1942
Chris Hillman, bass player for the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds, is born.

1944
Beach Boy drummer Dennis Wilson is born in Hawthorne, Calif. He dies in 1983.

1948
Southside Johnny is born.

1949
Actor Jeff Bridges is born in Los Angeles, Calif. At the age of 16, Bridges writes a song that is included on the soundtrack to the 1969 film John and Mary. He later sells two songs to Quincy Jones. Bridges has penned over 200 songs, and in late 1999 he releases his debut album, Be Here Soon.

1951
Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd is born.
Lynyrd Skynyrd "Freebird" 1975

1956
Four Sun Records stars - Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash - record what will later be known as the Million Dollar Quartet. Recordings from the impromptu session won't be released for 25 years.

1957
Prompted by reports that many radio stations have banned Elvis' Christmas album because of the averred impropriety of "the Pelvis" singing religious songs, DJ Allen Brooks of CKWS, Kingston, Ontario, plays the album and invites listeners to call in their opinion. Of eight hundred callers, all but 56 approve of Presley's sacred music.

1961
Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl" is released on Vee Jay Records. It becomes his biggest hit reaching Number One and selling over one million copies worldwide.

1964
The Beatles fan club in England announces its current membership now totals 65,000.

1965
The Kinks enter the Hot 100 with a song that sets them apart from every other contemporary British band, "A Well Respected Man," a tune which marks the beginning of band leader Ray Davies' look of the British way of life. The song peaks at #13 in its 14 weeks on the charts.

1965
The Knickerbockers enter the Hot 100 with their first of only three hits, "Lies," which tops out at #20 in thirteen weeks.

1965
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is knocked out by an underground microphone during a concert in Sacramento, California. He recovers in seven minutes and the concert continues.

1968
The New York Times quotes Soviet music critic A. Martinosa saying that the Beatles "have become rich idols of the Philistines."

1969
President Richard Nixon, Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew, and forty U.S. governors embark on a magical mystery fact-finding mission to discover the causes of the generation gap. They view films of "simulated acid trips" and listen to hours of "anti-establishment rock music."

1970
Supersession, an album which came about after an ad hoc studio jam session with Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Steve Stills, is certified gold.

1971
Sly and the Family Stone's "Family Affair" begins a three-week reign in the Number One spot on the pop chart. It is their third and last Number One record and their last to make the Top Ten.

1975
Alive!, the fourth album by Kiss, goes gold - as has every one of the band's other albums.

1976
Tommy Bolin of Deep Purple dies of a drug overdose at the age of 25.

1980
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones make public their decision not to re-form Led Zeppelin in the wake of the death of drummer John "Bonzo" Bonham. Fifteen years later, Page and Plant get together for a highly successful tour.

1987
Madonna filed for divorce from actor Sean Penn. She later changes her mind but files again in January of 1988.

1988
Roy Orbison gives his final concert in Akron, Ohio. He will die 2 days later.

1989
The Supreme Court upholds a ruling that says Prince did not steal the song, "U Got The Look" from his half-sister. Lorna Nelson claimed the lyrics were similar to ones she had written.

1990
Madonna appears on Nightline to defend her "Justify My Love" video, which was banned by MTV. She denies the video's explicit contents were meant to stir up controversy and get her publicity.

1991
Van Halen performs a free concert in Dallas. Lead singer Sammy Hagar had promised to do the show because he had lost his voice during a concert in Dallas three and a half years earlier.

1991
Paula Abdul is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1993
Frank Zappa dies of pancreatic cancer at age 52.

1994
Singer Aretha Franklin, composer Morton Gould and folk singer Pete Seeger are among those honored at ceremonies held by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

1995
Mary Chapin Carpenter, Pam Tillis, John Berry, David Ball, and Bryan White are among the singers performing on World AIDS Day at the third annual Country Music CARES concert at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry House.

1995
Michael Jackson appears with legendary mime Marcel Marceau at New York news conference promoting a Jackson special airing on HBO.

1997
Gail Menscer, mother of country singer Doug Stone, dies from cancer.

2004
Budding pop star Ashlee Simpson faces negative publicity following the inadvertent exposure of a lip-synched appearance on Saturday Night Live.

2005
"Exotic chanteuse" Gloria Lasso dies at Cuernavaca in Mexico, aged 83. Lasso was one of France's most popular singers and performers of the 1950s. Her 1956 song "Etranger au Paradis" was the first single to sell more than a million units in France.

December 4

• Wassily Kandinsky 1866
• Francisco Franco 1892
• Deanna Durbin 1921
• Wink Martindale 1934
• Max Baer Jr. 1937
• Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon 1940
• Chris Hillman 1942
• Bob Mosley (Moby Grape) 1942
• Chris Hillman (Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds) 1942
• Dennis Wilson (Beach Boys) 1944
• Southside Johnny Lyon 1948
• Jeff Bridges 1949
• Patricia Wettig 1951
• Gary Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd) 1951
• Cassandra Wilson 1955
• Brian Prout (Diamond Rio) 1955
• Bob Griffin (The BoDeans) 1959
• Vinnie Dombroski (Sponge) 1962
• Jozef Sabovcik 1963
• Marisa Tomei 1964
• Chelsea Noble 1964
• Tyra Banks 1973
• Lila McCann 1981
• Orlando Brown 1987

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