1955 : Eddie Calvert was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with his version of ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.’ The song from the film ‘Underwater’ had also been a No.1 for Perez Prado in the same year.

1955 : Recorded on this day, Chuck Berry – “Maybellene”

1963 : The Beatles, recorded two BBC radio programs at the Playhouse Theatre in London. They recorded five songs for Saturday Club and six songs for Steppin’ Out.

1964 : The Four Pennies were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Juliet’. The group’s only UK No.1.

1966 : The Castiles (with Bruce Springsteen on vocals) appeared at Freehold Regional High School in New Jersey. They were performing at their own high school for the very first time. All five members of the band were Juniors at Freehold High School.

1967 : Jimi Hendrix signed with Reprise Records on the US Warner Brothers label. They released the guitarist’s albums ‘Are You Experienced’’, ‘Axis: Bold as Love’ and ‘Electric Ladyland’.

1968 : Rolling Stone Brian Jones appeared at Great Marlborough Street Magistrates court, London on a charge of possession of marijuana, Jones was released on £200 bail.

1970 : Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released the protest single Ohio, written and composed by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, when unarmed college students were shot by the Ohio National Guard. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

1972 : The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Faces, Family, Curved Air, Atomic Rooster, The Kinks, Rory Gallagher, Uriah Heep, Country Joe McDonald, Buddy Miles, Status Quo, Brinsley Schwarz, Spencer Davis, The Strawbs and Humble Pie all appeared at the 2nd British Rock Meeting, Insel Grun, Germersheim, West Germany. The festival was due to take place in Mannheim, West Germany, but after protests from the locals, the concert actually took place in nearby Germersheim.

1973 : No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: the Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein”

1974 : Two would-be concert promoters were arrested by police in America on fraud charges in connection with selling mail order tickets for a forthcoming Elten John show. (Elten with an E and not an O). Police took away over $12,000 in cheques.

1977 : Rod Stewart was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with the double A sided single ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It / First Cut Is The Deepest.’ The Danny Whitten song ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’ was also a UK No.3 hit for Everything But The Girl in 1988.

1977 : Stevie Wonder started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with his tribute to Duke Ellington, ‘Sir Duke’, his sixth US No.1, it made No.2 in the UK.

1977 : Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” album takes over the #1 spot from the Eagles Hotel California, where it stays for 31 weeks

1979 : Elton John becomes the first western act to tour the U.S.S.R. when he plays the first of eight concerts at a show in Leningrad

1980 : A thief broke into Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the recording studio built by Jimi Hendrix and stole five Hendrix gold records for the albums ‘Are You Experienced’’, ‘Axis: Bold as Love’, ‘Cry of Love’, ‘Rainbow Bridge’ and ‘Live at Monterey’.

1980 : Joe Strummer of The Clash was arrested at a much-troubled gig in Hamburg, Germany, after smashing his guitar over the head of a member of the audience; he was released after an alcohol test proved negative.

1981 : Reggae star Bob Marley is buried with state honors in St. Ann’s, Jamaica

1982 : The Hacienda Club was opened in Manchester, England. Madonna made her UK TV debut at the club when C4 music show The Tube was broadcast live. Home to many Manchester acts including Oasis, Happy Mondays, U2, The Smiths, Charlatans, James, M People who all played at the club. (The club closed in 1997).

1983 : David Bowie went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Let’s Dance’, featuring blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. It was Bowie’s first single to reach number one on both sides of the Atlantic. The music video was made by David Mallet on location in Australia including a bar in Carinda in New South Wales, featured Bowie playing with his band while impassively watching an Aboriginal couple’s struggles against metaphors of Western cultural imperialism.

1983 : Michael Jackson’s album ‘Thriller’ went back to No.1 for the third time on the UK charts and stayed at the top for another five weeks.

1983 : ZZ Top releases their video for Gimme All Your Lovin’, which marks the first appearance of The Eliminator, which is Billy Gibbons’ 1933 Ford Hot Rod. The car appears in 3 other ZZ Top videos and becomes closely associated with the band. Gibbons has another one built just like it to bring on tour

1988 : Prince scored his first UK No.1 album with ‘Lovesexy.’ The cover (based on a photo by Jean Baptiste Mondino) caused some controversy upon release as it depicts Prince in the nude. Some record stores refused to stock it or wrapped the album in black.

1988 : Wet Wet Wet and Billy Bragg were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ and ‘She’s Leaving Home.’ The two Beatles songs had been recorded for the ChildLine charity, sales of the single, which spent four weeks at No.1 on the UK chart, were over £600,000, all of which was donated to ChildLine .

1992 : Bette Midler is Johnny Carson’s last guest on the NBC late-night program The Tonight Show. She sings several songs, including a short duet with Carson

1994 : All 4 One started an eleven week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘I Swear’, a No.2 hit in the UK. The song had been a No.1 country hit for John Montgomery in 1994.

1994 : Manchester United Football Club along with Status Quo were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Come On You Reds’.

2001 : Producer, arranger and keyboardist Tommy Eyre died of cancer aged 51. Worked with George Harrison, Wham! Dusty Springfield, and BB King. Played and arranged Joe Cocker’s hit ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ and Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’.

2003 : Ike Turner is refused entry into Japan because of a past drug conviction

2003 : Mariah Carey hit back at Eminem’s threats to sample the slushy voicemail messages she left on his mobile. Carey described the rapper as “a little girl” saying it’s “like dealing with a girlfriend in 7th grade, and he shouldn’t do it because it’ll get him in a bit of trouble with her lawyers.”

2006 : Madonna played the first of three sold out nights at The Los Angeles Forum in California, the first dates on her Confessions Tour. The 60-date tour grossed over $260 million, becoming the highest grossing tour ever for a female artist.

2007 : Former singer with Creed, Scott Stapp was arrested at his Florida home and charged with assault. The 33-year-old was held without bail following the charges, which related to a domestic assault.

2008 : Lou Pearlman, the music mogul who created the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison over a decades-long scam that swindled thousands of investors out of their life savings. Many victims were Pearlman’s relatives, friends and retirees in their 70’s or 80’s who lost everything.

2010 : U2’s lead singer Bono had emergency spinal surgery after suffering an injury while preparing for tour dates. The 50-year-old singer was treated at a specialist neurosurgery clinic in Munich and was expected to stay there for a number of days.

2011 : Bob Dylan came out on top as both the most inspirational individual for poets and the dream collaborative partner, in a survey carried out by The Foyle Poetry Society. The extensive survey questioned poets asking which musician and which genre of music most inspired their writing. The young people, aged between 11 and 17, from countries throughout the world also voted for artists such as Regina Spektor, David Bowie, Florence and the Machine, Leonard Cohen, Morrissey and Pete Doherty.