Legal disputes over the rights to his own songs made John Fogerty reluctant to perform Creedence Clearwater Revival music for a number of years as a solo artist.  It may have also have been a factor in why no official video was ever released for one of CCR's biggest songs. That changed this week.

The late, great Lowell George of Little Feat left this world on this date in 1979.

On this date in 1969, $6 was all it took to get into the opening day of the Denver Pop Festival, a 3 day event at, appropriately, Mile High Stadium that included performances by Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Three Dog Night, Joe Cocker, Tim Buckley, The Flock and others. June 29th, the promoter   declared it a free festival. It closed with police attempting to clear the field with a tear gas barrage during the the last performance ever by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

On this day in 1976 the Grateful Dead released the double album recorded during the band's Wall Of Sound tour concerts in the fall of 1974 at Winterland in San Francisco.  Ironically, the album title is a lyric extracted He's Gone, a song that is not included on the record.

It's high decibels and hot cars on Huntington Beach in SoCal on October 6th when Sammy Hagar stages his High Tide Beach Party & Car Show.  The Red Rocker had no trouble recruiting other Rockers that think cars and guitars are a great combination.  Hagar and his Circle band with Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham and Vic Johnson will be joined on the surf side bill by Joe Satriani, REO Speedwagon, Vince Neil and several other performers.

A couple of great musicians and band leaders were born on this date a couple of years apart.

He might not be able to count on birthday good wishes from his brother, so we'll extend them.

The Wilson sisters grew up in a very mobile and musical household. Daughters of a career Marine, Ann and Nancy lived in the Far East and Central America before the family settled in Washington state.  Their father's ranging musical tastes meant the Wilson home was frequently filled with classical, opera, showtunes, jazz and rock.  Ann overcame a childhood stutter with the help of music and went on to become one of the most powerful front women in music with Heart.

It was Rock & Bowl on the Jersey shore Monday night (6/18) when Bruce Springsteen joined the Tangiers Blues Band on four songs at the re-opening of Asbury Lanes as a music venue.  Bruce and the band tore into Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu, I Just Want to Make Love to You, Down the Road Apiece and Twist and Shout.

The accolades and awards are mind boggling. He could have retired comfortably decades ago. Instead, just a few days shy of his 76th birthday, Paul McCartney did an unannounced pub concert with his band for around 50 people.  Born on this day in 1942, we salute MACCA.

He launched his post James Gang career with a solo album released on June 17, 1973 with a wacky title and never stopped. Alons the way, he gave us reeases titled So What, You Can't Argue witha Sick Mind, But Seriously, Flolks, There Goes The Neighborhood, You Bought it - You Name It, Got Any Gum and ordinary Average Guy.

David Bowie released the groundbreaking album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars on this day in 1972. The album's lead figure was an androgynous Rocker that channeled messages from extraterrestrials to humans.  Much of the material on the album had been performed during stops on a tour Bowie began in January of the release year.

Jackson Browne and Stevie Ray Vaughan don't have much in common musical style wise, but Jackson had an important role in the Texan guitar great's early career.  Browne saw Vaughan perform at the Montreux Jazz festival in 1982 and was so impressed that he invited Stevie and his band to use his LA studio for free. Songs they recorded there got the band signed by John Hammond, the legendary producer credited with landing contracts for Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin and many others.  Texas Flood, Stevie Ray's debut studio album with Double Trouble was recorded in just a couple of days, with no overdubs. It came out on this day in 1983.
 

Boston's Brad Delp was born on this day in 1951 in Peabody Mass.  Delp not only did all of the lead vocals on the group's monumentally successful 1976 debut album, he did all of the background vocals as well.  Brad, Barry Goudreau and Fran Sheehan were also together in the group RTZ in the early 90's. Sadly, Delp took his own life in his New Hampshire home in March of 2007, leaving behind a note in French that read simply, "I am a lonely soul'.

Happy birthday to the guy in ZZ Top that doesn't need a beard because he IS one, drummer Frank Beard.

Billy Joel was on hand at the Tony Awards in New York Sunday (6/10) night to hand Bruce Springsteen a Lifetime Achievement award.  Springsteen, whose solo run on Broadway has been extended three times, accepted it with brief remarks that included him saying, 'Thank you for making me feel so welcome on your block. Being a part of the Broadway community has been a great thrill and an honor for me, and it's been one of the most exciting things that I've ever experienced.  Bruce was back later in the show to deliver a poignant sliver from one man show - a spoken intro about his family and neighborhood followed with a portion of My Hometown.

  Photo: CBS.com

Paul McCartney popped up in a Liverpool club Saturday to do an unannounced concert.  The show at the Philharmonic Club in the city the Beatles put on the musical map came at the end of a day McCartney had been seen in several places with James Corden and free tickets were reportedly distributed by a television industry company, so maybe some of it will get aired on his show.

Fleetwood Mac did not gain huge international acclaim until 1975, but in its early years released some really good albums. One contributor to those passed away Friday. Danny Kirwan was just 17 when he was opening club shows for Fleetwood Mac as the guitar player in the band Boilerhouse. He impressed the headliners enough to be asked to join FM in 1968.  He was a member during the years the band produced Then Play On, Kiln House, Future Games and Bare Trees. Kirwan was fired after refusing to take the stage with the band at a concert during its US tour in the fall of 1972.

Canton, Ohio, home of the Football Hall of Fame can also boast of being the birthplace of guitar great William Royce 'Boz' Scaggs. His family relocated to Texas when Scaggs was quite young. He met Steve Miller at a school the pair attended and they formed a group known as the Marksmen.  Scaggs and Miller continued playing together while at the University of Wisconsin before Boz headed off to Europe and recorded a solo album. Reuniting in San Francisco in 1967, Scaggs was on the first two Steve Miller Band albums before  landing his own contract and putting out his outstanding 1968 album that featured Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.

John Fogerty and Billy Gibbons serve this funky track.

On this day in 1977, Alice Cooper's Boa Constrictor had the tables turned on it when a rat served as its dinner bit the reptile, causing an infection that killed the snake.

One of the biggest releases of the 1980's made its debut on June 4. 1984.  Born In The U.S.A. was Bruce Springsteen's 7th studio album and is close to having sold 40 million copies.  It also has the distinction of being the first commercially released U.S. made compact disc.

The Ian Gillan, Roger Glover era of Deep Purple began with the release of Deep Purple In Rock, the group's 4th studio album, on this date in 1970.  Ian Hunter (1946), Suzi Quatro (1950) and Lynyrd Skynyrd's Billy Powell (1952) were born on June 3. The Stones opened the Exile On Main Street tour ('72), Phil Collins released Face Value ('81)... and in 1970, Ray Davies of the Kinks had to fly from New York back to London to change the lyric in Lola from "Coca-Cola" to "cherry cola" because the BBC was refusing to play it as originally recorded.

After a 3 year recording hiatus brought on by legal wrangling with his former manager, Bruce was back on this day in 1978 with his highly anticipated follow-up to Born To Run. Springsteen had stockpiled close to 70 songs between albums. Some of the ones he left off of Darkness were big songs for other artists.  Because The Night became the top track of Patti Smith's career and was also a hit for the Pointers Sisters. Fire put Robert Gordon on a lot of peoples radar. Bay Area rocker Greg Kihn had a good run with Rendezvous and Southside Johnny included three Darkness leftovers on his Hearts of Stone album.

On his 23rd birthday in 1964, this drummer played his first US concert on June 2 at a high school football field in Lynn, Massachusetts.  Happy birthday Charlie!

A birthday salute on this first day of June to Jeff Beck Group, Faces and Rolling Stones veteran and two time Rock Hall of Fame member Ron Wood!