1786 ~ Friedrich Kuhlau, German-born Danish composer and pianist
More information about Kuhlau

• 1847 ~ This night an audience at the Eagle Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania enjoyed Foster’s rendition of his minstrel song, Oh! Susanna. Stephen got a bottle of whiskey for his performance.

• 1850 ~ Jenny Lind sang at the Castle Garden Theatre in New York City. It was her first performance in America. Lind’s voice was so sweet that she was nicknamed ‘The Swedish Nightingale’.

• 1911 ~ Alice Tully, American mezzo-soprano and music patron

1956 ~ Arvo Pärt (1935) Estonian composer
More information about Pärt

• 1942 ~ Lola Falana, Singer, actress

• 1944 ~ Mickey Hart, Drummer, songwriter with Grateful Dead

• 1944 ~ Phil May, Singer with The Pretty Things; Fallen Angels

• 1945 ~ Ernest Tubb recorded It Just Doesn’t Matter Now and Love Turns to Hate on the Decca label. Tubb became the second recording artist to have made a commercial record in Nashville, TN.

• 1946 ~ Dennis Tufano, Guitarist, singer with The Buckinghams

• 1952 ~ Tommy Shaw, Guitarist with Styx

• 1959 ~ On this day in 1959 a statue to honor songwriter George M. Cohan was unveiled in New York City’s Duffy Square. Ten thousand people watched and sang his “Give My Regards to Broadway.” Today crowds gather near the statue daily to buy half-priced theater tickets.

• 1962 ~ Ringo Starr joined John, Paul and George for his first recording session as a Beatle, replacing bounced drummer Pete Best. Love Me Do was the result and it took 17 takes to complete … to everyone’s satisfaction.

• 1967 ~ Harry Connick, Jr., Grammy Award-winning singer

• 1969 ~ Leon Payne passed away

• 1984 ~ Bruce Springsteen broke the attendance record at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Boss entertained 16,800 fans for the first of six sold-out shows. Springsteen broke his own record; one he set during a visit to Philly in 1981.

• 1993 ~ Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian-born American conductor, died at the age of 81

• 2001 ~ Larry Kegan, a singer-songwriter who performed in concert with Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne and others, died of cardiac arrest. He was 59. Kegan sang at Gov. Jesse Ventura’s inaugural celebration in 1999, at American Indian functions and at Stillwater prison. A paraplegic since a diving accident when he was 15, and a quadriplegic after a car accident a decade later, Kegan was nonetheless very active. Kegan ran a resort for disabled veterans in Mexico and managed orange groves in Florida before returning to Minnesota in the mid-1970s. He met Dylan when they were teenagers at a summer camp. Decades later, in 1978, Dylan dedicated his album Street Legal to Kegan.

• 2004 ~ Fred Ebb, American lyricist

• 2017 ~ Peter Hall, English stage, film and opera director (Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre director), died at the age of 86