1960 : Bing Crosby was presented with a Platinum disc to commemorate his 200 millionth record sold. The sales figures were a combined total of 2,600 recorded singles and 125 albums. Crosby’s global lifetime sales on 179 labels in 28 countries totaled 400 million records.

1960 : Singer Tony Williams leaves The Platters to embark upon a solo career.

1962 : The Beatles record at Abbey Road for the first time, demoing three songs they wrote themselves: “Love Me Do”, “Ask Me Why” and “P.S. I Love You”. The four musicians received payments for the session of $12.07 each.

1964 : An anonymous ad taken out in six American music trade papers states: “In the public interest, watch The Rolling Stones crush The Beatles!”

1964 : The Dixie Cups’ Chapel Of Love hits #1.

1966 : Recorded on this day, The Beatles – “Eleanor Rigby”

1966 : Roy Orbison’s first wife, Claudette, was killed when a truck pulled out of a side road and collided with the motorbike that she and her husband were riding on in Gallatin, Texas, she was 25.

1968 : Screaming Lord Sutch appeared at the Freehold Hullabaloo in Freehold, New Jersey, (Sutch was touring the East Coast in a old custom-painted Rolls Royce ‘hearse’). Support band was The Castiles (with Bruce Springsteen on vocals).

1969 : Rod Stewart signs to the Mercury label.

1970 : Christie were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Yellow River’. Written by band leader Jeff Christie, the song was offered to The Tremeloes, who recorded it with the intention of releasing it as a single. However, they considered it too pop-orientated for their future direction. Producer Mike Smith therefore took their vocals off the recording and added those of Jeff Christie.

1970 : Colosseum, Taste, Atomic Rooster, Matthews Southern Comfort, Brinsley Schwarz, The Strawbs and Daddy Longlegs all appeared at this years Buxton Festival in Derbyshire, England.

1970 : Syd Barrett played his first gig since leaving Pink Floyd at the Extravaganza 70, at London’s Olympia Hall, England, backed by a band that included his old friend Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. Barrett baffled the audience (and his musicians) when he abruptly took off his guitar during the fourth number and walked off stage.

1971 : John Lennon makes his first stage appearance since 1969 when he and Yoko Ono jam with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention at the Fillmore East in New York. The show is recorded and released as a bonus disc with the Lennon/Ono album “Some Time In New York City”.

1971 : The Ed Sullivan Show airs its final show, going out with guests Jerry Vale and Gladys Knight & The Pips after 23 years on the air.

1972 : David Bowie releases his fifth album and commercial breakthrough, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust”. The album is based around a rock star called Ziggy Stardust – a persona Bowie would adopt for the next two years.

1973 : Barry White’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby” is certified gold.

1973 : The Elvis Presley concert documentary “Elvis On Tour” opens nationwide.

1977 : The Doobie Brothers sponsor a charity golf tournament and concert to benefit the United Way.

1977 : Stevie Wonder appears, sponsored by Billboard, as a guest music lecturer at a UCLA symposium, talking about his early Motown days and illustrating his points with performances.

1977 : Released on this day, Elvis Presley – “Way Down”

1979 : Def Leppard played at Crookes Workingman’s Club in Sheffield. The gig was reviewed in UK music paper ‘Sounds’ and led to a recording contract with Phonogram Records.

1982 : Tom Petty, Crosby Stills & Nash, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks and Jackson Browne all appeared at The Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California to a crowd of 85,000 fans at the six hour Peace Sunday, We Have A Dream antinuclear concert. Dylan was joined onstage with Joan Baez and duetted with her on Blowin’ In The Wind and With God On Our Side. The show was partly broadcast on ABC TV’s Entertainment Tonight program on the same day.

1986 : A&R man Dick Rowe died of diabetes. Rowe became famous for not signing The Beatles to Decca records and made the classic quote ‘Nobody cares about guitar group’s anymore.’ He did however sign The Rolling Stones to Decca.

1987 : Kim Wilde went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’, a No.2 hit in the UK. The song had been a 1966 hit for The Supremes.

1987 : Whitney Houston had her second UK No.1 single with ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)’. It reached No.1 in over a dozen other countries and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1988.

1987 : Michael Jackson announced that he was breaking all ties with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jackson had been raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and would don disguises and go door to door with the Watchtower message in cities where he was performing.

1990 : The 2 Live Crew album As Nasty As They Wanna Be becomes the first album declared legally obscene when Federal District Judge Jose Gonzalez rules that the album violates community obscenity standards in three south Florida counties: Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach. The ruling sets off a censorship firestorm which drives sales of the album past 2 million copies. Two days later, a record store owner is arrested for selling the album, and two days after that, the group is arrested for performing the songs in concert. The court ruling is eventually overturned.

1992 : David Bowie and Iman renew their vows in Florence, Italy after wondering about the legality of their wedding in Switzerland.

1993 : The Who’s Tommy, which has been converted into a Broadway play, wins five Tony Awards.

1993 : The Velvet Underground reform for the first time in 24 years for a show at London’s Wembley Arena.

1999 : Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’. Actor Lee Perry read the narrative. The backing is the choral version of ‘Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)’, a 1991 song by Rozalla, used in the film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet.

1999 : Plans were announced for Elvis Presley to tour the UK almost 23 years after his death with a virtual version of the ‘King’ performing with a live orchestra and members of his band.

2001 : Elton John auctions off 20 vehicles in his car collection, earning $2.75 million. He says he “doesn’t have time to drive them anymore.”

2003 : Keyboard player with The Animals Dave Rowberry died aged 62. He replaced Alan Price who left in 1965. The Animals had the 1964 UK & US No.1 single ‘House Of The Rising Sun’.

2003 : A High court judge in London ruled that rap lyrics should be treated as a foreign language after admitting that he was unsure of the meaning of ‘shizzle my nizzle’ and ‘mish mish man.’ The court battle was over a copyright issue between the Ant’ill Mob and the Heartless Crew who had used the lyrics on a remix.

2005 : A Los Angeles jury begins deliberation in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial.

2005 : John Bonham was voted at No. 1 in Classic Rock Magazine’s ’50 Greatest Drummers in Rock’ listing Moby Dick as Bonham’s defining moment. During live sets with Zeppelin his drum solo Moby Dick would often last for half an hour and regularly featured the use of his bare hands.

2006 : Billy Preston died of kidney failure. The Grammy-winning keyboard player collaborated with some of the greatest names in the music industry, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, Ray Charles, George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan.

2008 : Ki McPhail and Owen Doyle from Busted lost their £10m royalties battle. The former band members claimed they were forced to sign away their rights before being sacked from the band in October 2001. They pair said they wrote songs with the two other band members James Bourne and Matt Willis, including ‘Year 3000’ and ‘What I Go To School For’, when the group formed in 2001, but the judge in the case, Mr Justice Morgan, dismissed their claims and criticized the evidence they gave.

2010 : Song Of The Day – “It was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June”, according to C.W. McCall’s song, Convoy

2010 : Marvin Isley, the youngest member of the American R&B band, the Isley Brothers, died, aged 56. Marvin Isley, who was the group’s bass player, stopped performing in 1996 because of complications from diabetes, including the loss of his legs.

2012 : Adam Clayton’s former personal assistant and housekeeper went on trial, accused of stealing almost $3M from the U2 bass player. Carol Hawkins, from Dublin, pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 181 counts of theft. She was accused of stealing money from two of Clayton’s bank accounts over a four year period from 2004 to 2008. According to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen, Mr Clayton and their manager had a combined fortune of $788M