May 17, 1974
ABC aired the Elton John television special “Say Goodbye To Norma Jean And Other Things.”
May 17, 1975
Elton John was awarded a Platinum record for his album “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy”. It was the first L.P. to sell one million copies on its first day of release.
Elton John plays “Bennie And The Jets” and “Philadelphia Freedom” on Soul Train, becoming just the third white performer to appear on the show, after Dennis Coffey and Gino Vannelli.
song charts at #6 Have You Never Been Mellow from Olivia Newton-John, with the Soundtrack to “Funny Lady” at #7,
1978
Donna Summer’s film Thank God It’s Friday premiered in Los Angeles.
ABC-TV aired two music specials, “The Carpenters: Space Encounters,” with guests John Davidson and Charlie Callas, and then “Olivia,” hosted by Olivia Newton-John, with ABBA and Andy Gibb.
1980
“The Rose”, the title song from the movie in which she starred in, was #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart for Bette Midler.
1986
Whitney Houston started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Greatest Love Of All’, the singers third US No.1, a No.8 hit in the UK.
Incredibly, Whitney Houston climbed back to #1 on the Album chart in its 60th week of release.
1993
Barry Manilow appears on CBS-TV’s Murphy Brown, where he sang “I Am Your Child”.
1995
Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard performed together on the same stage for the first time at Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, England, They were scheduled to appear in London the following night and in Birmingham on May 20, however Domino did not perform at either of those shows due to illness.
2002
The Barry Manilow special, Ultimate Manilow aired on CBS-TV.
2005
Lisa Marie Presley performed “Idiot” on “Good Morning America.”
: Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer.
2010
Songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who wrote “Hound Dog”, “Jailhouse Rock”, “Love Me”, “Don’t” and many others for Elvis Presley, “Kansas City” for Wilbert Harrison and “Charlie Brown” for the Coasters, were given the Outstanding Achievement Award for Musical Collaborators by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers in Chicago, Illinois.
Jailhouse Rock being a gay song is why this is included.
2012
Donna Summer, the 1970s pop singer known as the Queen of Disco, died of lung cancer, an illness she believed she contracted from inhaling toxic particles released after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York. She won five Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, and had three multi-platinum albums, including the hits ‘Hot Stuff’, ‘Love to Love You, and ‘Baby’ and ‘I Feel Love’.
Lisa Marie Presley performed her song “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” on American Idol’s results show.
Nineties Dyke 