January 25th, 2017

1963, The Rolling Stones played at the Ricky Tick Club at the Star and Garter Hotel, Windsor, Berkshirehire, UK. This was the first time The Rolling Stones, including Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, played at this venue. All the walls in the club were painted black and the lighting was made out of old ice-cream tins.

1964, The Beatles scored their first number one best seller in the US when “I Want To Hold Your Hand” reached the top of the Cash Box Magazine music chart. The Fab Four would eventually rack up 25 number ones in America.

1967, The Beatles made a last-minute remix of ‘Penny Lane’ before the pressing of their next double A sided single ‘Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane’. Both songs were originally intended for the forthcoming Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

1969, Pink Floyd appeared at the Sixty Nine Club, Royal York Hotel, Ryde, Isle of Wight, England. Support band was The Cherokees, who had had a minor hit single in 1964 with Seven Golden Daffodils produced by Mickie Most. They later changed their name to New York Public Library.

1973, David Bowie finished a week of rehearsals at the Royal Ballroon, Tottenham, London, for the forthcoming UK leg of his Ziggy Stardust tour. Bowie had already played dates in North America and Japan, the tour saw the singer playing a total of 182 dates.

1974, Led Zeppelin appeared at the Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, Indiana to over 17,000 fans. The set list included: ‘Rock And Roll’, ‘Over The Hills And Far Away’, ‘The Song Remains The Same’, ‘The Rain Song’, ‘Kashmir’, ‘The Wanton Song’, ‘No Quarter’, ‘Trampled Under Foot’, ‘Moby Dick’, ‘How Many More Times’, ‘Stairway To Heaven’, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘Black Dog’. Tickets cost $8.50.

1975, The Carpenters went to No.1 on the US singles chart with their version of The Marveletts 1961 hit ‘Please Mr. Postman’.

1975, The last Sunbury Rock Festival in Victoria Australia was held. The promoters who had made heavy losses only paid Deep Purple. AC/DC were scheduled to play after Deep Purple but a fight started on stage between road crews after Purple’s set when they began packing up the lights and PA and denied AC/DC use of them, who then left the festival site without playing at all.

1978, After changing their name from Warsaw, (inspired by the song Warszawa on David Bowie’s Low album), Joy Division made their live debut when they played at Pips Disco in Manchester, England.

1983, The Allman Brothers Band bassist Lamar Williams died of lung cancer age 34. He joined the band in 1972 after the death of original bassist Berry Oakley.

1984, Yoko Ono donated £250,000 ($425,000) to Liverpool old people’s home Strawberry Fields.

1986, US manager Albert Grossman died of a heart attack while flying on Concorde from New York to London. He managed Bob Dylan (between
1962 and 1970), Peter, Paul and Mary, The Band, Janis Joplin and Todd Rundgren. Grossman built the Bearsville Recording Studio near Woodstock in 1969 and in 1970 he founded Bearsville Records.

1986, Norwegian group A-Ha were at No.1 in the UK with ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV.’ Becoming the first ever-Norwegian act to score a UK No.1.

1989, Bobby Brown was arrested for an overtly sexually suggestive performance after a show in Columbus; he was fined $652 under the anti-lewdness ordinance law.

1992, The inaugural Big Day Out festival took place at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. Acts appearing included, Nirvana, Beasts of Bourbon, Box The Jesuits, Celibate Rifles, Cosmic Psychos, The Clouds, Club Hoy, Died Pretty, Falling Joys, The Hard Ons with Henry Rollins Hellmen, Massappeal, The Meanies, Smudge, Sound Unlimited Posse, Ratcat, The Village Idiots, Violent Femmes and Yothu Yindi.

2004, Bob Dylan was paid by ladies underwear company Victoria’s Secret to fly to Venice in Northern Italy, to film a TV advertisement in an ancient palazzo with a scantily dressed model. Some fans were upset while others empathized with Dylan.

2005, Ray Peterson, the voice behind the June 1960, US No.7 hit, ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ passed away at the age of 65. After the hit records stopped coming in the early ’70s, Peterson became a Baptist Church minister and occasionally played the oldies music circuit.

2008, British Sea Power’s keyboard and cornet player Phil Sumner, ended up in hospital after being knocked unconscious when he attempted a stage dive. The crowd at Leeds Irish Centre failed to catch him when he jumped off a 12-foot PA system landing head first. A spokeswoman for the band said: “The impact knocked him out straight away. He was unconscious for three minutes and there was a lot of blood.”

2011, A former Miss Canada finalist became the first person in the world to graduate with a Masters degree in The Beatles. Canadian singer Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy, 53, was one of the first students to sign up for the course on the Fab Four when it launched at Liverpool Hope University in March
2009. The ground-breaking course looked at the studio sound and composition of The Beatles and how Liverpool helped to shape their music as well as examining the significance of the music of The Beatles and their impact on Western culture.

2014, Susan Boyle applied for a minimum wage, £6-an-hour cashier’s job after spotting a job advert in the window of her local bookmakers, Ladbrokes, in Blackburn, west Lothian. Upon reading the advert the singer who is said to worth over £20m entered the premises and spent around five minutes talking to the shop’s deputy manager David Corr about the role.

2014, A US jury decided that a tweet posted by Courtney Love about a lawyer she hired was not defamatory. The case against Love claimed she had committed libel by falsely suggesting in a 2010 tweet that Rhonda Holmes had been “bought off”. Jurors found that Love’s tweet included false information, but the singer did not know it was not true.

2015, Greek singer Demis Roussos, who sold more than 60 million albums worldwide, died aged 68 in hospital in Athens. In the 1970s he was a member of Aphrodite’s Child, a progressive rock group that also included Vangelis. He was best known for his solo hits in the 1970s and 80s, including ‘Forever and Ever, Goodbye’ and ‘Quand je t’aime’.
(This Day in Music)