1964, The Beatles recorded the TV special ‘Around The Beatles’ at Wembley studios England. As well as performing songs they played Act V Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ with John playing the female role of Thisbe, Paul as Pyramus, George as Moonshine and Ringo as Lion. Paul later named his cat Thisbe.
1968, The Broadway musical ‘Hair’ opened at the Biltmore Theatre in New York City. The show featured the songs ‘Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In’, ‘Good Morning Starshine’ and the title song. The production ran for 1,729 performances, finally closing on July 1st, 1972.
1973, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon went to No.1 in the US. The album went on to enjoy a record-breaking 741 discontinuous weeks on the Billboard chart, and has now sold over 45 million copies world-wide. After moving to the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Chart, the album notched up a further 759 weeks there, and had reached a total of over 1,500 weeks on the combined charts by May 2006.
1980, Marshall Tucker Band bass player Tommy Caldwell died of injuries from a car accident aged 30 in his hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Caldwell was the original frontman for the Marshall Tucker Band between 1973 and 1980.
1981, Former member of T Rex, Steve Currie was killed in a car crash returning to his home near Vale de Parra, Algarve, Portugal, he was 33 years old. Joined T. Rex (recently renamed from Tyrannosaurus Rex) as bass guitarist in late 1970, also worked as a session player, played on ‘Motorbikin’ by Chris Spedding.
1982, The California State Assembly consumer-protection-committee heard testimony from “experts” who claimed that when ‘Stairway To Heaven’ was played backward, contained the words: “I sing because I live with Satan. The Lord turns me off, there’s no escaping it. Here’s to my sweet Satan, whose power is Satan. He will give you 666. I live for Satan.”
1990, Guns N’ Roses leader Axl Rose married Erin Everly, daughter of The Everly Brothers Don at Cupid’s Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. They divorced in January 91 after a stormy nine months of marriage.
1999, The tour bus carrying The Clint Boon Experience was involved in a near fatal accident when it was involved in a crash outside Glasgow. Members of the band had to be airlifted to hospital.
1999, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2000, A blaze swept through James Brown Enterprises, the office that co-ordinate the superstar’s tours. Nobody was injured, but memorabilia and live tapes were destroyed in the blaze. An employee was later arrested charged with arson.
2000, Paul Atkinson was jailed for three years after being found guilty of stealing more than £25,000 from Rolling Stone Charlie Watts. Atkinson had been the manager of an Arabian stud farm owned by Watts.
2002, Sugababes scored their first UK No.1 single with ‘Freak Like Me.’ The song was originally by American Adina Howard (1995) and was mixed with the synth line from Gary Numan’s 1979 hit ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’.
2006, ABBA star Bjorn Ulvaeus was accused of avoiding paying 87m Swedish kronor ($967,000) in taxes on the band’s hit songs and musicals. The Swedish government was demanding he repaid the money. Abba sold over 370 million records and he also co-wrote the musical Mamma Mia.
2008, Scott Weiland singer with The Stone Temple Pilots was sentenced to 192 hours in county jail for his November 2007 drink driving offence. He was also fined $2000, required to complete an 18-month alcohol programme and was placed on probation for four years.
2009, A TV commercial for insurance featuring Iggy Pop was ruled as misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority. In the advert, the singer was seen exclaiming that he had an insurance policy with Swiftcover but the company did not cover musicians at the time of the ad being shown. Swiftcover had since started to offer policies to musicians, and stated that Mr Pop would continue to endorse the company.
2013, Emeli Sande set a new record for the most consecutive weeks on the UK’s Official Album Chart top 10 of any debut album. ‘Our Version Of Events’ was released in February 2012 and went on to become the biggest selling album that year. The album hadn’t dropped out of the top 10 since its release and had been in the UK’s Official Album Chart for 63 weeks. The 26-year-old singer had overtaken The Beatles who previously held the record.
2014, Scorpions drummer James Kottak was sentenced to one month in jail in Dubai for offensive behaviour after an incident at Dubai airport on 3 April of this year. He was convicted of insulting Islam, raising his middle finger and being under the influence of alcohol.
2014, Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell appeared in court after being arrested over a domestic dispute. The arrest came after a caller from the singers’ home phoned the emergency services and then hung up. Simon told a Superior Court judge in Norwalk, Connecticut, he had a rare argument with his wife on Saturday night at their home and they were now fine.
2015, Jack Ely died at the age of 71 after a long illness. The Kingman singer’s hit ‘Louie Louie’ reached the top of the charts in 1963 and sparked an FBI investigation into whether or not its lyrics were obscene.
(This Day in Music)
