This Day in Music: October 8, 2026

• 2024: Forbes names Taylor Swift the world's richest female musician.
  The magazine put her fortune at about $1.6 billion, moving her past Rihanna. Her Eras Tour was the first concert tour to gross more than $1 billion.
• 2011: Pianist Roger Williams dies at 87.
  He died of pancreatic cancer in California. His 1955 recording of “Autumn Leaves” went to number one, and he returned to the Top 10 in 1966 with “Born Free.”
• 2004: Ray Charles earns his first Platinum album with Genius Loves Company.
  The duets collection passed a million copies sold just months after his death that June. It went on to win eight Grammys, including Album of the Year.
• 1991: Soundgarden releases Badmotorfinger.
  The Seattle band's commercial breakthrough arrived within weeks of Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten. It included “Outshined” and “Rusty Cage.”
• 1990: Eddie Vedder arrives in Seattle to join the band that becomes Pearl Jam.
  He landed the job after adding vocals to a three-song instrumental demo. The group went straight to work on the songs that made up most of its debut album, Ten, home to “Alive,” “Even Flow” and “Jeremy.”
• 1988: Def Leppard hits number one with “Love Bites.”
  The ballad from the Hysteria album was the band's only single to top the Billboard Hot 100, going one better than “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” which had stalled at number two.
• 1987: Chuck Berry gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
  The star sits at 1777 North Vine Street. The concert film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, built around his 60th-birthday shows with Keith Richards leading the band, premiered the same day.
• 1984: Anne Murray wins CMA Album of the Year for A Little Good News.
  The Canadian singer was the first woman to take the Country Music Association's album prize. The title track had been a number-one country hit.
• 1983: Bonnie Tyler's “Total Eclipse of the Heart” sits at number one.
  Air Supply's “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” was right behind it at number two, giving songwriter and producer Jim Steinman the top two songs in the country at the same time.
• 1980: Prince releases his third album, Dirty Mind.
  A Minnesota connection: the Minneapolis native was 22 when it came out, and the single “Uptown,” named for a Minneapolis neighborhood, reached number five on the R&B chart.
• 1976: Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life debuts at number one.
  It was only the third album to enter the Billboard chart at the top. The set produced “Sir Duke,” “I Wish” and “Isn't She Lovely” and won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
• 1962: Little Richard returns to rock and roll on a British tour.
  He had walked away from secular music five years earlier to sing gospel. The tour opened in Doncaster, England, with Sam Cooke also on the bill.
• 1957: Jerry Lee Lewis records “Great Balls of Fire.”
  Cut at Sun Studio in Memphis, the single climbed to number two on the pop chart early in 1958 and also topped the country chart.
• 1955: The Four Aces reach number one with “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.”
  The ballad was the title song of the film of the same name and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
• 1935: Bandleader Ozzie Nelson marries his singer, Harriet Hilliard.
  The couple later starred in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet on radio and television, the show that helped make their son Ricky Nelson a teen idol.

Born on This Day

• 2003: Ángela Aguilar, Mexican-American singer
  Turns 23. A regional Mexican star and the daughter of singer Pepe Aguilar.
• 1995: G Herbo, American rapper
  Turns 31. The Chicago rapper is known for the album PTSD and its title track.
• 1985: Bruno Mars, American singer-songwriter and producer
  Turns 41. The Honolulu-born hitmaker is behind “Grenade,” “Locked Out of Heaven” and “Uptown Funk.”
• 1972: Terry Balsamo, American guitarist (Evanescence)
  Turns 54. Played in the band Cold before spending more than a decade with Evanescence.
• 1967: Teddy Riley, American singer, songwriter and producer (Guy, Blackstreet)
  Turns 59. The architect of new jack swing sang on Blackstreet's “No Diggity” and produced much of Michael Jackson's Dangerous.
• 1965: C.J. Ramone, American bassist and singer (Ramones)
  Turns 61. Took over on bass from Dee Dee Ramone in 1989 and stayed until the band retired in 1996.
• 1964: CeCe Winans, American gospel singer
  Turns 62. A multiple Grammy winner, first with her brother as BeBe & CeCe Winans and then on her own, who also sang “Count on Me” with Whitney Houston.
• 1963: Steve Perry, American singer (Cherry Poppin' Daddies)
  Frontman on the 1997 swing-revival hit “Zoot Suit Riot,” and not to be confused with the Journey singer of the same name.
• 1950: Robert “Kool” Bell, American bassist (Kool & the Gang)
  Turns 76. Co-founder and namesake of the band behind “Celebration,” “Ladies' Night” and “Jungle Boogie.”
• 1949: Hamish Stuart, Scottish singer and guitarist (Average White Band)
  Turns 77. Part of the band that took “Pick Up the Pieces” to number one in 1975, and later a member of Paul McCartney's touring band.
• 1948: Johnny Ramone, American guitarist (Ramones)
  The co-founder's rapid-fire downstroke guitar powered punk standards like “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “I Wanna Be Sedated.” He died in 2004.
• 1947: Tony Wilson, Trinidad-born bassist and songwriter (Hot Chocolate)
  Co-wrote the band's 1970s hit “You Sexy Thing.”
• 1944: Susan Raye, American country singer
  Turns 82. A Buck Owens duet partner who had her own crossover hit in 1971 with “L.A. International Airport.”
• 1941: George Bellamy, English guitarist (The Tornados)
  Turns 85. Played rhythm guitar on the 1962 instrumental “Telstar,” the first American number one by a British group.
• 1941: Buzz Clifford, American pop singer and songwriter
  Best known for the 1961 novelty hit “Baby Sittin' Boogie.”
• 1940: Fred Cash, American soul singer (The Impressions)
  Turns 86. Sang alongside Curtis Mayfield on “It's All Right” and “People Get Ready.”
• 1934: Doc Green, American singer (The Drifters)
  Baritone voice in the Drifters lineup of “There Goes My Baby” and “Save the Last Dance for Me.”
• 1883: Dick Burnett, American folk singer and songwriter
  The Kentucky musician is credited with the earliest published version of “Man of Constant Sorrow.”
• 1882: Harry McClintock, American singer-songwriter
  Known as “Haywire Mac,” he recorded the hobo classic “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”