March

On 3/5/63 country singer Patsy Cline was killed (along with Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Randy Hughes) when her manager's Piper Comanche airplane crashed near Camden, Tennessee. Cline was returning to Nashville after performing a benefit concert in Kansas City, Missouri…. Los Angeles police raided radio station KHJ at 7 a.m. on 3/15/72 after fans of legendary DJ Robert W. Morgan reported that Donny Osmond's “Puppy Love” had been playing nonstop for well over an hour. Listeners feared that Boss 93 had been taken over, but no arrests were made…. Hollywood's famous Gold Star Recording Studios closed its doors on 3/2/84. Hundreds of historic recordings, including the majority of hits by the Beach Boys and producer Phil Spector, had been made there…. Former Jefferson Airplane and Starship vocalist Grace Slick met police with a shotgun at her Tiburon, California, home on 3/5/94. Slick had been drinking heavily — her blood alcohol level was 0.18 — and she waved the gun until an officer knocked her down. The gun was unloaded, but she was still ordered to perform 200 hours of community service and forced to submit to random drug testing…. Frank Sinatra became overheated and collapsed while performing “My Way” at the Richmond Mosque in Richmond, Virginia, on 3/6/94. The 78-year-old singer announced that he was feeling faint and then hit his head on a monitor after falling off his stool. He blew a kiss to the audience as he left the stage in a wheelchair.

April

Bill Haley and the Comets recorded “Rock Around the Clock” on 4/12/54. The song, one of the first rock 'n' roll hits, reached the top of the charts in 1955, after being featured in the now-classic film Blackboard Jungle. The song mysteriously reappeared in the U.K. Top 20 charts in April 1968…. Rock ‘n’ roller Eddie Cochran died in a car accident in London on 4/17/60. The 21-year-old singer and guitarist was thrown through the windshield after the car he was a passenger in blew a tire, skidded out of control, and hit a lamppost. Cochran wrote most of his material, which was a rare thing to do at that time. His best-known hit was “Summertime Blues.” Gene Vincent and Cochran's girlfriend, Sharon Sheeley, who were also in the car, both survived…. Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father, Marvin Gay [sic] Sr., on 4/1/84. Gaye signed to Motown in 1961 and had hits spanning three decades, including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” which went to No. 1 in 1968, and “Sexual Healing,” which won a Grammy in 1983…. On 4/29/90, 8,500 people — mostly teenage girls — showed up to see New Kids on the Block perform at a 5,100-seat seaside resort in Brighton, England. A riot nearly broke out as ticketless fans tried to crash the sold-out show. Thirteen people were hospitalized, and 350 others were treated for back injuries, abdominal pains, hysteria, and hyperventilation…. Jerry Garcia's widow Deborah and Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir sprinkled some of Garcia's ashes into the Ganges River in India on 4/4/96. The ceremony was kept secret to avoid interruption by Deadheads. Garcia's remaining ashes were later scattered into the San Francisco Bay.