Small Faces, Joe English shifts to Sea Level.

1978 Yes releases Tornado.

1987 Rush releases Hold Your Fire.

1982 Peter Gabriel releases Security.

2003 David Bowie stages a live, interactive concert beamed to 21 theaters in Europe. Fans get to ask him questions.

2005 A court orders Rod Stewart to pay the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas $2 million for missing a New Years Eve concert five years earlier.

2005 David Bowie appears at Fashion Rocks event in New York City.

2014 Robert Plant releases Lullaby And The Ceaseless Roar

2017 Southern Blood, Gregg Allman's last album, is released.

2022 Aerosmith sets a new attendance record at Fenway Park in Boston when 38,700 fans fill the venerable ballpark for the hometown band's concert delayed two years by the Covid pandemic.

Pink Floyd released A Momentary Lapse of Reason on this date in 1987.  The group arranged to have some 700 metal framed beds assembled on a beach for the release's album cover. 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 7 include...

1936 Buddy Holly born. 

1951 Pretenders Chrissie Hynde born. 

1954 Benmont Tench of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers born. 

1968 The New Yardbirds, soon to become Led Zeppelin, make their live debut at Teen Club in Gladsaxe, Denmark.

1969 The First Monty Python Flying Circus show recorded. 

1975 Guess Who's strongest lineup does last show together in Montreal. 

1978 Keith Moon of the Who dies of a prescription drug overdose at 32.   

1978 Sid Vicious makes his solo live debut at max's Kansas City in New York City.

1979 Kinks release Low Budget. 

1987 Pink Floyd opens Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour in Ottawa.

1990 Ex Tubes member Vince Welnick's first concert as member of Grateful Dead.

1991 Motley Crue signs a new recording contract for more than $22 million.

1992 Roger Waters releases Amused to Death.

1993 John Mellencamp releases Human Wheels.   

1998 Wallflowers cancel Syracuse, NY concert after severe storm strikes New York State Fairgrounds, killing two.   

2003 Farm Aid staged in Columbus, Ohio with John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Los Lonely Boys, Daniel Lenois and more.

2003 Cancer claims Warren Zevon.

2005 Eviction Notice delivered to owners of legendary punk venue CBGB in New York City.

2011 Jackson Browne and Buddy Holly get Hollywood walk Of Fame stars.

2012 Eddie Vedder joins Bruce Springsteen during Wrigley Field concert. 

2018 Paul McCartney does an invitation only concert for 300 in Grand Central Station that YouTube streams live.

George Roger Waters was born on this day in 1943 to a coal mining father and workers rights activist and a school teacher mother. His father got a conscientious objector deferment during the onset of WWII that allowed him to drive an ambulance in London instead of bearing arms. Not long after, he dropped his C.O. position to join an  infantry battalion and rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant.  He died in the battle of Anzio in Italy in February, 1944 when Roger was just five months old.

Roger got acquainted with David Gilmour because he lived nearby when the two were young. He met Syd Barrett met while attending junior high school together.  Waters would meet Richard Wright and Nick Mason when the three of them were enrolled at Regent Street Polytechnic.  Waters and Mason's interest in studies faded in favor of music and they were joined by Wright in a series of bands with a singer named Keith Noble and bassist Cliff Metcalfe playing under the names Sigma 6 and the Meggadeaths.  Metcalfe and Noble quit in 1963 to start another group, and Barrett was invited to join what at the time was a band with Waters, Wright, Mason and guitarist Bob Close named the Abdabs.  They rifled through a few other names before becoming the Pink Floyd Sound in 1965, and the Pink Floyd Blues Band before shortening it to simply Pink Floyd in 1966. 

The following year, Barrett's state of mind began to deteriorate and by year's end he'd become so erratic and unreliable that the other band members decided he'd have to be replaced. In March of 1968, the decision was made to sever musical ties with Barrett.  David Gilmour was introduced as the group's new guitarist the following month.

With Barrett's departure, Waters became the most prolific writing member of the band.  He also assumed a much more leading role in the overall direction of the group.  Many of his lyrics would draw on the traumatic events going on in his life in the world around him during his youth.  The Wall in particular is viewed as a musical version of his life story.  His 1985 parting with the group was messy, with Waters filing suit to prevent Gilmour and Mason from continuing to use the name Pink Floyd.  He later expressed regrets for having done so.  Of the surviving members, Waters remains by far the most musically active, having mounted multiple massive solo tours featuring the music he created while in Floyd.

Other Noteworthy classic rock events on September 6 include...

1961 Bob Dylan does first New York City performance at the Gaslight in Greenwich Village.

1961 Judas Priest’s Scott Travis born.

1967 Dylan documentary Don't Look Back premieres in New York City.

1968 Beatles record While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Eric Clapton on guitar.

1970 Jimi Hendrix does last concert at Isle Of Fehmarn in Germany.

1974 T.Rex opens a US tour. 
1980 U2 opens Boy tour in Coventry, UK.

1982 Paul McCartney releases Tug of War.

1988 Elton John auctions thousands of items from his personal collection of memorabilia.

1990 Creedence Clearwater Revival veteran Tom Fogerty dies at 48 of TB and AIDS.

1994 Keyboard great Nicky Hopkins dies  after undergoing intestinal surgery.

1994 Pink Floyd members dine with President Havel in Czech Republic.

1995 Bruce Hornsby plays National Anthem at Camden Yards in Baltimore before Orioles game.

1997 David Bowie opens a North American tour in Vancouver.

1999 Stone Temple Pilots troubled leader Scott Weiland draws a 1 year sentence for violating parole conditions.

2005 Rolling Stones release A Bigger Bang.

2008 Great Whit pays $1 million to families that lost someone in the Station night club fire in Rhode Island. 

Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara on Zanzibar September 5, 1948, the future front man of Queen got his musical start on piano and was in his first band at the age of 12. Fleeing political turmoil, his family relocated to Middlesex, UK , where he studied art and graphic design in school, Mercury also stayed active as a band member in a string of bands through his mid-late teen years. Queen formed in the spring of 1970 and Farrokh Bulsara adopted the name Freddie Mercury. The flamboyant lead singer of the band he described as the Cecil B. DeMille of Rock went on to establish himself as one of the greatest front men in history before the ravages of AIDS forced him to retire from performing.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 5 include...

1945 Al Stewart born.   

1947 Electric Flag and Jimi Hendrix Band of Gyspys drummer Buddy Miles born. 

1949 Humble Pie, Colosseum guitarist David Clem Clempson born. 

1963 The Rolling Stones opened their 4th UK tour.

1965 Rolling Stones record Get Off of My Cloud.
1966 Filming begins of How I Won the War film with John Lennon.

1969 Dweezil Zappa born.   

1970 Janis Joplin records Me an Bobby McGee.

1975 Jethro Tull releases Minstrel In The Gallery. 

1976 Lynyrd Skynyrd's Gary Rossington suffers serious injuries in a car wreck in Florida.

1981 Bruce Springsteen joins the Pretenders during Pasadena, CA encore. 
1987 The Cult's Ian Astbury charged with inciting a riot during the group's Vacouver concert.

1988 Metallica releases And Justice For All.

1990 B.B. King awarded star on Hollywood Walk Of Fame. 

1991 REM wins Best Video award for Losing My Religion.

1992 John Mellencamp marries Elaine Erwin.

2003 Neil Young's Greendale movie premiers at Toronto Film Festival.

2015 Faces finally reunite, but just for 7 songs during benefit in Surrey, UK.

2015 REO Speedwagon’s Gary Richrath dies.  

2016 An asteroid is named in honor of Freddie Mercury on his 70th birthday.

2018 Neil Finn and Mike Campbell debut in Fleetwood Mac when the band does two songs on the Ellen Degeneris Show.

2019 Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section guitarist Jimmy Johnson dies at 76.

A couple of good ones from the Stones and Who got released on this day a dozen years apart.  Get Your Ya Ya's Out came out on September 4, 1970. It's Hard from the Who hit the streets on 9/4/1982.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 4 include...

1944 Gene Parsons of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers born.

1946 Quicksilver Messenger Service’s Gary Duncan and Greg Elkmore born,  

1951 Pretenders drummer Martin Chambers born.   

1959 Soundgarden’s Kim Thayill born. 

1964 Animals do first US concert at Paramount Theater in Brooklyn.   

1965 Who equipment truck stolen while band is buying a guard dog.   

1968 The Beatles film Hey Jude and Revolution videos.

1986 Gregg Allman arrested on DUI charge in Florida.   

1996 Fiona Chappel, a house guest at Bruce Springsteen’s Rumson, NJ home, dies.   

1997 Bruce Springsteen joins Wallflowers on One Headlight during MTV Awards show at Radio City Music Hall in New York. 

2007 Chris & Rich Robinson release Birds Of A Feather.

2007 Patti Scialfa releases Play It As it Lays.   

2008 Original copy of Beatles management contract auctioned for $426,000. The first Fender guitar Jimi Hendrix set on fire goes for $497,000 in the same London sale.  

2009 Todd Rundgren special exhibit opens at Rock Hall of Fame. 

2013 Adam Clayton marries Brazilian model Marianade Carvalho in low-key Dublin ceremony. 

2017 James Hetfield avoids serious injury when he falls through opening in the stage during Metallica concert at Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam.
2022 John Till, guitarist in Janis Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie Band, dies at 78.

On this date in 1982, the US Festival opened a 3 day run that includes sets from Fleetwood Mac, Cars, Grateful Dead, Talking Heads, Jackson Browne, Eddie Money, Santana, the Kinks, Pat Benatar, Tom Petty, the Police, Jimmy Buffett in San Bernardino,California. Close to 400,00 attend the event underwritten by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, but the event reportedly loses more than 10 million dollars.

Other Noteworthy September 3 Classic Rock events include..

1934 Freddie King born.

1942 Al Jardine of Beach Boys born.
1947 Thin Lizzy's Eric Bell born. 

1948 Grand Funk Railroad's Donald Brewer born.

1955 Sex Pistols Steve Jones born.

1965 Mick Jagger flattened when fans rush the stage during a Rolling Stones concert in Dublin.

1967 Woody Guthrie dies of Huntington's Chorea at 52.

1968 Ringo Starr rejoins Beatles after quitting 8/23 during White Album recording sessions.

1969 Band releases The Band.

1970 Canned Heat's Al Wilson dies.

1971 Fleetwood Mac releases Future Games.

1983 Metallica wraps up its first tour.

1988 The Story Of The Clash released.

1991 Rush releases Roll The Bones.

1994 Crosby Stills & Nash release After The Storm.

2002 The Rolling Stones open their Licks US tour in Boston.

2010Electric Light Orchestra's Mike Edwards dies when a hay truck plows into his car.

2017 Steely Dan's Walter Becker dies of Esophageal cancer at 67.

2021 Judas Priest releases Senjutsu.

2022 The first of two Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts is staged at London's Wembley Stadium.

 

Cleveland's Municipal Stadium hosted the Grand Opening concert for the Rock Hall Of Fame on this night in 1995. Sure-thing early inductees that accepted invites to perform include Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers Band, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lou Reed, Little Richard, the Kinks, Aretha Franklin, and Robbie Robertson.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 2 include...

1957 Steve Porcaro of Toto born.

1970 Phil Collins answers ad for drummer in Melody Maker placed by Geneisis.    

1971 Drummer Mickey Hart's father is arrested and charged with keeping $70 k of the Grateful Dead's money.

1982 Fleetwood Mac opens Mirage tour.   

1986 Justin Hayward hospitalized for exhaustion after Moody Blues concert in LA. 

1988 Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel play Amnesty International benefit in London. 

1989 Ozzy Osbourne arrested for threatening wife, charges later dropped.   

1996 Styx does National Anthem before Bears-Cowboys game at Soldier Field in Chicago. 

2001 A bomb threat interrupts a Clarence Clemmons set at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ.   

2009 John Fogerty does free concert with Blue Ridge Rangers at South Street Seaport in New York City.

2013 Elton John is awarded the first Brits Icon Award.

2018 Lynyrd Skynyrd does its last concert in the band's hometown, Jacksonville, Florida. The Charlie Daniels Band, Marshall Tucker Band, Blackberry Smoke, Kid Rock and Jason Aldean also play.

Styx was out with its 8th studio album, Pieces of Eight,  on this day in 1978.  The follow-up to the previous year's The Grand Illusion brought even more success to the band that was establishing itself as one of the top mid-western bands of the 70's. Oddly, the songs that would prove to be the biggest ones on the release were all on side two of the 10 track album; Blue Collar Man (Long Nights), Queen of Spades, Renegade, and the title track.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on the first of September include... 

1956 Elvis Presley buys his mother a Pink Cadillac. 

1967 Boz Scaggs joins the Steve Miller Band. 

1969 Isle of Wight Festival opens.   

1975 Grateful Dead release Blues For Allah. 

1977 Rush releases A Farewell To Kings. 

1979 INXS has live debut in Sydney.   

1983 Clash fires Mick Jones.   

1986 Paul McCartney releases Press to Play.

1989 Adam Clayton of U2 acquitted on marijuana charges in Dublin.   

1989 Motley Crue releases Dr. Feelgood.  

2007 Roger Waters, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Jimmy Buffett jam during Labor Day weekend party at Jon Bon Jovi's Long Island home. 

2009 Black Crowes release Before The Frost and Until The Freeze.