January 28th

Musical birthdays today include jazz clarinetist Acker Bilk (85), bluesman Cash McCall (73), Pretty Things founder Dick Taylor (71), former Soft Machine lead singer Robert Wyatt (69), jazz drummer Bob Moses, ex-Throbbing Gristle synthesist Chris Carter (61), former Alarm guitarist Dave Sharp (55), ex-Anthrax lead guitarist Dan Spitz (51), rapper William 'Rakim' Griffin (46), Sarah McLachlan (46), Cypress Hill DJ & producer Lawrence 'DJ Muggs' Muggerud (46), Anthony Hamilton (43), rapper and Triple C's founder Rick Ross (38), Fdear Factory bassist Matt DeVries (37), ex-'N Sync baritone Joey Fatone (37), Nick Carter (34), and J. Cole (29). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein, born on this day in 1887... for British jazz impresario Ronnie Scott, who would have been 87 today... for early British rocker Billy Fury, who died on this date in 1983... for former Barclay James Harvest drummer, who died in 2004... for ex-Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi, who passed away in 2005... and for Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell, who left us today in 2009. 

Also on January 28th: Elvis Presley (with Scotty Moore and Bill Black), makes his first US national television appearance on the Dorsey Brothers' 'Stage Show'. It is the first of his six appearances on the show, and the first of eight performances of his that will be recorded and broadcast from CBS in NYC (1956)... The Moody Blues have their only no. 1 single in the UK with 'Go Now!'... The Who make their first appearance on the UK TV show 'Ready Steady Go!' To project the desired image, the hand-picked audience consists only of teens dressed in the current Mod fashion (1965)... Jim Morrison is charged with public drunkenness after getting into a scuffle with a security guard at a Las Vegas adult cinema (1968)... Pink Floyd's 10th studio album Animals enters the UK charts at #2. The sleeve concept was designed by Roger Waters, who lived at the time near Clapham Common, and regularly drove past Battersea Power Station. A view of the imposing but disused former power station building was chosen for the cover image, complete with a massive inflatable pig suspended between two of the towers (1977)... Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is the no. 1 album on both sides of the Atlantic (1978)... Frankie Goes To Hollywood starts a five-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Relax!' BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read expresses on air his distaste for both the record's suggestive sleeve and its lyrics, and announces his refusal to play the record, not knowing that the BBC has already decided that the song is not to be played on the network anyway... Backstage after a Mötley Crüe show in Buffalo, NY, Tommy Lee finds out that his girlfriend has posed for the current issue of Penthouse magazine without his knowledge after a fan passes him a copy of the publication. Tommy knocks the fan unconscious with one punch, but MC manager Doug Thaler later convinces the man not to press charges (1984)... The USA for Africa super-session organized by Quincy Jones records 'We Are the World' (1985)... Eleven years after its original release, The Sex Pistols album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols goes Gold in the US with sales over 500,000 (1988)... Paula Abdul starts a 10-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with Forever Your Girl'. Abdul's record spent sixty-four consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 before hitting number one, setting a record for the longest time taken by an album to reach the top spot (1990)... Paul and Linda McCartney attend the premiere of Wayne's World II in London. The couple then go on to the Hard Rock Cafe, where Mike Myers presents them with a cheque for £25,000 made out to the LIPA [the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts] (1994)... Lou Reed releases his Edgar Allan Poe concept album The Raven (2003)... Elvis fans express their anger at plans to cut up a rare tape of the King's early songs and sell the snippets at auction. The tape, which features a recording made by Presley during the early 1950s, is now too fragile to play. US firm Master Tape Collection said the tape would be cut into two-inch snippets and sold for $460 each (2004).