Musician Birthdays: Robin Trower (guitarist of Procol Harum, famous for hit, “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. Born in 1945)

– In 1964: The Beatles filmed the last day of train scenes for the movie A Hard Days Night. During their six days of filming aboard a moving train, The Beatles traveled a total of 2,500 miles on the rails.

– In 1964: Capitol Records releases a song called ‘Letter To The Beatles’ by The Four Preps. The lyrics describe a boy lamenting the fact that he’s lost his girlfriend to The Fab Four. On its first day, the record shot to No.85 on the charts and it looked like The Preps were going to have another hit on their hands. Unfortunately they had included a few bars from ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ without permission and Capitol was forced to withdraw the single to avoid a lawsuit.

– In 1967: Pink Floyd and The Thoughts appeared at the Marquee, London, England. The Marquee club has often been defined as ‘the most important venue in the history of pop music’, not only for having been the scene of the development of modern music culture in London, but also for having been an essential meeting point for some of the most important artists in rock music.

– In 1968: Bob Dylan started a ten week run at No.1 on the UK chart with John Wesley Harding. The album marked Dylan’s return to acoustic music after three albums of electric rock music and was exceptionally well received by critics, also reaching No.2 on the US charts. The commercial performance was considered remarkable, considering that Dylan had made Columbia Records release the album without much publicity.

– In 1970: Having recently changed their name from Earth to Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward made their concert debut at The Roundhouse, London.

– In 1971: Led Zeppelin appeared at Leeds University, Leeds, England, during their ‘Back To The Clubs’ tour. This was the first tour which saw Zeppelin performing ‘Stairway To Heaven’, ‘Black Dog’ and ‘Going To California.’

– In 1977: The Jacksons CBS show was aired for the last time on US TV finishing at the bottom of the ratings.

– In 1981: Robert Plant played a secret gig at Keele University, England with his new band The Honey Drippers.

– In 1985: Mick Jagger released his solo single ‘Just Another Night’ a No. 12 hit in the US and No. 32 on the UK charts.

– In 1985: REO Speedwagon started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’, it made No.16 in the UK.

– In 1991: Mariah Carey started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Someday’, her third US No.1 & No.38 hit in the UK.

– In 1991: ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ gave The Clash their only UK No.1 single after the track was used for a Levi’s TV advertisement. The track was first released in 1982 from their album Combat Rock album.

– In 1996: Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher walked off stage during a gig at the Vernon Valley Gorge ski resort in New Jersey because his hands were too cold to play.

– In 1997: Notorious BIG was gunned down and killed as he left a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Born Christopher Wallace the rapper was pronounced dead on arrival at Cedars Sinai Hospital. He was 24 years old.

– In 2004: Tom Jones was banned from wearing tight leather pants by his own son and manager Mark Jones. His son said it was time to ‘dress his age’ as he was in danger of becoming a laughing stock at 63.

– In 2010: Lil Wayne was sentenced to a year in prison at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty to gun possession. The charges were linked to his arrest in 2007 when a gun was found on his tour bus. His sentencing came after several delays; the first date was postponed to allow the rapper to have dental work and the second had to be rearranged after a fire broke out in the New York court complex.