On This Day In Music 1st April

1934 Jim Brown born in Sparkman, Arizona. US Singer with The Browns. 
1939 Rudolph Isley born in Cincinnati, Ohio. US Singer/Songwriter with The Isley Brothers, (1968 UK No.3 single This Old Heart Of Mine’, 1973 US No 6 & UK No.14 single ‘That Lady’). 
1942 Alan Blakley born in Atlanta, Georgia. UK Guitarist/Pianist/Singer/Songwriter with The Tremeloes, (1967 UK No.1 & US No.11 single ‘Silence Is Golden’). He died of cancer 1st June 1996. 
1942 Phil Margo born in Brooklyn, New York. US Drummer/guitarist/Singer with The Tokens, (1961 US No.1 & UK No.11 single ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’). 
1945 John Barbata born in Passaic, New Jersey. US Drummer with The Turtles from 1966 – 1970. A Drummer with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970-1972), and also Jefferson Airplane & Jefferson Starship (1972-1978)
1946 Arthur Conley born in McIntosh County, Georgia. US soul singer, (1967 US No.2 & UK No.7 single ‘Sweet Soul Music). Conley died at the age of 57 from intestinal cancer in Ruurlo, Netherlands on the 17th November 2003.
1947 Robin Scott born in Croydon, Surrey, England.English singer and founder of a music project he called M. His career encompasses four decades. M, (1979 US No.1 & UK No.2 single ‘Pop Muzik’). 
1948 Ronnie Lane born in Plaistow, London, England. US Bass Player singer & songwriter with The Small Faces. The Small Faces, had a 1967 UK No.3 & US No.16 single with ‘Itchycoo Park’ and a 1968 UK No.1 album with ‘Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake’. In the late 1970s he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was supported by charity projects and financial contributions from friends, former bandmates and fans. After suffering from the disease for 21 years, Ronnie died June 4, 1997, in Trinidad, Colarado age 51.
1948 Jimmy Cliff (James Chambers) born in Jamaica. Jamaican singer, songwriter, (1969 UK No.6 & US No.25 single ‘Wonderful World Beautiful People’, 1970 UK No.8 version of Cat Stevens ‘Wild World’). 
1948 Simon Cowe born in Toronto, Canada. UK Guitarist with Lindisfarne, (1972 UK No.3 single ‘Lady Eleanor’, 1978 US No.33 single ‘Run For Home). Cowe died on 30 September 2015 in Toronto, after a long illness.
1950 Billy Currie born in Huddersfield, W. Yorks, England. UK keyboards/songwriter with Ultravox, (1981 UK No.2 single ‘Vienna’, plus 15 other UK Top 40 singles).
1951 Henry Gross born in Brooklyn, New York. Original Lead Guitarist with Sha Na Na. he a solo hit in 1976 with ‘Shannon’. 
1954 Jeff Porcaro born in Hartford, Connecticut. US Drummer with Toto. (1983 US No.1 & UK No.3 single ‘Africa’).Jeff had fallen ill after spraying insecticide in the yard of his Hidden Hills home and died that evening at Humana Hospital-West Hills. The coroner’s office listed his cause of death to be a heart attack from atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).
1955 George Martin became the head of A&R for EMI’s Parlophone label. 
1956 Elvis Presley was given a screen test at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, acting the role of Jimmy Curry in a scene from ‘The Rainmaker.’ 
1957 Slim Dusty recorded ‘A Pub With No Beer’. 
1961 Mark White born in Sheffield, England. UK Guitarist/Keyboards/Songwriter with ABC, (1982 UK No.4 & US No.18 single ‘The Look Of Love’, plus nine other UK Top 40 singles).
1961 The Beatles began a three-month residency at The Top Ten Club, Hamburg, playing 92 straight nights. The group played for seven hours a night on weekdays and eight hours at weekends with a fifteen-minute break every hour. It was during this visit that Astrid Kirchherr cut Stuart Sutcliffe’s hair into the style destined to become known as the “Beatle haircut” which The Beatles later adopted themselves. 
1964 Leslie Langston, bass, Throwing Muses, (1992 UK No.46 ‘Firepile EP’). 
1965 Peter O’Toole born in Dublin, Ireland. Bass/Bouzouki Player with Hothouse Flowers, (1988 UK No.11 single ‘Don’t Go’). 
1965 The Who recorded an appearance for Top Of The Pops at the Manchester television studio. The band then played a gig supporting Donovan at The Town Hall, Wembley, with Rod Stewart & the Soul Agents appearing at the bottom of the bill. 
1966 Pye Records released David Bowie’s first solo single, ‘Do Anything You Say’. Bowie had previously recorded as David Jones and The Lower Third. 
1966 The Troggs recorded ‘Wild Thing’ at Regent Sound Studio in London. The song went on to be a No.1 US and No.2 UK hit in June the following year. The track was recorded in one complete take (take two). 
1966 John Lennon bought a copy of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience and The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, where he read near the beginning of the book’s introduction; “When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream,” which captured Lennon’s imagination and became the first line of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, (which he recorded 5 days later). 
1968 Gina Jeffreys (Gina Hillenberg) born in Toowoomba, QLD. Australian Country singer. 
1969 Ambrose Slade (Slade) made their live debut at Walsall Town Hall, Walsall, England. 
1969 The Beach Boys announced they were suing their record label Capitol for $2m in unpaid royalties. 
1970 50 musicians recorded the orchestral scores for The Beatles tracks ‘The Long And Winding Road’ and ‘Across The Universe’ for the Phil Spector produced sessions. The bill for the 50 musicians was £1,126 and 5 shillings, ($1.914). 
1970 Earls Court in London received over one million postal ticket applications for The Rolling Stones forthcoming six concerts as part of the group’s European tour. 
1970 As an April Fool’s joke, John Lennon and Yoko Ono issued a statement to the press that they were having dual sex change operations.
1971 Clifford Smith, (Method Man), Wu-Tang Clan, (1997 US & UK No.1 album ‘Wu- Tang Forever’). 
1972 The three-day Mar Y Sol festival in Puerto Rico took place, featuring Rod Stewart, Dr John, The Allman Brothers, Osibisa, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Alice Cooper, The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Security was simple as the event took place on an island accessible by ticket only. 
1975 The Bay City Rollers TV series ‘Shang-A- Lang’ premiered on ITV in the UK. 
1976 Making their live debut in the UK, AC/DC played at The Red Cow in Hammersmith, London. 
1976 The Buzzcocks played their debut live gig when the appeared at Bolton Institute Of Technology. The power was turned off after three numbers. 
1976 Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s house was broken into with thieves taking guitars valued at over £7,000. 
1981 Hannah Spearitt born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. Vocalist with S Club 7, (1999 UK No.1 single ‘Bring It All Back’). 2000 UK No.1 album ‘7’ spent over a year on the UK chart. 
1984 Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father at his parent’s home in Los Angeles, California. The argument started after his parents squabbled over misplaced business documents, Gaye attempted to intervene, and was killed by his father using a gun he had given him four months before. Marvin Sr. was sentenced to six years of probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after doctors discovered Marvin Sr. had a brain tumour. 
1985 Tom Bailey singer with The Thompson Twins collapsed from exhaustion while staying at The Holiday Inn, Chelsea. He was flown to Paris to see his private doctor. 
1985 David Lee Roth quit Van Halen shortly after releasing his version of The Beach Boys’, ‘California Girls’, (which featured Carl Wilson on background vocals). He was replaced by Sammy Hagar later in the year. 
1986 American country music singer-songwriter, Hillary Scott from Lady Antebellum. Winner of seven Grammy awards, seven Academy of Country Music awards, and six Country Music Association awards. 
1989 Madonna scored her third UK No.1 album with ‘Like A Prayer.’ Also a US No.1 the album spent 70 weeks on the UK chart. 
1989 The Bangles went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Eternal Flame’, also a No.1 in the UK and the biggest selling single of 1989 in Australia. 
1990 Willie Nelson’s tour bus crashed into a car in Riverdale, Canada, killing the car driver. 
1994 Ella Eyre, English singer and songwriter best known for her collaborations with Rudimental on their UK No.1 single ‘Waiting All Night’ which won the 2014 Brit Award for British Single of the Year, and DJ Fresh on his single ‘Gravity’. 
1995 The Outhere Brothers were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle). The duo from Chicago had four other Top 20 hits this year. 
2000 Santana started a nine week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with, ‘Maria Maria.’ 
2001 Crazytown went back to No.1 on the US singles chart for two weeks with ‘Butterfly’. 
2001 TV’s ‘Popstars’ winners Hear’say started a two-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with their debut album ‘Popstars.’ 
2001 It was reported that Spice Girl Mel B had been advised to sell her £3.5m Buckinghamshire mansion because she couldn’t afford to run it. The singer told friends she had to take out a £500.000 bank loan. 
2004 Paul Atkinson guitarist with The Zombies died aged 58 due to liver and kidney disease. They scored the 1964 US No.2 & UK No.12 single ‘She’s Not There’. He later became an artists and repertoire executive, working for Columbia and RCA discovering and signing such bands as ABBA, Bruce Hornsby, Mr. Mister, Judas Priest, and Michael Penn. 
2005 During the first leg of their Vertigo World tour, U2 appeared at the Arrowhead Sports Arena in Anaheim, Southern California, with Kings Of Leon as the opening act. By the end of the 131 date tour, 4,619,021 tickets had been sold with a total gross of $389 million. 
2007 American indie rock band Modest Mouse were at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.’ The album featured former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr who joined the band in May 2006. 
2013 A signed copy of The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band sold at Dallas-based Heritage Auctions for $290,500 (£191,000). The selling price far exceeded the $30,000 (£19,700) originally estimated for the rare LP record. The UK Parlophone copy of the album included a high gloss cover and vinyl gatefold sleeve. 
2015 Cynthia Lennon, first wife of The Beatles’ John Lennon died at her home in Spain following a short battle with cancer. At the height of The Beatles’ early success she was, at the insistence of the band’s management, kept in the background so their legions of female fans were not aware of her existence. The couple divorced in 1968 after Cynthia discovered her husband’s affair with Yoko Ono. 
2017 After months of uncertainty and controversy, Bob Dylan finally accepted the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature at a jovial, champagne-laced ceremony. The academy, which awards the coveted prize, ended prolonged speculation as to whether the 75-year-old troubadour would use a concert stopover in Stockholm to accept the gold medal and diploma awarded to him back in October.