1966, Georgie Fame was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Get Away’. The song started life as a TV jingle for a petrol advert.
1967, The Jimi Hendrix Experience played the first of three nights at the Cafe-a-Go-Go in New York City. The club featured many well known acts including: Grateful Dead, Tim Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Jefferson Airplane, and Cream who all appeared at the club.
1969, The Beatles started work on the John Lennon song ‘Come Together’ at Abbey Road studios in London. The track became the opening song on The Beatles Abbey Road album and was later released as a double A-sided single with ‘Something’, their twenty-first single in the UK and twenty-sixth in the US where it reached the top of the charts.
1973, Jim Croce started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’. Croce was killed in a plane crash three months later.
1973, Canned Heat, Nazareth, Edgar Broughton Band, Groundhogs, Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Medicine Head, all appeared at Buxton Festival in Derbyshire, England. Hell’s Angels arrived in force and proceeded to drink the site dry. Initially they paid for the booze, but when the money ran out a deputation was sent into the audience to collect donations of 10p per person. About 20 minutes into his set Chuck Berry was showing one of the Angels how to do his duck-walk properly. He did one from one end of the stage to the other and disappeared into the wings. The band played on, the Angels bopped, and Chuck legged it to his car and drove off at high speed, never to return.
1977, Despite protests, The Sex Pistols made their first appearance on the UK music show Top Of The Pops, where they lip-synched to their third single, ‘Pretty Vacant’. The performance helped push the song up the charts to No.7.
1979, Tubeway Army scored their first UK No.1 album with ‘Replicas’. The band led by lead singer Gary Numan were the first band of the post-punk era to have a synthesizer-based hit, with their single ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’
1987, Guns N’ Roses released their debut album on Geffen Records: Appetite For Destruction featured the singles ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’, and ‘Paradise City’. The album now has worldwide sales in excess of 28 million, 18 million of which are in the US, making it the best-selling debut album of all time there.
1990, Roger Waters’ The Wall took place at the Berlin Wall in Potzdamer Platz, Berlin to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall eight months earlier. Over 350,000 people attended and the event was broadcast live throughout the world, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams, Joni Mitchell, The Scorpions, Cyndi Lauper, Sinead O’Connor and others took part.
1994, Oasis played their first ever American show as part of the New Music Seminar at Wetlands in New York City.
1995, A judge in Los Angeles threw out a lawsuit against Michael Jackson by five of his former security guards. The guards had claimed they were fired for knowing too much about night-time visits by young boys to Jackson’s estate. The singer denied any improprieties.
1996, Alanis Morissette started a second run at No.1 on the UK album chart with Jagged Little Pill which stayed at the top for eight weeks. Overall, the album has sold over 33 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the most successful albums in music history.
2001, Madonna kicked off the North American leg of her 47-date Drowned World Tour at the First Union Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the singers first world tour in eight years, following The Girlie Show in 1993. Over 730,000 people attended the shows throughout North America and Europe, the tour grossed over $75 million
2002, Producer Gus Dudgeon, who worked with artists including Elton John, David Bowie, The Beach Boys, Kiki Dee, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Strawbs, XTC, and Joan Armatrading, was killed aged 59 in a car accident near Reading, together with his wife Sheila. They had been driving along the M4 motorway on their way home from a party when Gus fell asleep at the wheel of the Jaguar XK8 convertible, crashing down an embankment at speed and ending up in a ditch.
2003, Coldplay singer Chris Martin was charged with malicious damage in Australia after he allegedly attacked a photographer’s car after he had taken pictures of him surfing at Seven Mile Beach. Martin admitted he had lost his temper due to the constant harassment by that journalist, and consequently smashed his windscreen and let the air out of his tyres.
2004, Composer Jerry Goldsmith died after a long battle with cancer aged 75. Created the music for scores of classic movies and television shows ‘Star Trek’, ‘Planet of the Apes’, ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ and ‘Dr. Kildare.’
2005, UK singer Long John Baldry died of a chest infection. He was one of the founding fathers of British Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1960s performing with Blues Incorporated and Cyril Davies’ R&B All Stars. He later fronted the Hoochie Coochie Men, with Rod Stewart and then Steam Packet with Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll. Also a member of Bluesology with Elton John. He also narrated on Winnie The Pooh recordings for Disney and was the voice for Robotnik on the Sonic The Hedgehog computer game.
2007, Sharon Osbourne’s music mogul father Don Arden died in a Los Angeles nursing home at the age of 81. Dubbed the Al Capone of Pop for his uncompromising business practices, he steered Small Faces, Black Sabbath and ELO to stardom.
2008, Amy Winehouse’s husband was jailed for 27 months for attacking a pub landlord and perverting the course of justice. Blake Fielder-Civil, 26, of Camden, north London, admitted assaulting James King, 36, at the Macbeths pub in Hoxton, east London, in June 2006. He also admitted at Snaresbrook Crown Court trying to make Mr King withdraw his complaint using a £200,000 bribe.
2008, The Police played the first of two nights at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado during the final leg of their 152-date world Reunion tour. The tour became the third highest grossing tour of all time, with revenues reaching over $340 million.
2014, Ed Sheeran was at No.1 on the UK album chart with X (pronounced multiply), his second studio album. The album peaked at No. 1 in fifteen countries, and the lead single, ‘Sing’, became Sheeran’s first UK No.1 song. By the end of 2014 Spotify named X the most-streamed album in the world for 2014, racking up more than 430 million streams for the year.
2017, Justin Bieber was banned from performing in China, according to Beijing’s Culture Bureau. In a statement, the ministry said it was not appropriate to allow in entertainers who have engaged in “bad behaviour.” The pop star, who was allowed to tour China in 2013, joined a long list of musicians who have found themselves similarly blacklisted. Most though, like the British band Oasis and the US group Maroon 5, because of perceived political statements, rather than on the grounds of bad behavior.
