Robert Weston Smith, the radio DJ known as Wolfman Jack, was born on this day in 1938. His raspy voice, howls and irreverent asides as he intro and outro songs on XERF, a 250,000 watt radio station in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico that blasted its signal across a large portion of the United States, made him a radio legend. He would later relocate to XERB, a 50,000 watt station in Southern California and then Minneapolis, but he continued recording shows for the Mexican station that operated at 5x the power output US stations were permitted to transmit at.
On January 21 in 1968, Jimi Hendrix cut what many consider the best cover song ever recorded, his version of Dylan's All Along The Watchtower. The session included Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and Traffic's Dave Mason on guitar, and Jimi played bass as well as lead guitar on the track.
Soul man Jackie Wilson had a heart attack while performing in New Jersey on this day in 1984. He went into a coma and passed away eight years later.
Aerosmith's Joe Perry received the Les Paul Award today in 2017.