April 28th: The Biggest Music Headlines

2020
American rock and roll and rhythm and blues singer Bobby Lewis died aged 95. He is best known for his 1961 hit singles ‘Tossin’ and Turnin” (number 1 for seven weeks on the Billboard chart in the summer of 1961) and ‘One Track Mind’.

https://youtu.be/JDwI5JwYxlQ

2017
Brad Paisley releases the first visual album in country music: a special edition of Love and War with videos for each of the 16 tracks.

2015
Jack Ely died at the age of 71 after a long illness. The Kingman singer’s hit ‘Louie Louie’ reached the top of the charts in 1963 and sparked an FBI investigation into whether or not its lyrics were obscene.

https://youtu.be/3EqzTiDc-1k

2014
Scorpions drummer James Kottak was sentenced to one month in jail in Dubai for offensive behaviour after an incident at Dubai airport on 3 April of this year. He was convicted of insulting Islam, raising his middle finger and being under the influence of alcohol.

2014
Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell appeared in court after being arrested over a domestic dispute. The arrest came after a caller from the singers’ home phoned the emergency services and then hung up. Simon told a Superior Court judge in Norwalk, Connecticut, he had a rare argument with his wife on Saturday night at their home and they were now fine.

2013
Emeli Sande set a new record for the most consecutive weeks on the UK’s Official Album Chart top 10 of any debut album. ‘Our Version Of Events’ was released in February 2012 and went on to become the biggest selling album that year. The album hadn’t dropped out of the top 10 since its release and had been in the UK’s Official Album Chart for 63 weeks. The 26-year-old singer had overtaken The Beatles who previously held the record.

2009
A TV commercial for insurance featuring Iggy Pop was ruled as misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority. In the advert, the singer was seen exclaiming that he had an insurance policy with Swiftcover but the company did not cover musicians at the time of the ad being shown. Swiftcover had since started to offer policies to musicians, and stated that Mr Pop would continue to endorse the company.

2008
Scott Weiland singer with The Stone Temple Pilots was sentenced to 192 hours in county jail for his November 2007 drink driving offence. He was also fined $2000, required to complete an 18-month alcohol programme and was placed on probation for four years.

2006
ABBA star Bjorn Ulvaeus was accused of avoiding paying 87m Swedish kronor (£6.5m) in taxes on the band’s hit songs and musicals. The Swedish government was demanding he repaid the money. Abba sold over 370 million records and he also co-wrote the musical Mamma Mia.

2003
Apple launched the iTunes store, the first widely successful legal music download service. Available only to Mac users, the store let US-based customers download the music they wanted for just 99 cents per song, without subscription fees. Apple also offered groundbreaking personal use rights, including burning songs onto an unlimited number of CDs for personal use and playing songs on up to three Macintosh computers.

2002
Sugababes scored their first UK No.1 single with ‘Freak Like Me.’ The song was originally by American Adina Howard (1995) and was mixed with the synth line from Gary Numan’s 1979 hit ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’.

2000
A blaze swept through James Brown Enterprises, the office that co-ordinate the superstar’s tours. Nobody was injured, but memorabilia and live tapes were destroyed in the blaze. An employee was later arrested charged with arson.

2000
Paul Atkinson was jailed for three years after being found guilty of stealing more than £25,000 from Rolling Stone Charlie Watts. Atkinson had been the manager of an Arabian stud farm owned by Watts.

1999
The tour bus carrying The Clint Boon Experience was involved in a near fatal accident when it was involved in a crash outside Glasgow. Members of the band had to be airlifted to hospital.

1999
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998
Before These Crowded Streets by the Dave Matthews Band debuted at No.1 on the US albums chart, ending the Titanic soundtrack’s 16-week run at the top. Fans got a glimpse of the band’s darker side with the moody lead single, ‘Don’t Drink The Water.’

1990
Guns N’ Roses leader Axl Rose married Erin Everly, daughter of The Everly Brothers Don at Cupid’s Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. They divorced in January 1991 after a stormy nine months of marriage.

1989
Jon Bon Jovi (Bon Jovi) marries high school sweetheart Dorothea Hurley at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas.

1987
The Art Of Excellence by Tony Bennett becomes the first album to be initially released on CD instead of the traditional vinyl format.

1982
The California State Assembly consumer-protection-committee heard testimony from “experts” who claimed that when ‘Stairway To Heaven‘ was played backward, contained the words: “I sing because I live with Satan. The Lord turns me off, there’s no escaping it. Here’s to my sweet Satan, whose power is Satan. He will give you 666. I live for Satan.”

1981
Former T. Rex member Steve Currie was killed in a car crash returning to his home near Vale de Parra, Algarve, Portugal, he was 33 years old. Joined T. Rex (recently renamed from Tyrannosaurus Rex) as bass guitarist in late 1970, also worked as a session player, played on ‘Motorbikin’ by Chris Spedding.

1980
Marshall Tucker Band bass player Tommy Caldwell died of injuries from a car accident aged 30 in his hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Caldwell was the original frontman for the Marshall Tucker Band between 1973 and 1980.

1979
Taken from the band’s third studio album, Parallel Lines, Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass‘ was at No.1 on the US chart, the first of their four chart-toppers in the US. Debbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote an early version of ‘Heart of Glass’, called ‘Once I Had a Love’, in 1974–75. This original version was inspired by The Hues Corporation’s hit disco song ‘Rock the Boat’.

1978
The movie FM, about a radio station with a motley collection of DJs was released in the US. Linda Ronstadt, Jimmy Buffett and REO Speedwagon all appeared in the film. The theme song from the movie Steely Dan’s ‘FM (No Static at All)’ won engineers Al Schmitt and Roger Nichols the 1979 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording.

1976
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band appeared at the Grand Ole Opry at the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville, the first time a rock band has played the Opry since The Byrds in 1968.

1973
David Bowie released ‘Starman’ as a single in the UK, which became his first hit since 1969’s ‘Space Oddity’ three years before. The song was a late addition to the album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars included at the insistence of RCA’s Dennis Katz, who heard a demo and loved the track, believing it would make a great single. The lyrics describe Ziggy Stardust bringing a message of hope to Earth’s youth through the radio, salvation by an alien ‘Starman’.

1973
Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon went to No.1 in the US. The album went on to enjoy a record-breaking 741 discontinuous weeks on the Billboard chart, and has now sold over 45 million copies world-wide. After moving to the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Chart, the album notched up a further 759 weeks there, and had reached a total of over 1,500 weeks on the combined charts by May 2006.

1969
The self-titled, debut album by Chicago Transit Authority was released. For their next album, the group shorten their name to Chicago. The group was later nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist of the Year and the album stayed on the Billboard 200 for 171 weeks, beating the previous record for a rock album’s longevity of 155 weeks.

1968
The Broadway musical Hair opened at the Biltmore Theatre in New York City. The show featured the songs ‘Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In’, ‘Good Morning Starshine’ and the title song. The production ran for 1,729 performances, finally closing on July 1st, 1972.

1967
The Mamas and the Papas’ “Mama” Cass Elliot gives birth to her only child, a daughter named Owen Vanessa, whose father is never made public.

1965
Barbra Streisand’s first television special, My Name Is Barbra, airs on CBS.

1964
The Beatles recorded the TV special ‘Around The Beatles’ at Wembley studios England. As well as performing songs they played Act V Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ with John playing the female role of Thisbe, Paul as Pyramus, George as Moonshine and Ringo as Lion. Paul later named his cat Thisbe.

1963
Cliff Richard and The Shadows are #1 on the UK albums chart for the 14th week with the soundtrack to the movie Summer Holiday. It’s the last time an artist other than The Beatles or The Rolling Stones tops the chart for two years.