1964, On tour in the USA The Beatles appeared at The Convention Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Days before the concert, Philadelphia had experienced race-riots, The Beatles, who were Civil Rights supporters, were shocked to see that their audience of 13,000 was completely white.
1964, The Rolling Stones recorded their version of the Willie Dixon song ‘Little Red Rooster’ at Regent Sound Studios in London, England.
1965, The Doors recorded their first demos at World Pacific Jazz Studios in Los Angeles, California, where they cut six Jim Morrison songs.
1971, Grateful Dead’s former manager was arrested after disappearing with over $70,000 of the bands money.
1972, Rod Stewart was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘You Wear It Well’, the singers second UK No.1 was taken from his album ‘Never A Dull Moment.’
1972, The Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival was held over three days on Bull Island, near Griffin, Indiana. The Promoters expected over 50,000 music fans, and over 200,000 attended the festival. Many bands pulled out as the festival drifted steadily into anarchy. Bands that did appear included Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids, Black Oak Arkansas, Cheech and Chong, Foghat, Albert King, Brownsville Station, Canned heat, Flash, Ravi Shankar, Rory Gallagher, Lee Michaels and Frosty, The Eagles, The Amboy Dukes, and Gentle Giant. Three concert goers drowned in the Wabash River and as the festival ended, the remnants of the crowd burned down the music stand.
1988, The Human Rights Now! world tour kicked off at Wembley Stadium London with Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Youssu n’Dour. Taking in five continents and claiming to be the most ambitious rock tour in history.
1989, Ozzy Osbourne was charged with threatening to kill his wife Sharon. Ozzy was released on the condition that he immediately went into detox, the case was later dropped when the couple decide to reconcile.
1995, Michael Jackson went to No.1 on the US singles chart with a song written by R. Kelly ‘You Are Not Alone’. It holds a Guinness World Record as the first song in the 37 year history of the Billboard Hot 100 to debut at No.1.
2000, Madonna was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Music’, her 10th UK No.1 single, from her album of the same title. The video stars Madonna as well as comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as his famous character Ali G.
2001, American saxophonist Jay Migliori died of cancer aged 70. As a session musician he recorded with The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra and Frank Zappa and was the founding member of Supersax, a tribute band to Charlie Parker.
2002, Thieves broke into the London home of Icelandic singer Bjork and stole valuable recording equipment. The 36-year-old singer was asleep in the flat at the time of the incident.
2005, Mariah Carey became only the fifth act ever to hold the top two positions in the US singles chart. The singer’s ‘We Belong Together’ notched a 10th consecutive week at number one on the Billboard chart while ‘Shake It Off’ jumped two places to second place. The feat puts Carey in a select group of acts to hold the top two with Nelly, OutKast, The Bee Gees and The Beatles. ‘We Belong Together’ was Carey’s 16th number one, giving her the third highest number of chart-toppers in the US behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
2005, Kanye West criticised President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina during a televised benefit concert in New York. The show, which was raising funds for relief efforts, featured Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Gere, Glenn Close, Harry Connick Jr and Wynton Marsalis. Appearing alongside comedian Mike Myers for a 90-second segment West told the audience: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” The comment went out live on the US east coast, but was cut from a taped version seen on the west coast.
2006, Lead singer of the Isley Brothers, Ronald Isley was sentenced to three years in a US prison for multiple counts of tax fraud. The 64-year-old, was also ordered to pay more than $3.1m to the US tax service for “pathological” evasion. The court heard he cashed royalty cheques belonging to his brother O’Kelly, who died in 1996 and also spent millions of dollars made from undeclared performances on a yacht and two homes.
2007, 17 year-old Jamaican-American singer Sean Kingston went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Beautiful Girls’, also a US No.1. The song samples the bassline from Ben E. King’s classic ‘Stand by Me’.
2009, Guy Babylon, keyboard player with the Elton John Band died of a heart attack while swimming in his pool at his home in Los Angeles, California.
2012, Mark Abrahamian, the lead guitarist with Starship died of a heart attack aged 46. He collapsed following a concert in the US state of Nebraska where Starship had opened for fellow bands Survivor and Boston.
2013, Sir Elton John won the first ever Brits Icon award, in a gala concert which marked his stage return after surgery for appendicitis. Elton was presented with the prize by his friend, singer Rod Stewart, who described him as “the second-best rock singer ever”. The Icon prize had been created by the BPI, the music industry’s trade body, which also runs the Brit Awards.
2016, The Eagles Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 returned to the US album chart thanks to a 99-cent sale price in the Google Play store. The album, released in 1976, was already the largest selling compilation album in history with worldwide sales of over 42 million copies.
(This Day in Music)
