Drummer Bill Kruetzmann was born on this day in 1946 in Palo Alto, California. The future co-founding drummer of the Warlocks and the Grateful Dead was undeterred by a school music teacher who pronounced him incapable of keeping a beat. He developed his own style derived in part from listening to R&B session drummers and from relentless solo drumming sessions on a Slingerlands kit he'd gotten. Lore has it that English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley happened to hear young Kreuetzmann wailing away on the skins in a large, empty room at his school. Drawn to the scene by the innovative style of what the young drummer was laying down, Huxley was said to have remarked that he'd never heard anything like it, and that he encouraged Kreuetzmann to keep it up. 

 

Other  Noteworthy classic rock events on May 7 include...

 

 

1950 Tubes Prairie Prince is born.

1951 David Bowie band member Carlos Alomar is born.

1961 Motorhead's Phil Campbell is born. 1972 Reginald Dwight officially changes his name to Elton Hercules John.

1974 Led Zeppelin hosts a launch party for The group's Swan Song record label.

1985 Promoter Bill Graham’s San Francisco offices burn – arson is suspected.

1991 A court rules against a couple that sought to hold Ozzy Osbourne responsible for their son's attempted suicide.

1998 Steve Perry exits Journey for the second time.

2002 The Rolling Stones arrive via blimp in New York's Central Park to announce their 2002-2003 tour.

2003 Fleetwood Mac opens Say You Will tour in Columbus, Ohio.

2006 Rolling Stone magazine publishes issue 1,000.

2006 Roger Daltrey sings song he wrote for his favorite soccer team at closing of their stadium. He says the invitation is more exciting to him than when the Who were invited to play Woodstock.

2011 Bob Weir performs with the Marin County Symphony Orchestra in California. 2022 U2's Bono and The Edge do a 40 minute set in an underground metro station doing double duty as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine during the Russian invasion of the country.