October 21

Events

 * 1907 - "The Merry Widow" (opera) opened in New York City, NY.
 * 1908 - A "Saturday Evening Post" advertisement offered a chance to buy a two-sided record from Columbia.
 * 1938 - Jan Savitt's orchestra recorded "Quaker City Jazz."
 * 1958 - Buddy Holly recorded his last studio session.
 * 1958 - Holly and the Crickets recorded "True Love Ways," "Moondreams," "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," and "Raining in my Heart."
 * 1961 - Bob Dylan recorded "Bob Dylan," his first album. He was 20 years old when he did the recording for Columbia Records. The cost to produce the session was $400.
 * 1964 - The movie musical "My Fair Lady" made its world premier in New York.
 * 1996 - Jay Bargieri, a former executive with EMI Records, announced the launch of the first Internet record label. The record label, Jay-Bird Records, is the first of its kind.
 * 1998 - Alice Cooper filed suit against KISS members Paul Stanley and Bruce Kulick alleging their song "Dreamin'" sounds too much like the song "Eighteen" by Cooper.

Births

 * 1775 – Giuseppe Baini, Italian composer (d. 1844)
 * 1908 - Composer Howard Ferguson was born.
 * 1912 – Sir Georg Solti, Hungarian conductor (d. 1997)
 * 1917 – Dizzy Gillespie, American musician (d. 1993)
 * 1921 – Sir Malcolm Arnold, British composer (d. 2006)
 * 1940 – Manfred Mann, English musician
 * 1941 – Steve Cropper, American musician
 * 1942 – Elvin Bishop, American musician
 * 1946 – Lux Interior, American singer (The Cramps) (d. 2009)
 * 1946 – Lee Loughnane, American musician
 * 1952 – Brent Mydland, American keyboardist (Grateful Dead) (d. 1990)
 * 1953 – Keith Green, American musician (d. 1982)
 * 1953 – Charlotte Caffey, American musician (The Go-Go's)
 * 1955 – Rich Mullins, American musician (d. 1997)
 * 1957 – Julian Cope, English musician and writer
 * 1964 – Jon Carin, American musician (Pink Floyd, The Who)
 * 1965 – Hisashi Imai, Japanese musician (BUCK-TICK, Lucy)
 * 1971 – Nick Oliveri, American musician
 * 1972 – Matthew Friedberger, American musician (The Fiery Furnaces)
 * 1973 – Lera Auerbach, Russian composer
 * 1974 – Costel Busuioc, Romanian tenor
 * 1976 – Josh Ritter, American musician
 * 1980 – Brian Pittman, American musician (Relient K)
 * 1982 – Tim Wildsmith, American musician
 * 1983 – Ninette Tayeb, Israeli singer

Deaths

 * 1965 – Bill Black, American musician (b. 1926)
 * 1991 – Lorenc Antoni, Kosovo Albanian composer (b. 1909)
 * 1995 – Shannon Hoon, American singer (Blind Melon) (b. 1967)
 * 1995 – Maxene Andrews, American singer (The Andrews Sisters) (b. 1916)
 * 2003 – Elliott Smith, American musician (b. 1969)
 * 2006 – Sandy West, American musician (The Runaways) (b. 1959)
 * 2007 – Paul Fox, English musician and singer (The Ruts) (b. 1951)