January 12 – Today in Music History Events

1926 Ray Price born in Perryville, Texas. US Country Singer. He had his biggest hit in Australia in 1971 with ‘For The Good Times’. Price died at his home in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, on December 16, 2013
1932 Des O’Connor born in London, England. UK singer, comedian, TV presenter, (1968 UK No.1 single ‘I Pretend’. Plus seven other UK Top 40 singles). Toured the UK with Buddy Holly in 1958. 
1934 Frankie Davidson born in Black Rock, Melbourne. Australian Entertainer. 
1939 William Lee Golden born in Brewton, Alabama. From 1995 onward, he has been the baritone singer in the country music group The Oak Ridge Boys.
1941 Long John Baldry born in London, England. English Singer. “Long John” is 6 ft 7 incs tall. Bluesology & solo, (1967 UK No.1 single ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’). 
1945 Abraham Tilmon – US Singer/Songwriter and Leader of the Detroit Emeralds, (1973 UK No.7 single ‘Feel The Need In Me’). Died of a heart attack in 1982 
1945 Maggie Bell born in Maryhill, Glasgow. Scottish rock vocalist with he Power, Stone The Crows & solo, (UK No.11 solo single ‘Hold Me’). 
1946 Cynthia Robinson born in Carmichael, California. US Trumpeter and Vocalist with Sly and The Family Stone, (1971 US No.1 & 1972 UK No.15 single ‘Family Affair’). On November 23, 2015 Robinson died of cancer in Carmichael, California at the age of 71.
1947 Michael Blakey born in Bromley, Kent, England. UK Drummer with Christie. 
1951 Chris Bell born in Memphis, Tennessee. Guitarist with Big Star. Bell died on December 27, 1978 at the age of 27 when he lost control of his Triumph TR-7 sports car, sometime after 1 a.m. He was on his way home from a band rehearsal. The car struck a wooden light pole on the side of the road. The pole fell and killed him instantly
1954 Felipe Rose born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn. Founding member of the disco group the Village People, in which he is the Native American. His mother is Puerto Rican and his father is Lakota Sioux. (1978 US No.2 & 1979 UK No.1 single ‘YMCA’). 
1957 Elvis Presley recorded ‘All Shook Up’. 
1959 Per Gessle born in Halmstad, Sweden. Swedish Guitarist/Keyboard Player Singer & Songwriter. Male half of the Swedish duo Roxette. 
1959 Blixa Bargeld born in West Berlin, Germany long-time guitarist and backing vocalist in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from 1983 to 2003. (1996 UK No.36 single with PJ Harvey,’ Henry Lee’). 
1960 Charlie Gillingham born in Torrance, California. Keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist best known for his performance on the Hammond B-3 organ, accordion, piano, and keyboards for the band Counting Crows.(1994 UK No.28 single ‘Mr Jones’, 1996 US No.1 album ‘Recovering The Satellites’). 
1963 Guy Chambers, singer, songwriter, producer, member of The Waterboys, World Party, The Lemon Trees. Worked with Robbie Williams from 1997 as co-songwriter and producer penning tracks including ‘Angels’, ‘Rock DJ’, ‘Millennium’ and ‘Let Me Entertain You’. 
1963 Steve Lawrence started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Go Away Little Girl’. 
1963 The Shadows went No.1 on the Australian singles chart with ‘The Boys’. Staying at the top spot for 4wks. 
1964 The Beatles appeared on the ATV show Sunday Night At The London Palladium performing ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’, ‘This Boy’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘Money’ and ‘Twist And Shout’. The compare for the evening was Bruce Forsyth. When The Beatles appeared on this show on October 13, 1963, their fee had been £250, now, just three months later, their fee was £1,000. 
1967 Mark Moore born in London, United Kingdom. UK Keyboard Player with S-Express
1968 Raekwon, Wu-Tang Clan, (1997 US & UK No.1 album ‘Wu-Tang Forever’). 
1969 Led Zeppelin’s debut album was released in the UK. Recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, the album took only about 36 hours of studio time to complete at a cost of just £1,782, most of the tracks being recorded ‘live’ in the studio with very few overdubs. The album spent a total of 71 weeks on the UK chart. 
1970 Zack de la Rocha born in Long Beach, California. Vocalist with Rage Against The Machine, (1996 US No.1 album ‘Evil Empire’, 1993 UK No.16 single ‘Bullet In The Head’). 
1974 Melanie Chisholm born in Liverpool, England. Mel C, Sporty Spice, The Spice Girls, (1996 UK No.1 & 1997 US No.1 single ‘Wannabe’, solo, 2000 UK No.1 single, ‘Never Be The Same Again’). 
1974 The Steve Miller Band were at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The Joker’, the group’s first of three No.1’s. It reached No.1 on the UK chart in 1990. 
1974 The Steve Miller Band were at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The Joker’, the groups first of three No.1’s. It reached No.1 on the UK chart in 1990. 
1975 The first night of a UK tour kicked off under the banner of The Warner Brothers Music Show. It featured Little Feat, Montrose, Tower Of Power, The Doobie Brothers and Graham Central Station. Also released was an album sampler featuring all the acts that was priced at 69p ($1.17). 
1977 EMI Records issued a statement saying it felt unable to promote The Sex Pistols records in view of the adverse publicity generated over the last two months. 
1977 Rolling Stone Keith Richards was fined £750 ($1,275) for possession of cocaine found in his car after the guitarist had been involved in a car crash. 
1977 Hall and Oates The first night of an UK tour with Hall and Oates kicked off at The Odeon, Birmingham. 
1977 The Police had their first rehearsal, held at drummer’s Stewart Copeland’s London flat, with Henri Padovani on guitar. 
1979 Drummer Aynsley Dunbar replaces John Barbata in Jefferson Starship. 
1980 The Bee Gees Greatest Hits’ album was at No.1 on the US charts. 
1981 It was reported that the White House had expanded its record library by including albums by Bob Dylan, Kiss and The Sex Pistols. 
1983 Swedish percussionist with Traffic, Reebop Kwaku Baah died from a brain haemorrhage in Stockholm, Sweden. Also worked with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Can and The Rolling Stones. 
1984 Lionel Richie went to No.1 on the Australian Singles chart with ‘All Night Long’. Staying at the top spot for 1wk. 
1991 Pixie Lott, British singer, 2009 UK No.1 with her debut single ‘Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)’. 
1991 Johnny Paycheck is released from prison after serving two years of a seven-year sentence for a barroom shooting. Ohio Governor Richard Celeste had commuted his sentence upon leaving office. 
1992 Bob Geldof was arrested after a disturbance on a Boeing 727, which had been grounded for 5 hours at Stansted Airport. 
1993 Zayn Malik from English-Irish pop boy band One Direction who formed after finishing third in the seventh series of The X Factor in 2010. Scored the 2011 UK No.1 single ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ and the 2013 No.1 ‘One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)’. 
1993 At the Eighth Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, Cream (who reunite on stage for the event), Ruth Brown, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Doors, Frankie Lymon & the teenagers, Etta James, Van Morrison, and Sly & the Family Stone are welcomed into the hall.
1993 Van Morrison failed to turn up at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction dinner, making him the first living inductee not to attend. 
1995 Snoop Doggy Dogg was charged in Los Angeles with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. 
1995 The Tenth Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies are held in New York. Inductees include The Allman Brothers Band, Al Green, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Martha and the Vendellas, Neil Young, and Frank Zappa. 
1996 AC/DC played the first date on their Ballbreaker World Tour in Greensboro, North Carolina. The world tour would last for 11 months finishing on November 30, 1996 in Christchurch, New Zealand. 
1996 Ella Henderson, British singer-songwriter. She was a finalist on the ninth series of The X Factor in 2012. Her debut single, ‘Ghost’ went to No.1 in 2014. 
1998 Aqua went No.1 on the Australian singles chart with ‘Doctor Jones’. Staying at the top spot for 3 wks. 
1998 The Thirteenth Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies are held in New York. Inductees include the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, The Mamas & The Papas,Lloyd Price, Santana, and Gene Vincent. 
2000 Former Take That singer Gary Barlow married his long- time girlfriend Dawn Andrews on the Caribbean island of Nevis. 
2000 Teenage diva Charlotte Church sacked her manager Jonathan Shalit. Shalit had won her a five album deal with Sony Records and helped the singer with her career, which had earn her £6 million ($10.2 million) to date. 
2001 British Airways staff complained about Oasis singer Liam Gallagher after he had grabbed a stewardess’ bottom, refused to stop smoking and threw objects around the cabin during a flight from London to Rio De Janeiro. 
2002 Aaliyah had the posthumous UK No.1 single with ‘More Than A Woman’. Aaliyah was killed in Aug 2001 in a plane crash in the Bahamas aged 22. The Cessna plane crashed a few minutes after take off killing everyone on board. Aaliyah had been filming a video on the island for her latest release ‘Rock The Boat’. 
2003 Singer-songwriter Maurice Gibb from the Bee Gee’s died aged 53 in Miami Hospital, Florida following a heart attack during abdominal surgery. The Bee Gees released over 20 albums and had the 1979 world-wide No.1 album ‘Spirits Having Flown’, and ‘How Deep Is Your Love, ‘Stayin’ Alive’, and ‘Night Fever’ from the soundtrack ‘Saturday Night Fever’ were all US No.1 singles. Gibb was married to the Scottish singer Lulu from 1969 to 1973. In 2002, Maurice was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), along with his brothers. 
2004 American songwriter and guitarist Randy VanWarmer died from leukaemia aged 48. (1979 US No.4 & UK No.8 single ‘Just When I Needed You Most’). Also wrote The Oak Ridge Boys No.1 US Country hit ‘I Guess It Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes.’ VanWarmer’s had arranged for a space burial and his cremated remains were sent into space in 2007. 
2005 It was announced that the Strawberry Field children’s home immortalised by The Beatles was to close. The home in Woolton, Liverpool was made famous when John Lennon wrote ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ after playing there as a child. 
2007 Toni Braxton filed a lawsuit at the U.S District Court in Manhattan against her former manager Barry Hankerson for $10 million, alleging “fraud, deception and double dealing.” According to Braxton, Hankerson placed his own personal financial interests ahead of hers by using “double-talk” to compromise the relationship between Braxton and her former recording label, Arista Records. 
2009 Lady Gaga went to No.1 on the Australian Singles Chart. Staying at the top spot for 3 weeks. 
2009 A full frontal nude photo of Madonna, taken in 1979 before she became famous, sold at auction for $37,500. The black and white picture was taken at a time when Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was a 20-year-old dancer trying to make ends meet in New York. 
2010 Shakin’ Stevens was found guilty of hitting a press photographer with a microphone stand during a concert at a hotel in Ballymena. The Welsh singer who scored No.1’s in the 80’s was fined £300 for assault and criminal damage and ordered to pay the photographer £479 to compensate for his damaged camera lens. 
2012 Lou Reed and John Cale of The Velvet Underground sue the Andy Warhol Foundation for licensing the iconic banana logo Warhol created for the band to third parties. 
2013 The 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow used by Freddie Mercury until his death in November 1991, sold at auction for £74,000 to a Russian businessman. The 62,000-mile classic Rolls-Royce which had a guide price of just £9,000-£11,000 features grey leather, wood trim, electric windows, automatic gearbox, a car phone and radio cassette player and a 6.75-litre V8 engine. It was sold as part of the Coys auction at Autosport International. 
2017 Richard Carpenter said he was owed at least $2m (£1.6m) in royalties for the hits he recorded in The Carpenters. He claimed Universal Music had only paid the band a “minuscule fraction” of the money they were owed from downloads on sites like iTunes and Amazon. The musician was suing for compensation, according to legal documents filed in Los Angeles.