1968 – Black Sabbath played their first gig at a small backstreet Blues club in Birmingham, England.
1974 – Elton John started a two-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with his eighth studio release, Caribou, and his third No.1 album. The album contained the singles, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, and “The Bitch Is Back”.
1978 – The BBC announced a ban on The Sex Pistols latest single ‘No One Is Innocent’, which featured vocals by Ronnie Biggs, the British criminal notorious for his part in the Great Train Robbery of 1963. At the time of the recording, Biggs was living in Brazil, and was still wanted by the British authorities, but immune from extradition.
1985 – Duran Duran became the first artists to have a No.1 on the US singles chart with a James Bond theme when “A View To A Kill”, went to the top of the charts.
1987 – Representatives of fifty of America’s largest record retailers were guests at Michael Jackson’s home in Encino, California to preview his new album, ‘Bad’. The LP would go on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide.
1996 – Over 2,000 guitar players, including Chet Atkins and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, set a new world record for the largest jam session ever when they played “Heartbreak Hotel” for 75 minutes at Nashville’s Riverfront Park. The previous record was set in Vancouver, Canada on May 7th, 1994, when Randy Bachman led 1,322 amateur guitarists in a performance that lasted 68 minutes.
