1949 : No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: Vaughn Monroe’s “Riders in the Sky”

1954 : BBC radio in the UK banned the Johnny Ray song ‘Such a Night’ after listeners complain about its ‘suggestiveness’. Ray was famous for his emotional stage act, which included beating up his piano, and writhing on the floor.

1955 : Tony Bennett was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Stranger In Paradise’. Based on a theme from Borodin’s 1888 opera – ‘Prince Igor’. The song was a hit in the 1953 Broadway show ‘Kismet’.

1964 : The Beatles had held the No.1 position on the US singles chart for fourteen weeks with three No.1’s in succession. ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ for seven weeks, ‘She Loves You’ for two weeks and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, for five weeks.

1965 : The filming of the promotional film for Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ took place at the side of the Savoy Hotel in London. Actors in the background were Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth. This became one of the first ‘modern’ promotional film clips, the forerunner of the music video. The original clip was actually the opening segment of D. A. Pennebaker’s film, Don’t Look Back, a documentary on Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England. In the film, Dylan, who came up with the idea, holds up cue cards for the camera with selected words and phrases from the lyrics. The cue cards were written by Donovan, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Neuwirth and Dylan himself. While staring at the camera, he flipped the cards as the song played.

1965 : “Count Me In” makes Gary Lewis and the Playboys the only American act in the US Top-10. Their song is #2 behind “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” by Herman’s Hermits.

1967 : Gerry And The Pacemakers announced they were splitting up, recognizing they could no longer keep pace with the rapidly changing UK rock scene.

1969 : John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr signed a business management contract with Allen Klein and his company ABKCO, but Paul McCartney refused to sign, continuing to let the Eastmans represent his interests.

1969 : No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: The 5th Dimension’s “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”

1970 : The Beatles twelfth and final album, ‘Let It Be’ was released, (it was recorded before ‘Abbey Road’ and originally to be called ‘Get Back’). The album came in a deluxe-boxed edition with a ‘Get Back’ book.

1972 : Billy Preston becomes the first rock star to headline at New York’s Radio City Music Hall

1974 : UK keyboard player Graham Bond committed suicide after throwing himself under a London tube train at Finsbury Park station, aged 36. It took police two days to identify his body which was crushed beyond all recognition. Briefly a member of Blues Incorporated, a group led by Alexis Korner, before forming the Graham Bond Quartet, with a lineup of Bond on vocals and organ, Ginger Baker on drums and Jack Bruce on bass.

1976 : Abba scored their third UK No.1 single with ‘Fernando’, the song went on to become ABBA’s biggest selling single, with sales over 10 million. And also on day Abba started a nine-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with their ‘Greatest Hits’ album.

1976 : BBC Radio 1 DJ Johnny Walker announced he was quitting the station after being told he must pretend to like The Bay City Rollers (good on ya Johnny)

1976 : Former lead singer of the Lovin Spoonful John Sebastian went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Welcome Back’, taken from the US TV show ‘Welcome Back Kotter’.

1977 : No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: Leo Sayer’s “When I Need You”

1982 : Neil Bogart died of cancer at the age of 39. Bogart was the founder of Casablanca Records, with Peter Guber, home of Donna Summer, The Village People, Kiss, T.Rex and Joan Jett.

1982 : Paul McCartney scored his fifth UK No.1 album with ‘Tug Of War’. The album featured the duet with Stevie Wonder ‘Ebony & Ivory’, which was inspired by McCartney hearing comedian Spike Milligan say “black notes, white notes, and you need to play the two to make harmony, folks!”, (the ebony (black) and ivory (white) keys on a piano).

1982 : Vangelis went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Chariots Of Fire’, his only US No.1. Vangelis was accused of plagiarising ‘Chariots of Fire’ from a song by fellow Greek composer Stavros Logaridis called ‘City of Violets’. Vangelis won in court by convincing the judge to allow him to bring his keyboard setup into the court to demonstrate his method of composing by improvising new music.

1984 : Roger Waters released his first solo album The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking. The concept album, as originally envisioned by Waters in 1977, rotated around a man’s thoughts during a midlife crisis, and featured guest musicians Eric Clapton on guitar, David Sanborn on saxophone and Michael Kamen on piano.

1993 : The comeback is complete, as Aerosmith’s “Get a Grip” album debuts at #1, marking their first trip to the top of the album charts.

1993 : Mark Knopfler received an honorary music doctorate from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

1995 : Rick Nelson receives a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1996 : A Los Angeles judge ruled against Tommy Lee and wife Pamela Anderson in their bid to keep Penthouse magazine from publishing still photos from an X-rated home movie that was stolen from their home.

2005 : Bruce Springsteen was at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘Devils and Dust’ his 13th No.1 studio album.

2006 : The Rolling Stones called off their forthcoming European tour after guitarist Keith Richards underwent emergency brain surgery. The 62 year-old guitarist suffered “mild concussion” when he fell out of a coconut tree on holiday in Fiji.

2008: American Country artist Eddy Arnold died of natural causes, one week before his 90th birthday. He sold more than 85 million records and had 147 songs on the US charts, including 28 number one hits on Billboard’s Country Singles chart. He was once managed by Colonel Tom Parker (who later managed Elvis Presley). Arnold had the 1965 US No.4 hit, ‘Make The World Go Away’.