Here is the January 1 post from last year - what started it all: Jan 1st: Born: Country Joe McDonald (1942) Died: Hank Williams, heart failure (1953) Significan't: Beatles Decca Audition (1962) with Pete Best on drums
And here is what January 1 looks like this year: January 1 Born – Xavier Cugat (aka Francisco Deulofeu, 1900) – bandleader. Milt Jackson (1923) – Jazz vibraphonist, The Modern Jazz Quartet. "Country" Joe McDonald (1942) Susannah McCorkle (1946) – Jazz singer. Morgan Fisher (1950 – keyboardist for Mott The Hoople. Grandmaster Flash (aka Joseph Saddler, 1958) David Wayne (1958) – vocalist for Metal Church. Michael Hanson (1963) – drummer for Glass Tiger. January 1 R.I.P. – Heinrich Hertz (1894) – Wegener's granulomatosis. Age 36. Sound waves physicist. Hank Williams (1953) – heart failure. Age 29. Aubrey “Moon” Mullican (1967) – heart attack. Age 57. Rockabilly pianist. Maurice Chevalier (1972) – Age 83. French singer/actor. Alexis Korner (1984) – lung cancer. Age 55. British blues musician. Buck Ram (1991) – Age 84. Songwriter/producer. Jess Stacy (1995) – congestive heart failure. Age 90. Jazz pianist with Benny Goodman. Townes Van Zandt (1997) – cardiac arrhythmia. Age 52. Del Reeves (2007) – emphysema. Age 74. Country music singer. Ron Asheton (2009) – heart attack. Age 60. Guitarist for The Stooges. Gil Garfield (2011) – cancer. Age 77. The Cheers (“Black Denim Trousers”). Fred Milano (2012) – lung cancer. Age 72. The Belmonts. January 1 album releases – Otis Redding – Pain In My Heart (1964) Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1971) U.S. Rush – Permanent Waves (1980) Badfinger – Say No More (1981) Santana – Santana Live At The Fillmore (1997) Curtis Mayfield – Man Of Inspiration (1998) January 1 events – 1936 – Billboard magazine publishes its first record sales chart, with the first #1 listed as Joe Venuti's "Stop! Look! Listen!" 1940 – FM radio station W2XDG, broadcasting from the Empire State Building, becomes the first to be licensed by the FCC. 1940 – Radio stations across America ban all ASCAP songs from their play lists when the networks and ASCAP are unable to agree on rates. 1955 – Elvis Presley appears at the Eagles Hall in Houston, Texas. 1956 – Bill Haley's “Rock Around The Clock” hits #1 on the UK singles chart for the second time. 1956 – Carl Perkins releases his single "Blue Suede Shoes" b/w "Honey Don't." 1957 – The BBC premieres its musical variety show, Cool For Cats. 1958 – Johnny Cash plays San Quentin Prison for the first time. 1959 – Elvis’ father Vernon Presley is uninjured when he crashes his son’s black Mercedes into a tree while visiting Elvis in Germany. 1959 – For the first time, American Bandstand leads in daytime program ratings. 1962 – The Beatles audition for Decca Records with Pete Best on drums, cutting 15 songs. 1964 – Top Of The Pops debuts on BBC-TV, featuring The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark 5, The Hollies, and The Swinging Blue Jeans. 1964 – The Beach Boys record "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Don't Worry Baby" at Western. 1964 – Actor George Hamilton is chosen over Elvis Presley for the title role in the Hank Williams biopic Your Cheatin’ Heart. 1965 – The Beatles’ three-week long Christmas show continues at the Hammersmith Odeon, featuring The Yardbirds, Freddie and The Dreamers, Elkie Brooks, The Mike Cotton Band and Sounds Incorporated. The show will conclude on January 16. 1965 – The Zombies, The Nashville Teens and The Hullabaloos are forced to cancel their package tour when their U.S. work visas are denied by the State Department. 1967 – The Doors make their first live television appearance, lip- synching to their single, "Break On Through," on Los Angeles' KTLA-TV Channel 5's music show, Shebang, hosted by Casey Kasem. 1967 – The San Francisco chapter of the Hell's Angels holds the first annual New Year's Wail, a goodwill concert for the Haight-Ashbury hippies who bailed one of their members out of jail. Musical guests include The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and The Holding Company. 1967 – Gary Lewis is drafted into the U.S. Army. He will go on to serve in Viet Nam. 1967 – The New Vaudeville Band performs “Winchester Cathedral” on The Ed Sullivan Show. Also on the show are Peter Nero and Lana Cantrell. 1968 – Billboard magazine announces LPs are now outselling 45s. 1971 – Radio Luxembourg airs over 7 hours of continuous Beatles music to celebrate the group's 10th year in the music business. 1972 – Three Dog Night becomes the first rock band to appear in the Tournament of Roses Parade. 1972 – Marc Bolan signs a deal with EMI to release records in the UK on his own T. Rex Wax label. 1976 – Robert Plant walks for the first time in almost 10 months following his car accident in Greece the previous March. 1976 – The second day of the four-day Great British Music Festival takes place at the Olympia in London, featuring Procol Harum, John Miles, Barclay James Harvest, The Baker-Gurvitz Army, and Snafu. 1977 – Genesis plays the first of three nights at the newly renovated Rainbow Theatre. 1977 – The Clash play at the opening night at the Roxy Club in London: punk's first real UK venue. 1979 – The Invaders play their last gig at the Filmmakers Co-Op in London. Members of the group will go on to form Madness. 1979 – In the early morning hours, Bruce Springsteen is treated in the hospital for severe injuries to his cheek from an exploding firecracker after he is hit in the face with it at his New Year’s Eve concert in Cleveland, Ohio. 1980 – Cliff Richard receives the MBE from Queen Elizabeth II. 1982 – ABBA makes their final live appearance as a group in Stockholm, Sweden. 1985 – Cable television channel Video-Hits One, VH1, begins airing on the short-lived Cable Music Channel. 1987 – Elton John is admitted to a hospital in Sydney, Australia, for emergency throat surgery. 1988 – Breakdancers Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan sign a contract with Boney M producer Frank Farian in Munich, Germany. They will be called Milli Vanilli. 1988 – In the early morning hours, Prince performs an after-midnight New Year's Eve charity show to aid the homeless in Minnesota. Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis makes a guest appearance at the concert. 1989 – Nirvana signs a one-year recording contract with Sub Pop Records, a Seattle-based label that began as a fanzine called Subterranean Pop. 1989 – The made-for-TV movie The Karen Carpenter Story airs on CBS. 1990 – New Florida radio station WKRL plays Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” for 24 hours as a prelude to an all Zeppelin format. 1992 – Diana Ross opens the annual Harrods January sale in London. 2002 – At the christening of his daughter, Julie Rose, Eric Clapton surprises the attendees by marrying the mother, Melia McEnery. 2002 – Welsh singer Shakin' Stevens is arrested and jailed for drunk driving. 2005 – Throughout most of Europe, copyrights expire on a number of classic rock and roll songs recorded in 1954 and earlier, including Bill Haley's “Rock Around The Clock” and “Only You” by The Platters. 2007 – The UK Singles chart integrates downloadable music for chart eligibility. 2007 – Queen beats The Beatles as the greatest British band of all time in a BBC Radio 2 listener’s poll. 2011 – Chuck Berry collapses on stage at the Congress Theater in Chicago an hour into the show, slumping over a keyboard and not moving for a couple of minutes before being helped off stage. Berry returns 15 minutes later only to be forced off again almost immediately. The 84-year old later re-emerges on stage to tell fans he has no strength to continue performing. 2011 – The white suit worn by John Lennon on the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album sells at a Connecticut auction for $46,000.
