1928 : The first professional recordings in Nashville take place as DeFord Bailey lays down eight tracks in Victor Records (later RCA) Studios.

1945 : Elvis Presley, then just ten years old, makes his first public appearance at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show singing “Old Shep” in a talent contest. He comes in second.

1954 : Elvis Presley bombs at the Grand Ole Opry, which does not approve of his take on traditional country music. The Opry’s talent director, Jim Denny, famously tells Presley he should go back to driving a truck. Elvis swears never to return.

1954 : US band vocalist from the 1940’s, Don Cornell was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Hold My Hand’. This song was banned by the BBC for the words ‘kingdom of heaven’.

1957 : Recorded on this day, Connie Francis – “Who’s Sorry Now”

1959 : The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS-TV.

1959 : ‘Stay’ by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs entered the US chart on its way to No.1. At just 1:37, it becomes the shortest US chart topper in Rock and Roll history.

1959 : Fifteen Elvis Presley fans were arrested in Germany after marching through the streets of Leipzig shouting “Long live Elvis Presley” and making unkind remarks about German music.

1961 : Phil Spector and partner Lester Sill released the first single on their new label Philles, The Crystals’, ‘Oh Yeah Maybe Baby.’ A little over a year later, they had a No.1 hit with ‘He’s a Rebel,’ and soon after, ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ and ‘Then He Kissed Me.’

1965 : The McCoys were at No. 1 on the US singles chart with ‘Hang On Sloopy’ (No.5 in the UK when released on Andrew Oldham’s new Immediate label). The song was first released by The Vibrations and called ‘My Girl Sloopy’.

1965 : Manfred Mann plays Prague in Czechoslovakia, becoming the first Western band to take the stage behind the infamous Communist “Iron Curtain.”

1967 : All six members of The Grateful Dead were busted by California narcotics agents for possession of marijuana at the groups’ 710 Ashbury Street House in San Francisco, California.

1968 : Motown sues their most prolific songwriting team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, for their refusal to write more songs until their royalty rate is increased. The trio are eventually released from the label and go on to start their own Invictus and Hot Wax labels.

1970 : Pink Floyd released their fifth, and first UK No.1 album Atom Heart Mother in the UK. The original album cover shows a cow standing in a pasture with no text, nor any other clue as to what might be on the record. Storm Thorgerson, inspired by Andy Warhol’s famous ‘cow wallpaper,’ has said that he simply drove out into a rural area near Potters Bar, England and photographed the first cow he saw. The cow’s owner identified her name as ‘Lulubelle III’.

1971 : Rod Stewart started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Maggie May / Reason To Believe’, his first solo No.1. Stewarts album ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’ also started a four-week run on this day at No.1 on the UK and US chart.

1971 : Soul Train makes its debut, with guests Gladys Knight & The Pips, Eddie Kendricks, and The Honey Cone. It stays on the air an astonishing 35 years.

1976 : Joe Cocker is the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, where he performs Feelin’ Alright with his nemesis impersonator, John Belushi.

1977 : After a plot is uncovered to steal it, the body of Elvis Presley and his mother Gladys were moved from the cemetery where they were buried to their final resting place in the Meditation Garden at Graceland.

1977 : The LP “Gene Simmons” is certified platinum.

1982 : Dire Straits started a four-week run at No.1 on UK the album charts with ‘Love Over Gold’.

1982 : John Cougar started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Jack and Diane’, his first US No.1a No.25 hit in the UK.

1982 : Accept’s fourth studio album, Restless and Wild, is released. Self-produced by the band, the album would include two different front covers (one of two Flying V’s aflame, the other a live shot of the band), and spawn a track which many consider the birth of speed metal, “Fast as a Shark.”

1982 : Musical Youth were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Pass The Dutchie’. The group were made up of Birmingham school boys, aged 11-16. The song was a cover of The Mighty Diamonds song called ‘Pass The Kutchie’, a slang term for a cannabis smoking pipe, but the word was changed to avoid the song being banned for it’s drug reference.

1982 : Peter Gabriel and Steve Hacket joined their former band mates in Genesis for a one-time benefit performance at The Milton Keynes Bowl in Buckinghamshire, England to help raise money for Gabriel’s WOMAD project (World of Music, Arts and Dance).

1983 : Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler was at No.1 on the US singles chart with the Jim Steinman written and produced track ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’. It made her the only Welsh artist to score a US No.1.

1985 : Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA tour ends with the last of four shows at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

1986 : The Everly Brothers are awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.

1995 : Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill reaches the top of the Billboard 200 in its 15th week giving the Maverick label, founded by Madonna, its first No. 1. She’s the third female artist to have a debut album reach No. 1 in the 1990s.

1995 : Oasis released their second album ‘(What’s The Story), Morning Glory’, which entered the UK chart at No.1. The album has gone on to sell over 18 million copies worldwide, and it won the award for the best British Album of the last 30 Years at the 2010 Brit Awards.

1996 : A Pearl Jam show in Hartford Connecticut ended in a riot when mass fighting broke out among the 30,000 strong crowds.

1998 : America’s singing cowboy Gene Autry died aged 91. During his career he scored 25 successive Top 10 Country hits. In 1995 it was estimated he was worth $320 million.

1999 : David Bowie offers a virtual guided tour of the controversial art show “Sensation: Young British Artists From The Saatchi Collection,” at http://www.davidbowie.com. The show includes Damien Hirst’s shark suspended in formaldehyde (titled “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”) and Tracey Emin’s tent (titled “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995”).

1999 : Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas married model Marisol Maldonado. Marisol appeared in the Santana video ‘Smooth’ with Thomas.

2001 : Actor Kevin Spacey hosted Come Together: A Night for John Lennon’s Words and Music at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Performers include, Alanis Morissette, Moby, Stone Temple Pilots and the Dave Mathews Band. The evening was closed with those present singing ‘Give Peace A Chance’.

2002 : Return of the King: 25 years after his death, Elvis Presley has a #1 album in 17 countries – including the United States – when Elv1s 30 No. 1 Hits makes its debut.

2002 : Adam Ant escaped a prison sentence after a judge ruled that an incident in which he threatened drinkers with a replica pistol in a London pub was a result of mental illness. The 1980’s pop star had been voluntarily having psychiatric treatment since the incident.

2003 : Police were called to a suspected burglary at the Los Angeles house of Courtney Love’s former boyfriend and ex-manager Jim Barber in the early hours. Ms Love was picked up in the street outside and detained – with officers noting “Miss Love’s behaviour was consistent with being under the influence of a controlled substance”. Shortly after her arrest, Ms Love was taken to hospital with a suspected drug overdose.

2003 : For the third year in a row, Radiohead takes the “best act in the world today” honors at the Q Awards in London. Q Magazine hated on their Hail to the Thief album, however, so the band refused to appear.

2003 : A pair of trousers worn in 1984 by the late Queen star Freddie Mercury were sold to the Hard Rock Cafe for £4,230 at a Christie’s auction of pop memorabilia held in London, England. A wooden sculpture of a cupboard, designed by John Lennon, claimed the highest price of the day, £28,200. Hundreds of items related to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Madonna also went under the hammer at the sale.

2004 : Billy Joel married 23-year-old Kate Lee at his Centre Island, New York mansion. It was the third marriage for Joel.

2008 : Pink went to No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘Funhouse’ the singer’s fourth studio album. The album’s original title was ‘Heartbreak is a Motherfucker’.

2012 : British session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan (born James George Tomkins) died at the age of 71. Sullivan started his career in 1959 as a member of Marty Wilde’s band and when Wilde bought Sullivan a Gibson Les Paul guitar, it was allegedly the first in Britain. Sullivan taught future Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore to play guitar, as well as helping Yes and Asia guitarist Steve Howe on his road to success. He featured on 55 No.1 hits, and worked with George Harrison, Frank Zappa, Thunderclap Newman, Love Affair, Long John Baldry, Marmalade and The Tremeloes. During Jimmy Page’s session career, he was known as ‘Little Jim’, to differentiate him from Big Jim.