This Day in Music History: David Bowie gets his first sell-out show in the US, Stevie Wonder releases Songs In The Key Of Life

1963 – Murray The K becomes the first American DJ to play a Beatles song on the air when he spins their UK hit “She Loves You” on WINS in New York. Murray would get exclusive interviews with the group when they came to America and would refer to himself as “The Fifth Beatle.”

1968 – Janis Joplin’s manager, Albert Grossman, announces that his client is leaving her band Big Brother And The Holding Company, feeling that they weren’t “growing together.”

1972 – David Bowie earns his first sell-out in the US at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

1976 – George Harrison, currently ill with hepatitis, is sued for $6 million by his American label, A&M, for failing to deliver his latest album on time. The album, 33 & 1/3, is two months overdue.

1976 – Stevie Wonder releases his eighteenth studio album, Songs in the Key of Life. The ambitious double LP with a four-song bonus EP debuts at #1 on the Billboard Chart on October 8, 1976.

1991 – Jazz legend Miles Davis dies of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and stroke at age 65.

1991 – Guns N’ Roses releases 2 albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debut at numbers 1 & 2 on both the US and UK album charts.

2004 – Brian Wilson Presents Smile is released 40 years after the would-be Beach Boys concept album was first conceived.

Information for this post was gathered from This Day in Music, The Music History Calendar, On This Day, and Wikipedia.