Milli Vanilli

This Day in Music History — November 19

1979 : Loverboy plays their first ever concert, opening for Kiss at The Coliseum in Vancouver.

1979 : Frank Zappa’s one and only rock opera, Joe’s Garage, is released. The second half came out November 19th, the first half was released in the previous September. The opera mixes styles of Blues, Jazz, Doo Wop, Lounge, Orchestral, Rock, Pop and Reggae. While it draws controversy at the time for profane lyrics, it has since been hailed as a cultural milestone and landmark album. The work also looks forward to Zappa’s later crusade against the PMRC with its themes of government censorship, and introduces a few memes into the Zappa lexicon, including “The Central Scrutinizer,” “a little green rosetta,” and of course, the term “roto-plooker.”

1990 : The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences strips the 1989 best new artist Grammy from the group Milli Vanilli because Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan didn’t actually sing on their debut album, Girl You Know It’s True. It is the first time a Grammy has ever been taken back.

2002 : While greeting fans from a fifth-floor hotel balcony in Berlin, Michael Jackson shocks the world by dangling his newborn son Prince Michael II over the side of the railing.

This Day in Music History — November 15

1968 : Janis Joplin performs her last gig with Big Brother and the Holding Company at New York’s Hunter College.

1990 : German producer Frank Farian admits that Milli Vanilli (Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan) didn’t actually sing on the album Girl You Know It’s True. A scandal ensues and the duo are stripped of the Best New Artist Grammy.

2000 : Michael Abram, the Liverpool native who broke into George Harrison’s home and stabbed him in an incident earlier in the year, is found not guilty by reason of insanity at Oxford Crown Court. Abram is ordered confined to a mental hospital for an indefinite period of time.

2005 : Alabama, Glen Campbell and DeFord Bailey are inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame during the Country Music Association Awards in New York.