Saturday, December 7, 2019

What Happened Today In Music

1963 - The Beatles
The Beatles second album 'With The Beatles' started a 21-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart. It replaced their first album 'Please Please Me' which had been at the top of the charts since it's release 30 weeks previously. Also today, all four Beatles appeared on BBC TV's 'Juke Box Dury'. Some of the songs The Beatles judged were ‘Kiss Me Quick’ by Elvis Presley, ‘The Hippy Hippy Shake’ by the Swinging Blue Jeans. ‘Did You Have a Happy Birthday’ by Paul Anka and ‘Where Have You Been All My Life’ by Gene Vincent.
1963 - Jeanine Deckers
The Singing Nun started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Dominique', it reached No.7 on the UK chart. The song sold over 1.5 million copies in the US, winning a Grammy Award for the year's best Gospel song.
1964 - Brian Wilson
Beach Boy Brian Wilson married Marilyn Rovell in L.A. The couple divorced in 1979. Marilyn and her sister and cousin were in a group, the Honeys, who were produced by Brian Wilson. Marilyn and Brian had two daughters, Carnie and Wendy, who became members of Wilson Phillips.
1967 - Otis Redding
Otis Redding went into the studio to record '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay'. The song went on to be his biggest hit. Redding didn't see its release; he was killed three days later in a plane crash. Redding wrote the first verse of the song, under the abbreviated title 'Dock of the Bay', on a houseboat at Waldo Point in Sausalito, California a short time after his appearance at The Monterey pop festival. Redding's familiar whistling, heard before the song's fade was the singer fooling around, he had intended to return to the studio at a later date to add words in place of the whistling.
1967 - The Beatles
The Beatles Apple boutique on 94 Baker Street, London, opened its doors. The store closed seven months later when it fell foul of council objections over the psychedelic mural painted on the outside. All the goods from the shop were given away free to passers by and to people who had queued throughout the night for a chance of getting a free item.
1968 - The Beatles
The Beatles White Album started a seven-week run at No.1 on the UK chart. The double set was the first on the Apple label and featured 'Back In The USSR', 'Dear Prudence', and the Harrison song 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.'
1974 - Barry White
Barry White was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'You're The First, The Last, My Everything', the singers first UK No.1. Originally written in the 1950s as a country song with the title 'You're My First, You're My Last, My In-Between.'
1974 - Carl Douglas
Carl Douglas started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Kung Fu Fighting'. The song was recorded in 10 minutes, had started out as a B-side and went on to sell over 10 million.
1977 - Peter Carl Goldmark
Inventor Dr Peter Carl Goldmark was killed in a car crash aged 71. Goldmark invented the long-playing microgroove record in 1945 that went on to revolutionise the way people listened to music.
1979 - The Police
The Police had their second UK No.1 single with 'Walking on the Moon', taken from their second album 'Reggatta De Blanc'. The video for the song was filmed at Kennedy Space Center interspersed with NASA footage.
1985 - Mr Mister
Mr Mister started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Broken Wings', a UK No.4 hit.
1991 - George Michael
George Michael and Elton John were at No.1 in the UK with a live version of 'Don't Let The Sun Go down On Me', (a hit for Elton in 1974). All proceeds from the hit went to aids charities.
1991 - U2
U2 went to No.1 on the US album charts with 'Achtung Baby'. Featuring 'One', Zoo Station', 'The Fly' and 'Even Better Than The Real Thing'.
1992 - Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey's MTV Unplugged EP became the first Sony Minidisc to be released in the US.
1993 - Phillip Hall
Manic Street Preachers co-manager Phillip Hall died from cancer. Hall was a former Record Mirror journalist and had also worked in PR for Stiff Records. Represented many acts including The Stone Roses, The Pogues, James, The Waterboys, The Beautiful South and Radiohead.
2003 - Britney Spears
Britney Spears was at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘In The Zone’ the singer's fourth US No.1 album. The singer broke her own record from being the first female artist to have three albums enter the US chart at No.1 to being the first female artist to have 4 albums enter at No.1 consecutively.
2005 - John Lennon
The MBE medal that John Lennon returned to the Queen was found in a royal vault at St James' Palace. Lennon returned his medal in November, 1969 with a letter accompanying saying, "Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With Love, John Lennon." Historians were calling for the medal to be put on public display.
2008 - Leona Lewis
Leona Lewis went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Run’ which became the fastest-selling digital-only track. Take Thatwent to No.1 on the UK album after selling over 432,000 copies of their new album The Circus. Britney Spears album Circus, released on the same day as Take That's album entered the chart at number four.
2014 - Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd's classic album, The Dark Side Of The Moon made a surprise return to the Billboard chart when it landed at No.13, thanks to ultra-cheap pricing in the Google Play store where the album was discounted to 99-cents. Although it held the No.1 spot in the US for only a week when released in 1973, it remained in the Billboard album chart for 741 weeks.
2015 - David Bowie
David Bowie made his last public appearance when he attended the opening night of the Lazarus production at the New York Theatre Workshop in Manhattan. Tickets to the entire run of the musical (which ran until 20th Jan 2016), sold out within hours of being made available.
2016 - Greg Lake
Greg Lake, who fronted both King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, died aged 69 after a battle with cancer. One of the founding fathers of progressive rock, the band combined heavy rock riffs with a classical influence. They scored hit albums with Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery and Lake had his solo hit 'I Believe in Father Christmas'. Jimi Hendrixconsidered joining ELP in their earliest incarnation, and if this had happened, the band would've been known as HELP.
2016 - Viola Beach
An inquest into the deaths of British band Viola Beach after a crash in Sweden heard that "none of the young men suffered". The four-piece group and their manager, who were aged between 19 and 32, died in the early hours of 13 February 2016, following a gig in Stockholm. Their car crashed into a raised section of a bridge and plummeted into a canal.

Born Today In Music

December 7th

1942 - Harry Chapin
Harry Chapin, US singer, songwriter, (1974 UK No.34 single 'W.O.L.D. & 1974 US No.1 single 'Cat's In The Cradle'). Killed on 16th July 1981, when a tractor-trailer crashed into the car he was driving.
1949 - Tom Waits
Tom Waits, American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. His songs are best-known through cover versions by other artists: 'Jersey Girl', performed by Bruce Springsteen, 'Ol' '55', by the Eagles and 'Downtown Train', by Rod Stewart.
1954 - Mike Nolan
Mike Nolan, singer with British pop group Bucks Fizz who had the UK hits 'Making Your Mind Up' (1981), 'The Land of Make Believe' (1981) and 'My Camera Never Lies' (1982) and became one of the top-selling groups of the 1980s.
1958 - Tim Butler
Tim Butler, bassist with English rock band The Psychedelic Furs. Film director John Hughes used their song 'Pretty in Pink' for his 1986 movie of the same name.
1961 - Robert Downes
Robert Downes, guitarist with English rock band Then Jerico who had the 1989 UK No.13 single 'Big Area'.
1963 - Huw Chadbourne
Huw Chadbourne, keyboards, from British indie band Babybird, who had the 996 UK No.3 single ‘You’re Gorgeous’, and the 1996 UK No. 9 album Ugly Beautiful.
1963 - Barbara Weathers
American R&B/soul singer, Barbara Weathers, from American band Atlantic Starr who had the 1987 US No.1 & UK No.3 single 'Always'.
1965 - Brian Futter
Brian Futter, guitar, Catherine Wheel, (1992 UK No.35 single 'I Want To Touch You').
1973 - Damien Rice
Damien Rice, Irish singer, songwriter, former member of Juniper, now solo, (2003 album 'O' featuring the single 'Cannonball', 2006 UK No.1 album '9').
1974 - Nicole Appleton
Nicole Appleton, singer from British girl group All Saints, who had the 1998 UK No.1 and US No.4 single 'Never Ever'. The group's debut album, All Saints (1997), went on to become the third best-selling girl group album of all time in the UK.
1979 - Sara Bareilles
Sara Bareilles, American singer-songwriter. She achieved mainstream success in 2007 with the hit single ‘Love Song’, which reached No.4 on the US chart. Bareilles has sold over one million albums and over nine million singles and downloads in the US. 
1986 - Jonathan "JB" Benjamin Gill
Jonathan "JB" Benjamin Gill, singer from English boy band JLS, runners-up of the fifth series of The X Factor. Their first two singles 'Beat Again' and 'Everybody in Love' both went to No.1 on the UK singles chart.
1987 - Aaron Carter
Aaron Carter, singer, (1998 UK No. 7 single 'Crazy Little Party Girl').
1988 - Winston Marshall
Winston Marshall, banjoist in the Grammy Award winning British folk rock band Mumford & Sons. Their second studio album 'Babel' released in 2012 debuted at No.1 on both the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. It became the fastest selling album of 2012 in the UK. The live performance at the 2011 Grammy ceremony with Bob Dylan and The Avett Brothers led to a surge in popularity for the band in the US. The band received eight total Grammy nominations for Babel and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

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