Music History - November 29

In 1938, Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra recorded "Hawaiian War Chant."

In 1944, Gene Autry recorded "Don't Fence Me In."

In 1959, at the 1959 Grammy Awards, held just six months after a similar award show, Bobby Darin wins Record of the Year for "Mack the Knife" as well as the Best New Artist of the Year. Song of the Year is awarded to Jimmy Driftwood, writer of Johnny Horton's hit, "The Battle Of New Orleans".

In 1960, Paul McCartney and Pete Best are deported from West Germany after being arrested on suspicion of arson. The hotel room they were staying in mysteriously caught fire.

On November 29, 1963, the Beatles' fifth single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was released in Britain. Advance orders exceed 700,000 and within three days the record will have sold one million copies, making it their second million seller. It was released in the US on December 26th and spent seven weeks at #1. 

In 1965, in Colorado Governor John Love declared it Rolling Stones Day in the state as the Stones were set to perform at the Denver Coliseum.

In 1966, Elvis Presley heard Tom Jones' version of "Green Green Grass Of Home" on the radio just outside Little Rock, Arkansas and called the radio station asking to hear it several more times. He eventually recorded the song.

In 1968, in the UK, (November 11th in the US) John Lennon and Yoko Ono released their new album 'Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins' with a cover showing the two of them in full-frontal nudity. They took the photo themselves using a time-delay camera while staying at Ringo Starr's basement apartment at Montagu Square. The album was distributed by Tetragrammaton Records in the US, after Capitol Records refused to handle it because of the cover photo. Record stores eventually carried the album in a brown paper wrapper. The recording consists largely of tape loops, playing while Lennon tries out different instruments (piano, organ, drums) and sound effects (including reverb, delay and distortion), changes tapes and plays other recordings, and converses with Ono, who vocalises ad-lib in response to the sounds. Lennon's longtime friend Peter Shotton remembered later in his memoir (The Beatles, Lennon and Me) that many of the loops were made by Lennon and himself, in the days before the recording. Lennon recorded directly to two-track stereophonic, but much of the source material was monophonic.

In 1968, the Beatles' White Album completed its first week on the market in the U.K. with sales of two million.

In 1969, Elvis Presley's LP 'From Memphis to Vegas / From Vegas to Memphis' reaches the Billboard album chart, where it will stay for the next 24 weeks, climbing as high as #12.

Also in 1969, the Beatles scored their 18th Billboard chart topper with the double-sided hit, "Come Together / Something."

In 1969, Bob Dylan was pictured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

In 1976, Jerry Lee Lewis shot his bass player, Norman "Butch" Owens, twice in the chest while trying to hit a soda bottle. Lewis was charged with shooting a firearm within the city limits.

In 1977, Kansas''Point Of Know Return' album was certified Platinum.

In 1979, Anita Pallenberg, Keith Richards' common-law wife, was cleared of murder charges in the shooting death of 17-year-old Scott Cantrell. He shot himself in the head with a gun owned by Keith Richards, while in Pallenberg's bed, at the South Salem, New York house shared by Richards and Pallenberg. Richards was in Paris at the time recording with the Rolling Stones. The youth had been employed at the estate as a part-time groundskeeper and was involved in a sexual relationship with Pallenberg. The death was ruled a suicide, despite rumors that Pallenberg and Cantrell had been playing Russian roulette. The police investigation concluded that Pallenberg was not in the room or even on the same floor of the house at the time the fatal shot was fired.

In 1979, singer Paul Simon filed two lawsuits against Columbia Records in an attempt to break his contract with the label.

In 1979, the original four members of KISS performed their last show together until 1996 when they reunited for a makeup tour. However, they would reunite in 1996 for a tour in full makeup.

In 1979, singer Ray Smith committed suicide at the age of 45.

In 1982, Metallica played their first headlining show.

In 1985, at Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas, KISS played the first night of their 91-date North American Asylum Tour.

In 1992, U2's first TV special, called "U2's Zoo TV Outside Broadcast," aired on Fox-TV.

In 1994, Mary J. Blige's second album, 'My Life' was released.

In 1997, Whitney Houston backs out of a slated one million dollar performance at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC after finding out the event was a mass wedding for over 1,000 Moonie couples.

In 1998, Butch McDade, drummer for The Amazing Rhythm Aces on their 1975 hit "Third Rate Romance", died of cancer at the age of 52.

In 2000, the Backstreet Boys album 'Black & Blue' sold 1.59 million copies in its first week according to Soundscan.

On November 29, 2001, Beatles' guitarist George Harrison passed away at the age of 58, while resting at a friend's home in Los Angeles. The news came as a shock to the world, despite Harrison's much-chronicled cancer treatments. Speaking outside his home in St John's Wood, north west London, Paul McCartney said: 'I am devastated and very, very sad'. Ringo Starr, speaking from Vancouver, Canada said: 'We will miss George for his sense of love, his sense of music and his sense of laughter.' Although most of The Beatles' songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Beatle albums generally included one or two of Harrison's own songs, from 'With The Beatles' onwards. His later compositions with the group included "Here Comes the Sun,""Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps;" to name a few.  By the time of the band's break-up, Harrison had accumulated a backlog of material, which he then released as the triple album 'All Things Must Pass' in 1970, from which two hit singles originated: a double A-side single, "My Sweet Lord" backed with "Isn't It a Pity" and "What Is Life." In addition to his solo work, Harrison co-wrote two hits for former Beatle Ringo Starr, as well as songs for the Traveling Wilburys—the supergroup he formed in 1988 with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison.

In 2003, an AIDS charity show was held in Cape Town, South Africa with Bono, Queen, Peter Gabriel, Beyonce, Eurythmics, Anastacia, the Coors, Jimmy Cliff, Chaka Khan and more.

In 2010, Sotheby's of New York announced that Bob Dylan's hand-written lyrics to the 1960s anthem "The Times They Are A-Changin" would hit the auction block. When they did in early December, handwritten notes were bought by hedge fund manager Adam Sender, who placed the winning bid at $422,500.

In 2010, Billboard.com introduced a new chart called The Social 50, which ranks the most active artists on the world's leading social networking sites. The chart will follow artists' popularity using a formula blending weekly additions of friends / fans / followers, along with weekly artist page views and weekly song plays on MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and iLike.

birthdays today (among many others) include:  John Mayall (80), Joel Whitburn (74), Chuck Mangione (73), Felix Cavaliere (Rascals) (71), Brian Cadd (Flying Burrito Brothers) (67), Barry Goudreau (Boston) (62), Michael Dempsey (Cure) (55), Jonathan Knight (New Kids on the Block) (45), The Game (born Jayceon Taylor) (34) and Ringo Garza (Los Lonely Boys) (32)