It’s January 13th and here are some reasons why this day matters in rock history:

In 1973, Eric Clapton made his stage comeback at London’s Rainbow Theatre. The guitarist’s friend, Pete Townshend, organized the concert to help Clapton kick his heroin habit. Ronnie Wood, Steve Winwood and many others performed and the night’s two gigs eventually were released as theRainbow Concert album.

In 1978, The Police began recording their debut album, Outlandos d’Amour.

In 2004, the NFL turned down Bono’s request to perform a new song called “An American Prayer” with Jennifer Lopez during the Super Bowl halftime show. The U2 singer hoped to raise awareness of AIDS in Africa with the tune but the NFL said, “We don’t believe it’s appropriate to focus on a single issue.”

In 1986, Ozzy Osbourne was taken to court by the parents of John McCollum, a depressed teenager who shot himself while listening to Ozzy’s song “Suicide Solution.” The parents claimed that their son was driven to suicide by the tune.

And in 2004, The Beastie Boys offered their defunct label Grand Royal for sale at Bid4Assets.com with a minimum bid of 10-thousand dollars. They started the company in 1992 with Capitol Records but due to mounting debts, it went out of business in 2001. The company, which did not include rights to Beastie music, was bought by a group of fans who then started GR2 Records.

And that’s what happened today in rock history.

(H/T This Day in Music)

Michele Michaels