1957 – In a rare appearance outside the United States, Elvis Presley performed at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Canada where he wore his full gold lame suit for the last time.
1963 – Little Peggy March started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘I Will Follow Him’. At 15 years, 1 month and 13 days old, Little Peggy March became the youngest female singer to have a US No.1 record.
1965 – Bob Dylan was interviewed by BBC journalist and radio presenter Jack DeManio in the Savoy Hotel, London, for the BBC’s Home Service, which was broadcast on the Today programme the following day. Later on the 27th, Dylan and Joan Baez were filmed singing the traditional song Wild Mountain Thyme in the Savoy. Parts of the interview and the song were used in the film Don’t Look Back.
1966 – The Beatles started recording the new John Lennon song ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ at Abbey Road studios London, England. The song features the then-unique sound of a reversed guitar duet played by George Harrison. It was released two months earlier in the United States on the album Yesterday And Today and did not feature on the original US version of Revolver .
1967 – Sandie Shaw was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Puppet On A String’, her third UK No.1 and the Eurovision Song Contest winner of 1967.
1969 – Pink Floyd appeared at Mothers Club in Erdington, Birmingham, England. Radio 1 DJ John Peel reviewed the gig as ‘…sounding like dying galaxies lost in sheer corridors of time and space’. Recordings from this show were included in the group’s 1969 album Ummagumma.
1971 – The Grateful Dead appeared at the Fillmore East in New York City. The Beach Boys also appeared on stage with the Dead, who together performed a short set of Beach Boys songs.
1974 – A free afternoon event was held in the parking lot of the University of Connecticut, Ice Hockey Arena in Storrs. The four acts that appeared, Aerosmith Bruce Springsteen, Fairport Convention and Fat Back. Springsteen then went on to play another gig that evening at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
1976 – Customs officers on a train at the Russian/Polish Border detained David Bowie, after Nazi books and mementoes were found in his luggage. Bowie claimed that the material was being used for research on a movie project about Nazi propaganda leader Joseph Paul Goebbels.
1981 – Ringo Starr married actress and one time ‘Bond girl’ Barbara Bach. The pair met while filming the movie, Caveman, with Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long. In attendance at the wedding were George Harrison and Paul McCartney.
1985 – USA For Africa started a three-week run at No.1 on the US chart with ‘We Are The World’. The US artists’ answer to Band Aid had an all-star cast including Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan, Daryl Hall, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Kim Carnes, Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul Simon plus the composer’s of the track, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie.
1990 – The British film drama The Krays opened. Based on the lives and crimes of the English gangster twins Ronald and Reginald Kray, the film starred Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp as Ronnie Kray Martin Kemp as Reggie Kray.
1996 – Oasis played the first of two nights at Manchester’s Maine Road football ground as a ‘thank you’ to their fans, the 80,000 tickets sold out in hours.
1999 – UK band The Verve announced that they had split. They scored the 1997 UK No.1 single ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ and their 1997 UK No.1 album ‘Urban Hymns’ spent over 100 weeks on the UK chart. Leader of the group Richard Ashcroft went solo scoring the 2000 UK No.3 single ‘A Song For The Lovers’ and the 2000 UK No.1 album ‘Alone With Everybody.’
2003 – Madonna went to No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘American Life’, the singers eighth No.1 album. Also a US No.1 album.
2008 – The Last Shadow Puppets went to No.1 on the UK album charts with ‘The Age of the Understatement’, a side project of Alex Turner of Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane of Liverpool band The Rascals.
2009 – Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament was the victim of a robbery outside Southern Tracks Recording studios in Atlanta, where the band were recording. Ament and a band employee had arrived at the rear of the studio when three assailants brandishing knives emerged from the woods wearing black masks and smashed the windows of a rented Jeep. The robbers grabbed a BlackBerry and Ament’s passport and stole $3,000 in cash and $4,320 worth of goods.
2009 – Aerosmith were to hold a free concert in Hawaii to placate angry fans who brought a legal case against them. Fans filed a class action case, which claimed the band had cancelled a sold-out show in Maui two years ago, leaving hundreds of fans out of pocket in favour of a bigger gig in Chicago. Lawyers for the would-be concert-goers said Aerosmith had now agreed to put on a new show, and would pay all expenses. Everyone who bought a ticket to the original concert would receive a free ticket.
2010 – Music sales in the UK had grown for the first time in six years, according to music industry body the British Phonographic Institute (BPI). Revenue increased by 1.4%, bringing the total income for 2009 to £928.8m. Download sales provided the shot in the arm, rising by more than 50% to earn £154m, compared with £101.5m in 2008.
2013 – A blue plaque was unveiled at Swansea railway station, Wales, honouring Peter Ham who co-wrote ‘Without You’, a hit for both Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey. Ham who was a member of Badfinger were signed to The Beatles Apple Records label, (and enjoyed their biggest hit in 1970 with a Paul McCartney penned, ‘Come And Get It’. Ham took his own life in 1975 at the age of 27.
