1952 : Jazz and blues singer Billie Holiday marries mafia enforcer Louis McKay.

1958 : Buddy Holly kicked off the first night of a 43 date tour at Brooklyn Paramount Theatre in Brooklyn, New York. The Alan Freed’s Big Beat Show also featured Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon, The Diamonds, Billy Ford, Danny & The Juniors, The Chantels, Larry Williams, Screaming Jay Hawkins, The Pastels, Jo-Ann Campbell and Ed Townsend. On most days the acts played two shows.

1958 : Recorded at Gold Star Studios, Hollywood, California on this day at Eddie Cochran – “Summertime Blues”.

1964 : The Beatles become the first Rock Stars displayed in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London. They would later use their wax versions on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

1964 : The Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love enters the charts.

1964 : Jan and Dean’s Dead Man’s Curve enters the charts.

1964 : Radio Caroline, the UK’s first all-day English-language “pirate” radio station, begins broadcasting from the Fredericia, a former Danish ferry, in the North Sea.

1967 : Working on sessions for the new Beatles album Sgt. Pepper at Abbey Road studios in London, John Lennon recorded his lead vocal for ‘Good Morning Good Morning’, and Paul McCartney added a lead guitar solo to the track. Lennon had decided he wanted to end the song with animal sound effects, and asked that they be sequenced in such a way that each successive animal was capable of scaring or eating the preceding one.

1967 : Recorded on this day, Van Morrison – “Brown Eyed Girl”.

1968 : Pink Floyd recorded a performance for the BBC 2 TV Omnibus – The Sound of Change show from Barnes Common, London, England. The special, which was produced by Tony Palmer, also featured performances by The Who, Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The show was later broadcast in September of this year.

1968 : Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay hits #1 about 3 months after his death, becoming the first ever posthumous #1 hit.

1970 : Simon and Garfunkel were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, the duo’s only UK No.1. Only Art Garfunkel sang on the track.

1971 : No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: The Temptations’ Just My Imagination

1973 : Pink Floyd’s LP Dark Side Of The Moon hits #1

1973 : Led Zeppelin released Houses Of The Holy in the UK. The album title was a dedication by the band to their fans who appeared at venues they dubbed ‘Houses of the Holy’.

1974 : Blue Swede’s Hooked On A Feeling is certified gold

1974 : Delta blues singer and guitarist Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup died of a stroke at the age of 69. He wrote ‘That’s All Right (Mama)’ covered by Elvis Presley and ‘My Baby Left Me’.

1975 : Barbra Streisand attends tonight’s Elvis Presley’s show in Vegas and meets the King backstage to discuss offering him the lead role in her latest film project: a remake of the classic A Star Is Born. Despite the fact that Streisand’s boyfriend, stylist Jon Peters, is slated to produce and direct, Presley is said to be ecstatic about the project.

1976 : Genesis began their first North American tour since Peter Gabriel left the band, appearing in Buffalo, New York, with Phil Collins taking over as lead singer.

1977 : KISS played the first of five sold-out nights on their Alive II world Tour at the Budokan in Tokyo, Japan.

1978 : Alice Cooper appears on The Muppet Show, where he performs “Welcome to My Nightmare” and “School’s Out.” He also offers to give the Muppets fame and riches if they’ll sign their souls over to him. Kermit is horrified. Gonzo spends the entire episode looking for a pen.

1979 : The day after they are married, Eric Clapton sings Wonderful Tonight to his new wife Pattie at his concert in Tucson. He wrote the song about her while waiting for her to get ready to go out.

1981 : Elton John’s version of The Beatles ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ was released as a tribute to John Lennon.

1982 : After driving erratically due to a toxic shock from drug abuse, David Crosby is arrested in San Diego for driving under the influence and possession of Quaaludes, cocaine, drug paraphernalia, and an unlicensed .45 pistol. When cops ask why Crosby is carrying the gun, he says two words: “John Lennon.”

1984 : Mick Fleetwood, whose band, Fleetwood Mac, had the biggest-selling album of all time just seven years earlier, files for bankruptcy amidst reports that he has lost $8 million.

1985 : About 6,000 radio stations play the benefit single “We Are The World” simultaneously at 10:15 am EST.

1987 : After hearing that Arizona Governor Evan Mecham would not honor the new national holiday Martin Luther King Day, the racially integrated Doobie Brothers move their upcoming show from Phoenix to Las Vegas.

1992 : Over a $100,000 worth of damage was caused at The Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, California, when Ozzy Osbourne invited the first two rows of the audience on stage. Several others took up the offer and the band was forced to exit the stage.

1996 : Phil Collins leaves Genesis on good terms, stating he will concentrate on “Movies, some Jazz projects, and of course my solo career.”

2000 : Jimmy Page accepted substantial undisclosed libel damages from a magazine which claimed he had caused or contributed to the death of his Led Zeppelin bandmate John Bonham. Page’s solicitor, Norman Chapman, told High Court Judge Mr Justice Morland that the feature in Ministry magazine printed in 1999 claimed Page was more concerned with keeping vomit off his bed than saving his friend’s life, and that he stood over him wearing Satanist robes and performing a useless spell.

2003 : The recent SARS scare forces The Rolling Stones to cancel their upcoming series of shows in Hong Kong — though they would later reschedule those shows and play them as a sign to visitors that China was safe to visit.

2005 : After playing a warm-up date the night before at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, U2 kicked off their Vertigo tour at the iPay One Center in San Diego, California. The 131 date world tour would see the band playing in North America, Europe, South America and Japan. By the time it finished, the Vertigo Tour had sold 4,619,021 tickets, grossing $389 million; the second-highest figure ever for a world tour.

2006 : Tina Brown the sister-in-law of Whitney Houston sold pictures taken in her bathroom to the National Enquirer claiming Whitney Houston had been taking crack cocaine. The pictures showed drug paraphernalia including a crack-smoking pipe, rolling papers, cocaine-caked spoons and cigarette ends strewn across the surface tops of the bathroom.

2014 : Tickets for Kate Bush first live shows in 35 years sold out in less than 15 minutes. The Before the Dawn concerts, which were booked to take place this August and September, marked the singer’s first return to the stage since The Tour Of Life in 1979. Demand was so high that the singer’s own website, as well as some ticket-selling sites, crashed as people tried to log on.