April 7 in Music History: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet, Prince releases his debut album

1956 – The CBS Radio Network premiers the first regularly scheduled national broadcast rock & roll show, Alan Freed’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance Party.

1959 – As the snow melts in Mason City, Iowa, Buddy Holly’s glasses are found from the plane crash that killed him two months earlier. They are turned in to police, where they stay until 1980 when a sheriff finds them and returns them to Holly’s widow.

1962 – Mick Jagger and Keith Richards first meet Brian Jones at Ealing Jazz Club in West London. Jones is calling himself Elmo Lewis and playing guitar with singer Paul Jones, who is performing under the name P.P. Jones.

1968 – Three days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nina Simone performs “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)” at the Westbury Music Fair in his honor. The song was written by her bassist, Gene Taylor, less than 24 hours earlier.

1971 – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young release 4 Way Street.

1975 – After a show in Paris, Ritchie Blackmore leaves Deep Purple to form Rainbow. He is eventually replaced by Tommy Bolin.

1978 – Prince releases his debut album, For You.

1981 – Rick James releases Street Songs.

1981 – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kick off their first full-scale tour outside of North America in Hamburg, Germany.

2008 – Bob Dylan receives an honorary Pulitzer Prize for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture.” He is the first rock musician to win the award.

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