1946 : Frank Sinatra releases his solo debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, through Columbia Records.

1959 : The winners of the first Grammy Awards were announced. Domenico Modugno’s ‘Volare’ was Record of the Year; Henry Mancini’s ‘Peter Gunn’ was Album of the Year and The Champs ‘Tequila’ won best R&B performance.

1966 : John Lennon’s statement that The Beatles were ‘more popular than Jesus Christ’ was published in The London Evening Standard. “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. We’re more popular then Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.” Christian groups in the US were outraged resulting in some states burning Beatles records. Lennon later apologised.

1967 : The Rolling Stones went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Ruby Tuesday’, the group’s fourth US No.1 single. ‘Lets Spend The Night Together’ was the original A side but after radio stations banned the song ‘Tuesday’ became the A side.

1967 : Steve Winwood and his brother, Muff, announce they are leaving The Spencer Davis Group. Steve forms Traffic later that year.

1970 : Janis Joplin is fined $200 for onstage profanity by a Tampa, Florida judge.

1971 : The Rolling Stones kicked off a 9-date UK tour at Newcastle City Hall, supported by The Groundhogs. Also on this day The Stones announced that they were to become the UK’s first rock and roll tax exiles, residing in France.

1973 : Pink Floyd played the first night on a 19 date North American tour at the Dane County Memorial Coliseum in Madison.

1977 : The Rolling Stones perform at Toronto’s small El Morcambo Tavern, a rare intimate show that provides four tracks for their notoriously bad 1977 LP Love You Live.

1977 : CBS released the self- titled first album by The Clash in the UK. CBS in the U.S. refused to release it until 1979. Americans bought over 100,000 imported copies of the record making it one of the biggest- selling import records of all time.

1978 : The US internal Revenue Service carried out a dawn raid at the home of Jerry Lee Lewis and removed cars worth over £100,000 ($170,000) to pay off his tax debts.

1982 : Frank Zappa’s son Dweezil and his daughter Moon Unit formed a band called Fred Zeppelin. Their first single was ‘My Mother is a Space Cadet’.

1984 : The Police play the final concert of their Synchronicity tour in Melbourne, Australia. It is their last show, except for a few special events together, until 2007

1986 : American songwriter Howard Greenfield died of a brain tumour aged 50. Working out of the famous Brill Building with Neil Sedaka he co-wrote many hits including ‘Calendar Girl’, ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’, and ‘Crying In The Rain’ with Carole King. Also wrote TV theme songs including the theme to ‘Bewitched.’

1986 : After just completing a two set show with The Band in Winter Park, Florida, 41 year old Richard Manuel of The Band hung himself from a shower curtain rod in a hotel room in Florida. His band mate, Robbie Robertson honoured his friend with the song, ‘Fallen Angel’ in 1987.

1989 : Time Inc. and Warner Communications merge into Time Warner, creating the world’s largest media company.

1994 : Kurt Cobain was rushed to hospital after overdosing on alcohol and drugs in a Rome hotel during a Nirvana European tour. Cobain had taken 50-60 pills of Rohypnol mixed with champagne; rumours on the internet claimed that Kurt was dead.

2001 : Bruce Springsteen adds Hank Ballard’s 1960 hit “Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go” to tonight’s setlist in Jacksonville, FL, in honor of Ballard, who’d passed on two days earlier.

2001 : Michael Jackson and friend Macaulay Culkin spend the night shopping at a London record store, which stays open after hours to accommodate the pair.

2003 : A noisy neighbour was banned from playing her music and had her stereo system impounded, after she had played Cliff Richard music too loudly. 23 year-old Sian Davies was fined £1,000 ($1,700) plus court costs after environmental protection officers raided her flat in Porth, Rhondda, Wales and seized 15 amplifiers and speakers, plus 135 CDs and cassette tapes. The disc found in her CD player was the Cliff Richard single, ‘Peace in Our Time’. A spokesman for the Cliff Richard Organization said he was delighted to hear of somebody in their early 20s owning one of his many recordings. He added, Cliff would not want anyone to play his music so that it caused a nuisance.

2004 : Brian Wilson appeared at the Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow during his 11-date UK tour. The shows saw Wilson performing the full suite of songs from his unreleased masterpiece ‘Smile’ Wilson’s ‘teenage symphony to God.’

2012 : According to Nielsen SoundScan in the US, vinyl sales increased 36 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year, concluding that vinyl records where making a big comeback for music fans.