August 17th, 2018

1955, Elvis Presley released what would become his first No.1 hit, ‘I Forgot to Remember to Forget / Mystery Train’. It hit the top of the country charts several months later and stayed there for 5 weeks.

1959, American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis released Kind of Blue which is regarded by many critics as jazz’s greatest record, Davis’s masterpiece, and one of the best albums of all time. Its influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical genres, has led writers to also deem it one of the most influential albums ever recorded.

1960, The Beatles began their first Hamburg engagement at the Indra Club, Grosse Freiheit, Hamburg, West Germany, playing the first of 48 nights at the Club. The owner, Bruno Koschmider, asked The Beatles to “Mach Shau”, or really put on a show, which led to the band screaming, shouting, and leaping about the stage and sometimes playing lying on the floor. John Lennon once appeared wearing only his underwear and on another occasion, wearing a toilet seat around his neck. The Beatles lodged in a single room behind the screen of a nearby movie house.

1964, Glasgow council in Scotland announced that all boys and men with Beatle styled haircuts would have to wear bathing caps after a committee was told that hair from ‘Beatle-cuts’ was clogging the pools filters.

1965, The Byrds were forced to cancel a concert during their UK tour at The Guildhall, Portsmouth when only 250 of the 4,000 tickets had been sold.

1968, The Doors started a four-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with Waiting For The Sun. The group’s third album spawned their second US No.1 single, ‘Hello, I Love You’.

1968, The Rascals (formerly the Young Rascals), started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘People Got To Be Free’. The group had thirteen US top 40 hits.

1969, The final day of the 3 day Woodstock Festival took place at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. Acts who appeared included Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Sha Na Na, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, The Band, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Over 186,000 tickets had been sold but on the first day the flimsy fences and ticket barriers had come down. Organisers announced the concert would be a free event, prompting thousands more to head for the concert.

1973, Former Temptations singer Paul Williams was found dead in his car, after shooting himself. He owed $80000 in taxes and his celebrity boutique business had failed.

1974, Eric Clapton started a four-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with 461 Ocean Boulevard, a No.3 hit in the UK. The house featured on the album cover is 461 Ocean Boulevard in the town of Golden Beach, Florida near Miami where Clapton lived while making the album.

1979, The New York Post reported that Anita Pallenberg (the wife of Keith Richards) was linked to a witches coven in South Salem, New York where Richards owned a house. A policeman claimed he was attacked by a flock of black-hooded, caped people and a local youth claimed he had been invited by Pallenburg to take part in ‘pot smoking sex orgies’. Locals also claimed they found ‘ritualistic stakes’ and small animals that had been ‘sacrificed’ near the house.

1987, Session drummer Gary Chester died of cancer. He had been a member of The Coasters and played on many major hits for other acts including: ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ ‘Under The Boardwalk’ ‘Walk On By’, ‘It’s My Party.’

1991, Nirvana shot the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ at GMT Studios in Culver City, California, costing less than $50,000 to make, the shoot features real Nirvana fans as the audience. The video won Nirvana the Best New Artist and Best Alternative Group awards at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2000 the Guinness World Records named ‘Teen Spirit’ the Most Played Video on MTV Europe.

1995, Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre after an apparent suicide attempt. Police had found him at his Los Angeles home with a two-inch laceration on his wrist.

1999, Former Bay City Rollers drummer Derek Longmuir appeared at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court accused of child porn and drugs offences. Longmuir, 48, denied the charges. He was later sentenced to 300 hours community service.

1999, Led Zeppelin topped a chart of Britain’s most bootlegged musicians, compiled by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), after identifying 384 bootleg titles featuring Led Zeppelin performances. The bootleg chart was complied from the BPI’s archive of some 10,000 recordings seized over the past 25 years. The Beatles came in second with 320 entries, other acts listed included The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd.

2002, Darius was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Colourblind’. The third “Pop Idol” finalist to get a number one. He’d originally lost out on “Popstars”, failing to get a place in the group Hear’Say, and then came third in “Pop Idol”.

2004, A report showed how touts were now using eBay to sell tickets for sold-out concerts. It said the touts were not breaking the law by using auction sites on the internet, it showed tickets for Madonna’s Wembley gig worth £150 were for sale at £350 and a pair of tickets to see The White Stripes worth £90 were currently on eBay for £130.

2008, Jackson Browne was suing US Republican presidential candidate John McCain for using one of his songs without permission. Browne claimed the use of his song Running on Empty in an advert was an infringement of copyright and would lead people to conclude he endorses McCain. Browne was seeking more than $75,000 in damages.

2009, An arrest warrant was issued for singer Bobby Brown after he failed to appear at a court hearing involving child maintenance payments. Judge Christina Harms ordered Mr Brown, to be arrested next time he was in the state of Massachusetts. The singer had allegedly fallen $45,000 behind in payments for two teenage children he had with former girlfriend Kim Ward.

2009, A thief in New Zealand took the unusual step of leaving his contact details at the site of his crime. The man reserved a copy of Pink Floyd’s The Wall at a record shop in Christchurch, leaving his name and phone number, before robbing the till. He was a regular customer at the shop and already had several records on order.

2012, Three members of the Russian feminist punk rock protest group Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years imprisonment after they had staged a performance on the soleas of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in a protest directed at the Orthodox Church leader’s support for President Putin during his election campaign.

(This Day in Music)