1931, The first long-playing record, a 33 1/3 rpm recording, was demonstrated at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York by RCA-Victor. The venture was doomed to fail however due to the high price of the record players, which started around $95 (about $1140 in today’s dollars) and wasn’t revived until 1948.
1956, The BBC announced the removal of Bill Haley and His Comets’ ‘Rockin’ Through The Rye’ from its playlist because they felt the song went against traditional British standards, (and included the lyrics “All the lassies rock with me when rockin’ through the rye”). The record, based on an 18th century Scottish Folk tune, was at No.5 on the UK charts.
1962, The Beatles played the last of three Monday night gigs at The Queen’s Hall, Widnes, Cheshire. Also on the bill, Billy Kramer and the Coasters, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and Sonny Kaye and the Reds. Tickets cost 3/6.
1964, Police arrived at a Rolling Stones gig at the ABC Theatre in Carlisle, England, after a trouble broke out with the 4,000 fans at the concert.
1964, During a US tour The Beatles appeared at the Municipal Stadium in Kansas City. The Beatles were paid $150,000 for the show, which was more than any other act had ever been paid for a live show. Tickets cost $4.50.
1967, The Doors were banned from The Ed Sullivan Show after Jim Morrison broke his agreement with the show’s producers. Morrison said before the performance that he wouldn’t sing the words, ‘Girl, we couldn’t get much higher,’ from ‘Light My Fire’ but did anyway. The Doors also performed their new single ‘People Are Strange.’
1969, Media on both sides of the Atlantic were running stories that said Paul McCartney was dead. He was supposedly killed in a car accident in Scotland on November 9th, 1966 and that a double had been taking his place for public appearances. In fact, Paul and his girlfriend Jane Asher were on vacation in Kenya at the time.
1976, The Sex Pistols played a gig for the inmates at Chelmsford Prison, Essex in England.
1978, The video for Queen’s single ‘Bicycle Race’ was filmed at Wimbledon Stadium, Wimbledon, UK. It featured 65 naked female professional models racing around the stadium’s track on bicycles, which had been hired for the day. The rental company was reported to have requested payment for all the saddles when they found out how their bikes had been used.
1983, Paul Young scored his first UK No.1 album with his debut release ‘No Parlez.’ The album returned to the top of the charts on four other occasion’s spending a total of 119 weeks on the chart.
1991, Rob Tyner lead singer with the American hard rock band MC5 died after he suffered a heart attack in the seat of his parked car in his hometown of Berkley, Michigan. MC5, (shortened from the Motor City Five), formed in Detroit, in 1965, they released their first album, ‘Kick Out the Jams’ in 1969.
1991, Over 4 million copies of Guns N’ Roses album, ‘Use Your Illusion I’ and ‘Use Your Illusion II’ were simultaneously released for retail sale, making it the largest ship-out in pop history in the US.
1996, A bomb was found at a South London sorting office addressed to Icelandic singer Bjork. Police in Miami had alerted the post office after finding the body of Ricardo Lopez who had made a video of himself making the bomb and then killing himself.
1999, English singer Frankie Vaughan died of heart failure aged 71. During the 1950s he scored twenty UK Top 30 singles including the UK No.2 ‘Green Door.’ He was awarded an OBE in 1965, and a CBE in 1996
2000, Paula Yates was found dead in bed from a suspected drug overdose. Yates had presented the UK music TV show The Tube during the 80s, married Bob Geldof and was the girlfriend of INXS singer Michael Hutchence.
2003, Moore and Bode Cigars were suing P Diddy after film footage of their “secret” production process turned up in his latest video. The company claimed an unidentified cameraman filmed their “unique method of rolling cigars” which was then used in the rappers ‘Shake Ya Tailfeather’ video without permission.
2004, Israeli police arrested two of Madonna’s bodyguards after they assaulted photographers waiting for the singer outside her hotel. Madonna was in Israel with 2,000 other students of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical offshoot.
2006, Justin Timberlake went to No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘Futuresex / Lovesounds’ the singers second solo album and second No.1.
2006, American guitarist Al Casey died aged 69. Casey is noted for his work as a session musician and as a member of the Wrecking Crew and worked with The Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, The Association, The Monkees, Johnny Cash, Simon & Garfunkel, 5th Dimension, Harry Nilsson, The Partridge Family, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Sinatra.
2007, Barry Manilow cancelled his plans to appear on the TV talk show The View because he did not want to be interviewed by its conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, an abortion opponent and supporter of the Iraq war. Manilow had requested to speak only with co-hosts Joy Behar, Barbara Walters or Whoopi Goldberg, but the show’s producers refused to comply with what they called Manilow’s “completely disrespectful” demands.
2011, Adele went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Someone Like You’. The track was also No.1 in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom.
2011, The estate of Jimi Hendrix gave the go-ahead for another round of archival releases nearly 41 years to the day after the singer’s death. The four new products included an expanded version of his landmark Winterland concerts in 1968, a revamp of a 1972 live compilation, an upgraded DVD of his final U.K. festival gig, and a DVD reissue of some old talk-show appearances.
2014, Country music star George Hamilton IV died in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 77. The singer and guitarist, who began performing as a teenager in the 1950s, had suffered a major heart attack a few days earlier. At the start of his career in 1956, Hamilton had a top five hit in the US with A Rose and A Baby Ruth, which led to tours with pop idols Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers.
2017, Brazilian musician and producer Laudir de Oliveira died of a heart attack at the age of 77 while performing onstage in his native Rio de Janeiro. He is mostly renowned for his time as percussionist with the band Chicago from 1973 until 1982. As a session musician he worked for other musicians like Chick Corea, Carlos Santana, The Jacksons, Wayne Shorter and Nina Simone.
