ON THIS DAY IN MUSIC

October 23rd

1963 - Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan recorded 'The Times They Are A-Changin' at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City. Dylan wrote the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the time, influenced by Irish and Scottish folk ballads.*
*  Crowe, Cameron (1985). Liner notes. Biograph.

1963 - The Beatles

The Beatles completed the final session for their second album 'With the Beatles' recording 'I Wanna Be Your Man.' The group then drove to London airport for a flight to Stockholm, Sweden to start their first foreign tour. The Fab four were met at Stockholm airport by hundreds of girl fans that had taken the day of school.

1966 - Jimi Hendrix

The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded their first single 'Hey Joe', at De Lane Lea studios in London. The earliest known commercial recording of the song is the late-1965 single by the Los Angeles garage band the The Leaves; the band then re-recorded the track and released it in 1966 as a follow-up single which became a hit.

Tim Rose - the version Jimi heard and inspired him to record it . . . . . 

Billy Roberts' original versioning note the closeness to the Hendrix version guitar licks and all

1976 - Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin made their US television debut on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, hey never appeared live on the show however, footage from Zeppelin’s 1976 film, The Song Remains the Same, was aired on the show on September 29, 1976

1980 - John Lennon

Muderous sociopath Mark David Chapman quit his security job and signed out for the last time. Instead of the usual "Chappy" he wrote "John Lennon". Chapman would murder Lennon on December 8th of this year outside his New York City home. Lest we forget, he shot John with hollow point bullets at almost point blank range in the back to ensure he would die in order that John's fame be 'absorbed' by Chapman in some insane perverse pathology for being an inconsequential   little man in a very little world.  Chapman will be up for parole again in August 2020.

1982 - Culture Club

Culture Club were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me', the group's first chart topper and the first of 12 UK Top 40 hits. The song became a major hit after their memorable debut performance on Top Of The Pops when they stood in for Shakin' Stevens who was ill and not able to appear.

1989 - Nirvana

Nirvana played their first ever European show when they appeared at Newcastle's Riverside Club in North East England. It was the first night of a 36 date European tour for the group who were sharing the bill with Tad.

2002 - Kanye West

Kanye West was involved in a car crash after he fell asleep at the wheel while driving home from a recording studio in West Hollywood. No other cars were involved in the incident which left West with his jaw fractured in three places which medics had to wire shut.

2002 - Chuck Berry

A federal judge in St. Louis dismissed a lawsuit against Chuck Berry by Johnnie Johnson, a piano player and former collaborator who wanted royalties for more than 30 songs written between 1955 and 1966. The songs in question included ‘No Particular Place To Go’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, and ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’. Johnson's lawsuit argued that he and Berry were co-writers on many of the songs, but because Berry copyrighted them in his name alone, Johnson got none of the royalties. The judge ruled that too many years had passed to bring about a royalties suit.

2005 - Arctic Monkeys

Arctic Monkeys scored their first UK No.1 single with 'I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor', the Sheffield bands debut single.

2006 - Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse released her "signature song" 'Rehab' as a single, taken from her second studio album, Back to Black. The lyrics are autobiographical, and talk about Winehouse's refusal one time to enter a rehabilitation clinic. It won three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and also won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song. Shame the 'signature song' should be such a misguided and creuelly ironic piece of drivel  . . . . . she clearly couldn't have cut it then in rehab . . . . . . and didn't live long enough to try

2007 - Foxy Brown

Rapper Foxy Brown was given 11 weeks in solitary confinement after fighting with another inmate in prison. She was also said to have been abusive to guards and refused to take a random drug test. Brown was serving a year in jail for violating her probation after a fight she had in a New York nail salon.

2014 - Alvin Stardust

Alvin Stardust died after a short illness. His death came just weeks before he was due to release his first album after 30 years. He had recently been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. The UK singer first performed under the name of Shane Fenton and reinvented himself as the leather clad Alvin Stardust something of a joke figure on a par with other glam rockers. 

2015 - Adele

Adele released 'Hello' as the lead track from her third studio album, 25. The music video for the song broke the Vevo Record by achieving over 27.7 million views within 24-hours and entered the top of the UK Singles Chart with 333,000 combined sales, of which 259,000 were downloads, making it the biggest selling No.1 single on the UK chart in three years.

2015 - Jamie Lawson

Jamie Lawson, the first act signed to Ed Sheeran's Gingerbread Man label, topped the UK album chart with his self titled new record. Lawson had released his first album 12 years ago.


2016 - Pete Burns

English singer-songwriter and television personality Pete Burns died following a sudden cardiac arrest. He was a member of the Mystery Girls (with Pete Wylie and Julian Cope) which I confess I had forgotten about, and then Dead Or Alive who scored the 1985 UK No.1 single 'You Spin Me Round, Like A Record'. A tragic story and covered well everywhere I guess but in his youth a remarkably handsome man and his 'hit' was on the jukeboxes everywhere. Then an extraordinary decline into what amounts to some of the worst public self harm we have ever seen. Pete's many operations went badly wrong frequently and destroyed his once beautiful face . . . . . (and body) 
People should be prevented from perpetrating this level of harm on others. I believe he needed therapy and that such procedures should be illegal.


Pete Burns obit - The Guardian

BIRTHDAYS

1956 - Dwight Yoakam

Dwight Yoakam, country singer, actor and film director, who is most famous for his pioneering country music which has sold over 25 million records with 5 Billboard No.1 Albums, 12 Gold Albums, and 9 Platinum Albums. Yoakam is the most frequent musical guest in the history of The Tonight Show and has also starred in many films, most notably in critically acclaimed performances as an ill-tempered, abusive, live-in boyfriend in Sling Blade. I loved Dwight as soon as he come out over here and my dear friend John Northcote introdiced me to so much if 'New Country' as we thought it then. He even got a life-size cardboard cut out of Dwight for me which I had in the house for years when I first moved back to Oxford  I have bought ever album since

with Harry Dean . . . . . . 

1953 - Pauline Black

Pauline Black, born as Belinda Magnus, singer from 2 Tone ska revival band Selecter who had the 1979 UK No.8 single 'On My Radio'. I may or may not have had a terrible crush on Pauline! She was ( and is) a really beautiful woman and she could dance and sing . . . .simultaneously!

1940 - Freddie Marsden

English musician Freddie Marsden who with Gerry And The Pacemakers had the 1963 UK No.1 single 'How Do You Do It' and the 1965 US No.6 single, 'Ferry Cross The Mersey'. In common with The Beatles they came from Liverpool, were managed by Brian Epstein, and were recorded by George Martin. I believed Gerry wrote this song and din't know of it's source until I was an adult . . . . but I loved and still do love Gerry's version with that Liverpool burr