Year 1971 in Music History

Jan 6 Neil Young returns to his homeland of Canada for his first concert there since his pre-stardom days

Jan 15 George Harrison releases "My Sweet Lord" single in the UK

Jan 19 The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" is played at Charles Manson trial

Jan 20 John Lennon meets Yoko Ono's parents in Japan

Jan 20 Single "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye about police brutality is released

Jan 22 John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band record "Power to the People" at his Ascot Sound Studio

Feb 19 Paul McCartney releases "Another Day" in UK

Mar 5 "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin first played live at Ulster Hall, Belfast by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham and John Paul Jones

Mar 11 Jim Morrison leaves for Paris to reorient himself emotionally and creatively and to avoid the jail sentence given to him in Miami. He will never return to the US.

Mar 14 Barbra Streisand appears on "The Burt Bacharach Special" on CBS TV

Mar 14 The Rolling Stones leave England for France to escape taxes

Mar 16 Muddy Waters wins his first Grammy Award

Mar 22 6th Academy of Country Music Awards: Merle Haggard and Lynn Anderson win

Mar 25 Tom Jones' "She's a Lady" goes gold

May 16 Benjamin Britten's opera "Owen Wingrave" premieres in Aldwych, London

Jun 1 "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" opens at Golden NYC for 31 performances

Jun 24 "McCabe and Mrs Miller" film by Robert Altman, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie with songs by Leonard Cohen is released

Jun 25 Stevie Wonder releases "Where I'm Coming From"

Jun 29 Rolling Stones Mick Jagger & Keith Richards sentenced on drug offense

Aug 13 Paul & Linda McCartney release "Back Seat of My Car"

Jan 11 Mary J. Blige, American R&B singer-songwriter (Be Without You) and actress (I Can Do Bad All By Myself), born in NYC, New York

Mar 27 Mariah Carey, American pop singer-songwriter ("Without You"; "All I Want For Christmas Is You"; "Hero"; "We Belong Together"), born in Huntington, Long Island, New York

Apr 11 Oliver Riedel, German musician (Rammstein), born in Schwerin, Germany

May 30 Idina Menzel, American actress and singer, born in Queens, New York

Jun 5 Mark Wahlberg, rap singer (Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch) and actor (Boogie Nights, The Departed), born in Boston, Massachusetts

Jun 16 Tupac Shakur, American rapper and actor (Juice, Bullet), born in East Harlem, New York (d. 1996)

Jul 1 Missy Elliott, American rapper (Supa Dupa Fly, Under Construction), born in Portsmouth, Virginia

Jul 23 Alison Krauss, American bluegrass singer and fiddler (Union Station; Raising Sand), born in Decatur, Illinois

Aug 26 Thalia Sodi, Mexican actress and singer known as the "Queen of Latin Pop", born in Mexico City, Mexico

May 12 Rolling Stone rocker Mick Jagger (27) weds actress and model Bianca Pérez-Mora Macias (31) at St Tropez Town Hall, France

Jul 6 ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus (26) weds fellow singer Agnetha Faltskog (21)

Aug 5 Five-time Grammy Award singer Donna Summer [nee Gaines] (22) weds actor Helmuth Sommer

Apr 6 Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer (Le Sacre du Printemps - The Rite of Spring; The Firebird), dies of pneumonia at 88

Jul 3 Jim Morrison, American singer-songwriter (The Doors) and poet, dies of heart failure at 27

Jul 6 Louis Armstrong, American jazz trumpeter and singer (Hello Dolly; What A Wonderful World), dies of a heart attack at 69