November 7, 2003 – David Gilmour of Pink Floyd is honored with the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) award. Gilmour is cited for his charity work.
November 7, 1966 – John Lennon meets Yoko Ono for the first time when he visits her art exhibition in London. She presents him with a card that simply says, “Breathe,” and he responds by panting. He later says, “When I met Yoko…that was it. The old gang of mine was over the moment I met her. I didn’t consciously know it at the time, but that’s what was going on. As soon as I met her, that was the end of the boys, but it so happened that the boys were well known and weren’t just the local guys at the bar.”
November 7, 1991 – Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin quits Guns N’ Roses and is replaced by guitarist Gilby Clarke. Stradlin cites a combination of Axl Rose’s personal behavior and the difficulties of being around Slash, Matt Sorum, and Duff McKagan, due to his new-found sobriety.
November 7, 1983 – The Rolling Stones release their 19th studio album, Undercover, which sells platinum.
November 7, 2020 – The Doobie Brothers, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Whitney Houston, The Notorious B.I.G., and T. Rex enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The ceremony is held virtually due to Coronavirus and there are no performances.
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Classic Rock Birthdays
November 7, 1960 – Tommy Thayer, guitar, vocals (Black ‘n Blue, Kiss)
November 7, 1971 – Robin Finck, guitar, vocals (Nine Inch Nails, Guns N’ Roses)
November 7, 1942 – Johnny Rivers (born John Henry Ramistella) vocals, guitar
November 7, 1943 – Joni Mitchell (born Roberta Joan Anderson), vocals, guitar
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Rock Remembrances
November 7, 2016 – Leonard Cohen, influential singer, songwriter, poet and novelist dies in his sleep after falling in the middle of the night. He was 82. Cohen released 14 studio albums, including 1984’s Various Positions, which included “Hallelujah,” a song that would become Cohen’s best-known composition thanks to John Cale’s cover in 1991 followed by Jeff Buckley’s incandescent 1994 reinterpretation. After its use in the movie Shrek, the song became a bonafide cultural phenomenon, with over 300 known covers. In 1995, Cohen paused his career, entered the Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles, and became an ordained Buddhist monk. He re-emerged in 2001, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. Rolling Stone says, “Cohen was the dark eminence among a small pantheon of extremely influential singer-songwriters to emerge in the Sixties and early Seventies. Only Bob Dylan exerted a more profound influence upon his generation, and perhaps only Paul Simon and fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell equaled him as a song poet.”
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