1959 : Folk group The Kingston Trio are featured on the cover of Life magazine.

1963 : The Beatles played their last ever performance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. The Beatles, whose fee for their first performance at the Cavern had been £5, received a fee of £300 for this performance.

1963 : The Beach Boys released ‘Surfer Girl’, the first song Brian Wilson ever wrote and the first one he produced.

1966 : The Rolling Stones began nine days recording sessions for their next album at Los Angeles, RCA Studios, Hollywood, USA. Tracks recorded included: Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? Let’s Spend The Night Together, My Obsession, Yesterday’s Papers and Back Street Girl. Bob Egan Pop Spots

1967 : The Jimi Hendrix Experience played the first of five nights at the Salvation Club in New York City.

1968 : The Doors started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Hello I Love You’, the group’s second US No.1. ‘Hello I Love You’, was also in the Top 5 at the same time as Jose Feliciano’s version of ‘Light My Fire’, giving The Doors two songs, written by the group, simultaneously in the Top 5.

1968 : The two day Newport Pop Festival took place in Costa Mesa, California with Alice Cooper, Canned Heat, Chambers Brothers, Charles Lloyd Quartet, Country Joe and the Fish, Electric Flag, James Cotton Blues Band, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sonny & Cher, Steppenwolf and Tiny Tim. Over 100,000 fans attended the festival.

1971 : Paul McCartney puts Wings in flight, announcing the formation of his first post-Beatles band. Members are Paul, his wife Linda, former Moody Blues singer Denny Laine on guitar, and Denny Seiwell on drums.

1971 : Ringo Starr’s It Don’t Come Easy is certified gold

1974 : Guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter leaves Steely Dan to join The Doobie Brothers.

1974 : Anne Murray appeared at The Schaefer Festival in New York as the headlining act. The opening act was Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

1974 : Bad Company went to No.1 on the US album chart with their self-titled debut album.

1985 : ‘Drive’ by The Cars was re-released following it’s dramatic use on TV during the Live Aid concert. All the royalties from the record went to the Band Aid trust.

1985 : Madonna scored her first UK No.1 single with ‘Into The Groove’. The track was taken from the movie ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ which featured Madonna and Rosanna Arquette. ‘Into The Groove’ is Madonna’s best selling single in the UK, having sold over 850,000 copies.

1985 : Tears For Fears started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Shout’, the duo’s second US No.1.

1986 : The News Of The World in the UK printed an exclusive interview with 16 year old model Mandy Smith, who revealed she has been having an affair with Rolling Stone Bill Wyman for the past 2 and a half years.

1987 : Def Leppard released their fourth studio album ‘Hysteria’ which became their best selling album to date, selling over 20 million copies worldwide. The title of the album was thought up by drummer Rick Allen, relating to his experiences during the time of his car accident, and the worldwide media coverage that followed.

1991 : Metallica held a playback party to launch their self-titled album at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic from Nirvana both attended.

1991 : Pearl Jam plays the club RKCNDY in Seattle. The show is filmed and used to create their first video – for the song “Alive.” The audio from the show was used in the video, as the band hated the idea of lip-synching.

1993 : Boston Ventures, the group to whom Berry Gordy had sold Motown in 1988 for $61 million, sells the label and its holdings to Dutch conglomerate Polygram for #325 million.

1996 : Los Del Rio started a 14 week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Macarena’. The song which has sold 11 million copies world-wide was ranked the No.1 Greatest One-Hit Wonder of all Time by VH1 in 2002. More One Hit Wonders

1999 : Country legend Patsy Cline is awarded a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2000 : Maurice Kinn died aged 76. The UK publisher launched The New Musical Express in 1953, which instigated the first charts based on record sales (first published on 14 November 1952). and organised the annual NME poll-winners concerts between 1963 and 1966.

2000 : Pearl Jam played the first date on the North American leg of their Binaural 73-date world tour at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

2001 : Co-founder of US group 5th Dimension Ron Townson died of kidney failure aged 68. Had the 1969 US N.1 & UK No.11 single ‘Aquarius’.

2002 : After an absence of 37 years, Bob Dylan returned to the Newport Folk Festival (now known as the Apple and Eve Newport Folk Festival) where he performed a 2 hour show of 19 songs, wearing a false beard and a wig. Songs played included: ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, ‘Desolation Row’, ‘Positively 4th Street’, ‘The Wicked Messenger’, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’.

2003 : UK band The Coral scored their first UK No.1 album with ‘Magic and Medicine.’

2006 : Arthur Lee, singer and guitarist of the influential 1960’s band Love died in Memphis at the age of 61 following a battle with acute myeloid leukaemia. He called himself the “first black hippie” and formed Love in Los Angeles in 1965. Best known for the critically revered 1967 album, ‘Forever Changes.’

2007 : Queen guitarist Brian May handed in his astronomy PhD thesis – 36 years after abandoning it to join the band. May had recently carried out observational work in Tenerife, where he studied the formation of “zodiacal dust clouds”.

2008 : Kid Rock was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘All Summer Long’. The song is based on Warren Zevon’s ‘Werewolves of London’ and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’.