We begin with this unusual event: Today in 1978, the members of Aerosmith bailed out 30 of their fans who were arrested at their concert in Fort Wayne, Ind., for smoking marijuana:
Britain’s number one single today in 1987:
Today in 1992 on NBC-TV’s “Saturday Night Live,” Sinead O’Connor torpedoed her own career:
Today in 1953, Victor Borge’s “Comedy in Music” opened on Broadway, closing 849 performances later. (Pop.)
Today in 1960, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs released “Stay,” which would become the shortest number one single of all time:
The number one single today in 1965:
I present the number one single today in 1977 to demonstrate that popularity and quality are not always synonymous:
The number one single today in 1983:
Today in 2004, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne officially opened AC/DC Lane, named for the band, to the bagpipes from …
Birthdays begin with actor Richard Harris, who “sang” …
Today in 1967, bowing down to popular music, the BBC began its Radio 1:
The number eight song today in 1958, one week or almost a month after the end (depending on your definition) of summer:
Today in 1967, the Beatles mixed “I Am the Walrus,” which combined three songs John Lennon had been writing. The song includes the sounds of a radio going up and down the dial, ending at a BBC presentation of William Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” Lennon had read that a teacher at his primary school was having his students analyze Beatles lyrics, Lennon reportedly added one nonsensical verse, although arguably none of the verses make much sense:
The number 71 …
… number 51 …
… number 27 …
… number 20 …
… number eight …
… number six …
… number three …
… and number one singles today in 1973:
Proving that there is no accounting for taste, here is Britain’s number one single today in 1963:
Five years later, record buyers made a much better choice:
The number one U.S. album on the same day was “Time Peace: The Rascals Greatest Hits”:
The Police had a request today in 1980:
That same day, David Bowie’s “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” was Britain’s number one album:
The number one song today in 1960:
The number one song today in 1964:
Today in 1965, Roger Daltrey was fired from The Who after he punched out drummer Keith Moon. Fortunately for Daltrey and the Who, he was unfired the next day. (Daltrey and Pete Townshend reportedly have had more fistfights than Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.)
The number one song today in 1965 was this pleasant-sounding, upbeat ditty:
That was on the same day that ABC-TV premiered a cartoon, “The Beatles”:
The number one British song today in 1968:
We begin with an odd moment today in 1962: Elvis Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, declined an invitation on Presley’s behalf for an appearance before the Royal Family. Declining wasn’t due to conflicting film schedules (the stated reason) or anti-royalism — it was because Parker was an illegal immigrant to the U.S. from the Netherlands (his real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk), and he was afraid he wouldn’t be allowed back into the U.S.
Number one in Britain today in 1964:
Number one in Britain …
… and in the U.S. today in 1983:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 