1963 – 13 year old Stevie Wonder first entered the charts as Little Stevie Wonder with ‘Fingertips Parts One and Two.’ ‘Fingertips’ featured a young Marvin Gaye on drums.
1969 – American singer and actress, Judy Garland, died aged 47. She made more than two dozen films and famously played Dorothy in the 1939 film ‘Wizard Of Oz’, where she also sang ‘Over The Rainbow’.
1976 – TV talent show winners from Liverpool ‘The Real Thing’ were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘You To Me Are Everything’, the group’s only No.1 hit.
1989 – George Michael received the Silver Clef Award for outstanding achievements to British Music.
1998 – Baddiel, Skinner & Lightning Seeds went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Three Lions ’98’ released for the football World Cup ‘98.
1999 –Eric Clapton put 100 of his guitars up for auction at Christie’s in New York City to raise money for his drug rehab clinic, the Crossroads Centre in Antigua. His 1956 Fender Stratocaster named Brownie, which was used to record the electric version of ‘Layla’, sold for a record $497,500 (over £400k). The auction helped raise nearly $5 million for the clinic.
2000 – 39 year old Karen McNeil who claimed she was the wife of Axl Rose and that she communicated with him telepathically was jailed for one year for stalking the singer.
2004 – Organisers at a Paul McCartney gig hired three jets to spray dry ice into the clouds so it wouldn’t rain during the concert. The gig in Petersburg, Russia, was McCartney’s 3,000 concert appearance. He had performed 2,535 gigs with the Quarrymen and The Beatles, 140 gigs with Wings and 325 solo shows.
2009 – Michael Jackson died at the age of 50, after suffering heart failure at his home in Beverly Hills. The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964. Dubbed ‘The King Of Pop’ he is regarded as one of the best selling music artists of all time.
2011 – It was reported in the Irish press that U2’s Bono’s wandering peahen was causing havoc for some south Dublin residents. The peahen, the less spectacular coloured female partner to a male peacock had arrived in the Ard Mhuire housing estate in Killiney near to where the singer lived. One newspaper ran the headline: “Bono’s cock drives me nuts”. Local woman Susan McKeon said she first noticed the bird at night. “It had a tiny head and a huge body. It was actually quite ugly but I don’t think it’s fully grown.”
2019 – A fan who went into labour at Pink’s concert in Liverpool successfully gave birth at the venue – and named the newborn after the pop star herself. Two medics, who were on duty as crowd doctors, took the fan to the stadium’s first aid room, where they delivered the baby.
