Today in Rock Music History

April 17th

1973 Pink Floyd gets a gold record for “Dark Side Of The Moon.”

This is only the beginning of the awards. After all, it has the longest run of any album on the Billboard 200.

1976 The Eagles “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)” is the #1 album on the Billboard 200.

1976 Queen’s “A Night At The Opera” peaks at #4 on the U.S. album charts.

Queen’s fourth album takes its title from a Marx Brothers movie. The following year the band releases “A Day At The Races,” also the title of a Marx Brothers film.

MORE TODAY IN ROCK…

1960 Eddie (“Summertime Blues”) Cochran is killed at age 21 in a car accident outside of London. The taxi carrying Cochran, his fiancée Sharon Sheeley and Gene Vincent crashes into a lamppost on Rowden Hill. No other car is involved. Sheeley and Vincent are seriously injured but survive. Cochran and Vincent had recently decided to extend their successful tour of the U.K.

1964 Vocalist Maynard James Keenan (born James Herbert Keenan) enters the world. A native of Ravenna, OH, Keenan joins Tool in ’90 and is also a member of A Perfect Circle.

1967 Liz Phair is born an exile in Guyville. Actually, it’s New Haven, CT. She was raised in Winnetka, IL.

1972 The Hollies release the hit single “Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress).” It peaks at #2 on the Billboard 100 and sells over 2-million copies.

1980 Ronnie James Dio makes his concert debut as Black Sabbath’s singer replacing Ozzy Osbourne (who was fired from the band). The show is in the German city of Aurich.

1982 Van Halen’s cover of Roy Orbison’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman” just misses the U.S. Top 10 (#12).

1989 Ozzy Osbourne’s “No Rest For The Wicked” is certified platinum (over one-million in sales) by the record industry.

2004 ABC News reports that AC/DC’s “Shoot To Thrill” is among the Rock tracks that U.S. Marines play in Fallujah, Iraq, to rattle Iraqi insurgents.

2010 “Between The Lines,” the lead single from Stone Temple Pilots self-titled comeback album, is #1 on Billboard’s Rock Songs chart.

2012 A collection of five vintage guitars belonging to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, worth a reported $175,000, are recovered by law enforcement after they were stolen the previous week. Petty took to Twitter to help recover them, offering a $7,500 reward, no questions asked.

2013 Slipknot/Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor launches a comic book series, House Of Gold & Bones (also the name of the Stone Sour concept double album). “This has been a dream of mine for years now, and this project was tailor made for a comic, no pun intended,” says Taylor. The sci-fi/fantasy is a morality play “set in this crazy world where nothing’s really what it seems, but at the center of it is really a concept about life and evolution and changes.”

2013 Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry receive the ASCAP Founders Award during the 30th annual Pop Music Awards (presented by the performance rights organization) at the Loews Hollywood Hotel. “To be recognized by ASCAP with the Founders Award is a huge achievement,” Tyler says in a statement.

2013 The Doors’ drummer John Densmore publishes his memoir “The Doors: Unhinged.” This is Densmore’s second shot at chronicling the iconic late-60’s band. His first was ’91s “Riders On The Storm.”

2014 The bio flick “Super Duper Alice Cooper” has its world premiere at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival.

2018 “Scream For Me Sarajevo,” a documentary telling the story of a ‘94 concert given by Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson during the Bosnian War, is screened in select U.K. cinemas.

2023 The surviving members of Soundgarden and vocalist Chris Cornell’s widow, Vicky, end their long-running legal conflict and reach “an amicable out of court resolution.” The agreement “will allow Soundgarden fans around the world to hear the final songs that the band and Chris were working on,” according to a statement.” 

2024 Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose launches his own official website.