Britain’s number one single today in 1972:
On the same day, the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival was held on Bull Island in the Wabash River between Illinois and Indiana. The festival attracted four times the projected number of fans, three fans drowned in the Wabash River, and the remaining crowd ended the festival by burning down the stage:
The number one song today in 1962:
The number one song today in 1984 announced quite a comeback:
Today in 1955, a London judge fined a man for “creating an abominable noise” — playing this song loud enough to make the neighborhood shake, rattle and roll for 2½ hours:
Today in 1968, Private Eye magazine reported that the album to be released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono would save money by providing no wardrobe for Lennon or Ono:
Today in 1959, Bertolt Brecht‘s “Threepenny Opera” reached the U.S. charts in a way Brecht …
… could not have fathomed:
Today in 1968, Apple Records released its first single by — surprise! — the Beatles:
Today in 1969, this spent three weeks on top of the British charts, on top of six weeks on top of the U.S. charts, making them perhaps the ultimate one-number-one-hit-wonder:
Today in 1966, the Beatles played their last concert for which tickets were charged, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
Today in 1970, Edwin Starr was at number one on both sides of the Atlantic:
Britain’s number one album today in 1981:
Ask a magician for the number one song today in 1982, and the magician will say …
The number one single today in 1961 was made more popular by Elvis Presley, not its creator:
Also today in 1961, the Marvelettes released what would become their first number one song:
Today in 1964, the Beatles met Bob Dylan after a concert in Forest Hills, N.Y. Dylan reportedly introduced the Beatles to marijuana:
It was not until the night of John Lennon’s death, Dec. 8, 1980, that I figured out my favorite Beatles song.
Back in the good old days of live DJs in radio stations at all hours of the day and night, rock and top 40 radio stations across the U.S. immediately started playing every Beatles song they had, including …
This is like no other Beatles song in that the lead guitar is played by none other than Eric Clapton, a friend (and future, uh, whatever you call two ex-husbands of the same wife) of writer George Harrison.
What better way to honor Harrison than this band?
Or maybe this band?
We begin with an interesting anniversary: Today in 1965, the Beatles used the final day of their five-day break from their U.S. tour to attend a recording session for the Byrds and to meet Elvis Presley at Presley’s Beverly Hills home.
The group reportedly found Presley “unmagnetic,” about which John Lennon reportedly said, “Where’s Elvis? It was like meeting Engelbert Humperdinck.”
Today in 1967, Jimi Hendrix released “Purple Haze”:
Three years later, Hendrix made his last concert appearance in Great Britain at the Isle of Wight Festival, which also featured, for your £3 ticket …
Does anyone find it a bit creepy that the number one song in Great Britain today in 1957 is about Paul Anka’s brother’s babysitter?
Three years later, the number one single across the sea required no words:
Two years later, the number one U.S. single was a dance that was easier than learning your ABCs:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 