Events in Music
- May 2 Sergei Prokofiev's musical "Peter and the Wolf" premieres in Moscow
Birthdays in Music
- May 2 Michael Rabin, American violinist (In Memorium), born in NYC, New York
- May 2 Engelbert Humperdinck, [Arnold George Dorsey], British singer, born in Madras, India
- May 5 Patrick Gowers, British composer
- May 6 Sylvia Robinson, rocker (Mickey & Sylvia-Love is Strange)
- May 7 Cornelius Cardew, British composer (Scratch Orchestra), born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire (d. 1981)
- May 7 Jimmy Ruffin, American soul singer (What Becomes of the Brokenhearted), born in Collinsville, Mississippi (d. 2014)
- May 12 Klaus Doldinger, German jazz saxophonist (Passport) and composer for film, born in Berlin
- May 14 Bobby Darin, [Walden Waldo Cassotto], singer (Mack the Knife), born in The Bronx, New York
- May 15 Anna Maria Alberghetti, Italian singer/actress (Cinderfella)
- May 15 Jean Balissat, composer
- May 17 Philippe Boesmans, composer
- May 23 Ingeborg Hallstein, German opera singer
- May 24 Harold Budd, American avant-garde composer, born in Los Angeles
- May 25 Tom T Hall, Olive Hill Ky, country singer/writer (Harper Valley PTA)
- May 28 Maki Ishii, Japanese composer, born in Tokyo (d. 2003)
- May 30 Galina Shostakovitch, daughter of Russian composer Dmitri