1962 – Cliff Richard was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘The Young Ones’. It stayed at the top of the charts for six weeks and made Cliff the first UK artist to enter the chart at No.1.
1981 – John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ started a four-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart, 10 years after it was recorded. He had two other songs in the Top 5 this week, ‘Happy Christmas, (War Is Over’) and ‘(Just Like) Starting Over.’
1984 – BBC Radio 1 announced a ban on ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, after DJ Mike Read called it ‘obscene’, a BBC TV ban also followed. The song went on to become a UK No.1 and spent a total of 48 weeks on the UK chart.
1984 – Paul McCartney was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Pipes Of Peace.’ With this release he made chart history by becoming the first artist to have a No.1 in a group, (The Beatles), in a duo, (with Stevie Wonder) in a trio, (with Wings) and as a solo artist.
1993 – Van Morrison failed to turn up at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction dinner, making him the first living inductee not to attend.
2003 – Bee Gee Maurice Gibb was fighting for his life after a heart attack following major stomach surgery. The 53 year-old singer had been rushed to hospital after collapsing at his Florida home.
2006 – An Australian woman appeared in court charged with repeatedly stabbing her partner with a pair of scissors in the back, shoulder and thigh because he played Elvis Presley’s song ‘Burning Love’ over and over again.
2010 – Shakin’ Stevens was found guilty of hitting a press photographer with a microphone stand during a concert at a hotel in Ballymena. The Welsh singer who scored No.1’s in the 80s was fined £300 for assault and criminal damage and ordered to pay the photographer £479 to compensate for his damaged camera lens.
2016 – English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, painter, and actor David Bowie died from liver cancer at his New York home two days after releasing the album ‘Blackstar’ on his 69th birthday.
During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million albums worldwide, made him one of the world’s best-selling music artists and in the same year Ed Sheeran’s new singles ‘Shape of You’ and ‘Castle On The Hill’ entered the UK singles chart at No.1 and No.2 respectively.
The Official Charts Company said it was the first time in history an artist had taken the top two chart positions with brand new songs.
2017 – Richard Carpenter said he was owed at least $2m (£1.6m) in royalties for the hits he recorded in The Carpenters. He claimed Universal Music had only paid the band a “minuscule fraction” of the money they were owed from downloads on sites like iTunes and Amazon. The musician was suing for compensation, according to legal documents filed in Los Angeles.
2018 – Irish musician and singer-songwriter Dolores O’Riordan from The Cranberries died unexpectedly while she was in London, England, for a recording session.
