1958: Johnny Cash made his debut on the US country chart when ‘Cry! Cry! Cry!’ made it to number 14. His next seven singles would all make the country top 10, with ‘I Walk the Line’ and ‘There You Go’ both hitting number 1.
1973: John Rostill, former bassist with The Shadows, died after being electrocuted at his home recording studio. A local newspaper ran the headline, ‘Pop musician dies, guitar apparent cause’. After the break up of The Shadows, Rostill worked with Tom Jones and wrote songs covered by Elvis Presley and Olivia Newton-John.
1988: Russian cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 7 took into space a cassette copy (minus the cassette box for weight reasons) of the latest Pink Floyd album Delicate Sound Of Thunder and played it in orbit, making Pink Floyd the first rock band to be played in space. David Gilmour and Nick Mason both attended the launch of the spacecraft.
1991: US Country singer Garth Brooks asked fans to bring 10 cans of food to a grocery store in exchange for a lottery envelope, some of which contained tickets to see Garth at a forthcoming show. Over 10,000 cans were donated to charity.
2010: Willie Nelson was arrested for possession of six ounces of marijuana found in his tour bus while traveling from Los Angeles to Texas. He was released after paying bail of $2,500. Prosecutor Kit Bramblett supported not sentencing Nelson to jail due to the amount of marijuana being small, but suggested instead a $100 fine and told Nelson that he would have him sing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” for the court.
2016: Punk memorabilia said to be worth $6m was set on fire in the middle of the River Thames in London, England. Joe Corre, the son of Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, burnt the items on the 40th anniversary of the Sex Pistols debut single. The 48-year-old told the crowd that “punk was never meant to be nostalgic”.
