May 13, 1985 – Tipper Gore infamously creates the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) after hearing her daughter listening to the Prince song “Darling Nikki.” The four member group of politically connected wives pressure the RIAA to put warning stickers on albums with offensive lyrics. In testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Dee Snider, Frank Zappa and John Denver oppose this form of censorship. They lose, but the stickers on albums actually increase sales.
10 Questionable Classic Rock Song Choices in TV Commercials
May 13, 1985 – Bruce Springsteen marries actress Julianne Phillips in a ceremony presided over by Little Richard in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The couple divorce three years later.
May 13, 1971 – Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane crashes her Mercedes into a retaining wall on the Golden Gate Bridge while drag racing. She incurs a serious concussion but survives.
Classic Rock Birthdays
May 13, 1950 – Stevie Wonder, vocals, multi-instrumentalist
May 13, 1950 – Danny Kirwan, guitar (Fleetwood Mac). He left the band in 1972.
May 13, 1969 – Buckethead (born Brian Patrick Carroll), guitar (Guns N’ Roses)
May 13, 1945 – Magic Dick (born Richard Salwitz), harmonica (J. Geils Band)
May 13, 1947 – Pete Overend Watts, bass (Mott The Hoople) (d. 2017)
May 13, 1966 – Darius Rucker, vocals (Hootie & The Blowfish)
May 13, 1951 – Paul Thompson, drums (Roxy Music)
May 13, 1941 – Ritchie Valens (born Richard Steven Valenzuela) vocals, guitar (d. 1959)
Rock Remembrances
May 13, 2012 – Donald “Duck” Dunn, bassist with Booker T and the MG’s, dies in his sleep in Tokyo. He was 70. Dunn was in Japan touring with Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd. Dunn was nicknamed “Duck” while watching cartoons with his father and played on thousands of recordings while signed to Stax Records. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Trivia note: Dunn was featured in the Blue Brothers movie as himself where he famously declared, “We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline!”
