| 66 | years ago | 1960 | Jimmy Charles' A Million to One enters the R&B chart. It peaks at #8 and makes it up to #5 on the pop chart. It's his only hit. |
| 64 | years ago | 1962 | Seven days after starting their first recording sessions, The Beatles cut two Lennon/McCarthy tunes, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You. Producer George Martin insisted session drummer Andy White sit in on the chance that new percussionist Ringo Starr doesn't work out. He, of course, does. |
| 63 | years ago | 1963 | A two-record “bootleg” set of Bob Dylan songs, called The Great White Wonder first appears in a Los Angeles record store. It's believed to be the first bootleg album. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | Beatle George Harrison forms his own song publishing company, Harrissongs. |
| 61 | years ago | 1965 | The Rolling Stones hit #1 in England with (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. |
| 61 | years ago | 1965 | The Beatles' LP, Help! hits #1 -- a position it will hold for 9 weeks. |
| 61 | years ago | 1965 | The Gentry's Keep on Dancing enters the Hot 100 where it stays for 13 weeks. It gets up to #4. It will be the group's biggest hit. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | The Rolling Stones perform on Ed Sullivan. Guitarist Brian Jones goes on despite a cast on his right hand which he broke in a fall in Tangier. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | The Beatles's All You Need Is Love is certified as a million-seller. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour bus begins cruising the English countryside carrying the group and other actors and friends, all involved in making the short film for the BBC. Songs from the film will be relased later on an album of the same name. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | Arriving in London for a tour of the U.K., Sly and the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham is picked up by police for possession of cannabis. The BBC cancels the group's television appearance and a London hotel refuses to honor the band's reservations. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | George Harrison's Bangla-Desh peaks at #23 on the singles chart while Rare Earth's I Just Wanna Celebrate peaks at #7. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | Donny Osmond's Go Away Little Girl hits #1. The song was #1 for Steve Lawrence in 1963 and peaked at #12 for the Happenings in 1966. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | The Jackson Five animated TV series debuts on ABC. The show features the voices of the five brothers. |
| 52 | years ago | 1974 | Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Band, and Joni Mitchell play London's 80,000-plus seat Wembley Stadium. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Aerosmith's self-titled debut album goes gold. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Janis Ian earns her first gold record for the album Between the Lines. The album contains her single At Seventeen, which is climbing the charts and will peak at #3. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | Bernie Taupin, known better as Elton John's lyricist, makes his television acting debut on ABC's The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew meet Dracula. He plays the leader of a band called Circus. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | David Bowie accepts Bing Crosby's invitation to appear as a special guest on Bing's annual Christmas television special. Bowie and Bing sing duets on Little Drummer Boy and Peace on Earth. The songs are recorded for Crosby's album Merrie Olde Christmas LP. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | The Who make their first U.S. concert performance since the loss of drummer Keith Moon. It's at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey and with Kenny Jones on drums. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers begin a U.S. tour playing with a giant backdrop that says, Why MCA? referring to the fact that the label they had been recording for had been sold to MCA Records. |
| 44 | years ago | 1982 | John Cougar's American Fool LP tops the chart. Cougar thus becomes the first artist in over a year and a half to have the #1 album, American Fool, and two singles in the Top Ten, Jack & Diane and Hurt So Good, in the same week. Michael Jackson accomplished the feat in 1981 with two hits off his Off the Wall LP. |
| 44 | years ago | 1982 | Valley Girl by Frank Zappa and his daughter Moon Unit peaks at #32 on the singles chart. |
| 44 | years ago | 1982 | Chicago's Hard To Say I'm Sorry hits #1 on the singles chart while Billy Idol's Hot In The City peaks at #23. |
| 42 | years ago | 1984 | Bruce Springsteen breaks the attendance record at Philadelphia's Spectrum when 16,800 fans attend the first of six sold-out shows. |
| 39 | years ago | 1987 | Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video wins MTV's Best Video award. |
| 39 | years ago | 1987 | Geffen releases Elton John's Greatest Hits Volume 3. |
| 39 | years ago | 1987 | Reggae star Peter Tosh is shot and killed in his home in Kingston, Jamaica. Police say Tosh was shot in the head after he refused to give money to robbers. |
| 36 | years ago | 1990 | George Michael's second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice is released. |
| 33 | years ago | 1993 | The Bob Dylan - The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration album enters the chart. It features Dylan songs as played by Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, Chrissie Hynde, Eddie Vedder, and more. |
| 31 | years ago | 1995 | Green Day tells a British magazine that they turned down an invitation to perform on Sesame Street because “we couldn't handle a mosh pit full of 5 year olds.” |
| 30 | years ago | 1996 | For the first time, a new single by a major recording artist is released exclusively on the Internet. David Bowie's Telling Lies is released on Bowie's web site, where it was available for 24 hours. |
| 30 | years ago | 1996 | INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence pleads guilty to hitting a photographer and is fined $600. The photographer was taking Hutchence's picture outside a hotel where Hutchence had spent the night with the estranged wife of Bob Geldof. Hutchence and the woman have since married. |
| 19 | years ago | 2007 | Rappers Kanye West and 50 Cent each release new CDs. West's Graduation outsells 50 Cent's Curtis by 200,000 copies in the first six days of sales. 50 Cent had vowed to hang up his microphone if West's album outsold his. |
| 12 | years ago | 2014 | Songwriter and record producer Bob Crewe dies. Crewe was a dynamic, innovative record producer, producing such recording artists as The Four Seasons, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Oliver, Lesley Gore, Frankie Valli and Bobby Darin. He was also mentor to songwriters Kenny Nolan, L. Russell Brown, Desmond Child and Cindy Bullens. |
| 12 | years ago | 2014 | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Cosimo Matassa, who recorded New Orleans rock and rhythm and blues from the 1950s to the 1970s, dies at the age of 88. 21 gold records and about 250 singles that made national charts were recorded in Matassa’s studio, including nearly every Fats Domino hit. Hits by others included Lloyd Price’s Lawdy Miss Clawdy and Ernie K-Doe’s Mother in Law. Matassa-recorded hits also include Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti, Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll, Professor Longhair’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Smiley Lewis' I Hear You Knockin’ Frankie Ford’s Sea Cruise and Chris Kenner’s Land of 1,000 Dances. |