| 1953, Lita Roza was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with '(How Much) Is That Doggie In Window.' The 27 year old singer was the NME readers' Top Female artist of 1953 and with this single became the first British female singer to top the UK singles Chart, (and the first Liverpudlian to do so). |
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1963, The Rolling Stones played at The Crawdaddy Club, Richmond. All four members of The Beatles were in the audience.
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| 1964, The King Bees, (featuring a young David Bowie, then David Jones), played at a wedding reception at the Jack Of Clubs in London. |
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| 1966, The Spencer Davis Group were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Somebody Help Me', the group's second UK No.1. |
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| 1966, Roy Orbison, The Walker Brothers and Lulu all appeared at The Colston Hall, Bristol, England. |
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| 1967, David Bowie's novelty record 'The Laughing Gnome' was released in the UK. |
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1967, A riot broke out at Warsaw's Palace Of Culture as The Rolling Stones made their first appearance in an Iron curtain Country; police used tear gas in a battle with 2,000 fans.
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1967, Polydor Records released the Bee Gees 'New York mining Disaster 1941' It was released with a promotional slogan announcing 'The most significant talent since The Beatles'. The record became a Top 20 hit in the UK and US.
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| 1968, Phil Spector married Ronettes singer Veronica Bennett. The couple divorced n 1973 with Bennett citing several instances of alleged cruelty. |
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1969, The recording of 'The Ballad Of John and Yoko' took place, with just two Beatles, Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Paul played bass, drums and piano with John on guitars and lead vocals. The song was banned from many radio stations as being blasphemous. On some stations, the word 'Christ' was edited in backwards to avoid the ban.
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| 1969, |
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| 1970, Creedence Clearwater Revival made their live UK debut when they played the first of two nights at The Royal Albert Hall, London. |
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1971, The Illinois Crime Commission issued a list of 'drug-oriented records' including 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane, 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' by Procol Harum and The Beatles 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.'
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1973, Led Zeppelin started a two-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with 'Houses Of The Holy', also a No.1 in the US. The young girl featured on the cover of the album climbing naked up Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland is Samantha Gates who was 6 years old at the time of the photo shoot.
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1975, After rumours that Jimmy Page, Steve Marriott, Jeff Beck or Chris Spedding variously would replace Mick Taylor as guitarist in The Rolling Stones, a press release confirmed that Ron Wood would be joining the band for their forthcoming American tour.
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1975, Art Garfunkel started a six week run at No.1 in the UK with the theme from the film 'Watership Down', 'Bright Eyes' which went on to become the biggest selling single of the year. The song was written by the man behind The Wombles, Mike Batt.
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1976, Eric Faulkner of The Bay City Rollers reportedly came close to death after taking a drug overdose at their manager's house while in a state of exhaustion.
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| 1976, Motown Records and Stevie Wonder announced the largest contract renewal to date, worth $13 million. |
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1978, Joy Division played at the 'Stiff Test -Chiswick Challenge', at Raffters in Manchester, England. Future managers Rob Gretton and then journalist Tony Wilson saw the band for the first time.
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| 1979, The Doobie Brothers went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'What A Fool Believes', the group's second US No.1, it made No.31 in the UK. |
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| 1980, Gary Numan released 'The Touring Principle', the first long-form rock video to be made commercially available in the UK. |
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| 1983, The Pretenders bass player Pete Farndon died from a drug overdose. He was sacked from the group on June 14th 1982, (two days before Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott was found dead of heart failure). Farndon was in the midst of forming a new band with former Clash drummer Topper Headon when he died. |
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| 1983, Tears For Fears appeared at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester. Spandau Ballet appeared at The Royal Albert Hall, London. |
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| 1990, Madonna scored her seventh UK No.1 single with 'Vogue', also a US No.1 hit. Taken from her soundtrack album I'm Breathless (Music from and Inspired by the film Dick Tracy). |
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| 1990, Tommy Page went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'I'll Be Your Everything', his only hit in the UK reaching No.53. |
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1993, Paul McCartney kicked off a 24-date North American tour at the Sam Boys Silver Bowl in Las Vegas.
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| 1994, Kurt Cobain was cremated at the Bleitz Funeral Home, Seattle. The death certificate listed Cobain's occupation as Poet/Musician and his type of business as Punk Rock. |
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| 1995, American actor, writer and folk singer Burl Ives died of cancer aged 85. Had hits with 'Funny Way Of Laughing', 'The Blue Tail Fly' and 'Little Bitty Tear', won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1958 film The Big Country. |
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| 1998, Welsh singer Dorothy Squires died of lung cancer aged 83, in Llwynypia Hospital, Rhondda, Wales. (1953 UK No.12 single 'I'm Walking Behind You'). Once married to English actor Roger Moore |
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| 1999, UK singer, songwriter and actor Anthony Newley died of cancer. Scored 12 UK Top 40 singles from 1959-1962 including the No.1 single 'Why.' He won the 1963 Grammy Award for Song of the Year for "What Kind of Fool Am I?", he was married to the actress Joan Collins from 1963 to 1971. |
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| 2001, Sean Puffy Combs, (P. Diddy), was arrested in Miami for riding a scooter in South Beach on a suspended driver's license. He was released 20 minutes later after signing a promise to appear in court. |
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2002, Ashanti started a ten week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Foolish' and on the same day started a three week run at No.1 on the US album chart with her self-titled album.
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| 2003, A man was arrested accused of making up a Bjork concert then selling tickets. Alex Conate allegedly sold tickets worth $14,000 at $40 each after persuading a San Diego nightclub owner that Bjork had agreed to play there. He was accused of taking the money and moving to Hawaii, where he was arrested. |
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| 2009, A planned auction of nearly 1,400 items from the former home of Michael Jackson was cancelled. A public preview of the collection had already begun in Los Angeles and the exhibition of Jackson's possessions would stay open until the end of next week. A last-minute settlement meant Jackson's belongings would now be returned to him. In response, he had dropped a lawsuit against Juliens Auctions. |
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| 2009, Former Beatle George Harrison was honoured with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. Sir Paul McCartney attended the unveiling outside the landmark Capitol Records building, joining Harrison's widow Olivia and son Dhani. Eric Idle, Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and musician Tom Petty also attended the ceremony. |
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| 2013, Justin Bieber caused outrage after writing a message in a guestbook at the Anne Frank Museum, which stated he hoped the Holocaust victim would have been a fan. The 19-year-old wrote: "Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber." It provoked fierce online criticism of the Canadian singer, who was in Amsterdam as part of a tour. |
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| April 14th: Born on this day |
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1935, Born on this day, Loretta Lynn, country singer, the first woman to be named Country Music Artist Entertainer Of The Year. who became the first woman to be named Country Music Artist Entertainer Of The Year. Her best-selling 1976 autobiography was made into an Academy Award winning film, Coal Miner's Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones in 1980.
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| 1942, Born on this day, Tony Burrows, singer, Edison Lighthouse, (1970 UK No.1 single 'Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes'). Holds the record for having four records in the British Top Ten at once, all under different names. Edison Lighthouse ‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes), White Plains, ‘My Baby Loves Lovin', The Pipkins ‘Gimme Dat Ding,’ and the Brotherhood of Man's ‘United We Stand,’ all of which were hits in both the US and UK. |
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1945, Born on this day, Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist, Deep Purple, (1970 UK No.2 single 'Black Night', 1973 US No.4 single 'Smoke On The Water'), Rainbow, (1981 UK No.3 single 'I Surrender').
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| 1946, Born on this day, Patrick Fairley, Marmalde, (1968 UK No.1 single 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La- Da', 1970 US No.10 single 'Reflections Of My Life.' |
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| 1948, Born on this day, Larry Ferguson, Hot Chocolate, (1975 US No.3 single 'You Sexy Thing', 1977 UK No.1 single 'So You Win Again' plus over 25 other top 40 hits). |
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1949, Born on this day, Dennis Bryon, Amen Corner, (1969 UK No.1 single 'If Paradise Is Half As Nice', plus five other UK Top 40 hits). Worked with The Bee Gees during the 1970's & 1980's.
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| 1949, Born on this day, June Millington, Fanny, (all Girl group, 1975 US No.29 single 'Butter Boy'). |
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| 1949, Born on this day, Sonja Kristina, vocals, Curved Air, (1971 UK No.4 single 'Back Street Luv'). |
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| 1965, Born on this day, Carl Hunter, The Farm, (1990 UK No.4 single 'All Together Now'). |
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| 1965, Born on this day, Martyn LeNoble, bass, Porno For Pyros, (1993 US No.3 & UK No.3 self-titled album). |
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| 1965, Born on this day, Sheila Chandra, Monsoon, (1982 UK No.12 single 'Ever So Lonely'). |
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| 1973, Born on this day, David Miller, tenor, Il Divo, (2004 UK No.1 self-titled album, also number one in 13 countries around the world). |
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| 1980, Born on this day, Win Butler, lead vocalist, songwriter with Arcade Fire, (2005 album 'Funeral'). |
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