January 16th

Musical birthdays today include operatic soprano Marilyn Horne (85), country singer Jim Stafford (75), Ronnie Milsap (73), Sade Adu (60), former Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (57), ex-En Vogue vocalist Maxine Jones (54), Fozzy lead guitarist Rich Ward (50), former Teenage Fanclub drummer Brendan O'Hare (49), Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds (45), Strokes lead guitarist Nick Valensi (38), Ordinary Boys lead singer Samuel Preston (37), Front Line Assembly guitarist Jared Slingerland (35), A Lot Like Birds led singer Kurt Travis (35), and Slovenian pop singer Maja Keuc (27). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for Ethel Merman, born on this day in 1908... for rockabilly singer Mac Curtis, who would have been 80 today... for Aaliyah, who would have been 38... for conductor Arturo Toscanini, who died on this date in 1957... for Alvin and the Chipmunks creator and producer Ross Bagdasarian, who passed away in 1972... for former Coasters bass singer Will 'Dub' Jones, who died in 2000... and for Van der Graaf Generator bassist Nic Potter, who left us today in 2013.

Also on January 16th: With John Hammond as organizer and producer, the inaugural 'From Spirituals to Swing' evening takes place at Carnegie Hall, the first time that the venue hosts a jazz concert (1938)... Tennessee Ernie Ford has the № 1 single in the UK with 'Sixteen Tons' (1956)... The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool (1957)... The Beatles play two shows at the Olympia Theatre in Paris, the first of an 18-show engagement. Opening night is attended mostly by members of Parisian 'high society' dressed in formal evening attire. The French press has little good to say about The Beatles in the next day's papers, but the Fab Four don't care, since they have just received the news that their single 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' has hit № 1 in the US, selling 10,000 copies an hour in New York City alone (1964)... Fleetwood Mac, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Albert Collins all appear on the bill at the Fillmore West (1969)... Two days after it opened, the Bag One Gallery in London, England is raided by Scotland Yard. The police remove eight John Lennon lithographs under the Obscene Publications Act (1970)... ZZ Top's debut album, the ingeniously named ZZ Top's First Album, is released (1971)... Blue Öyster Cult's eponymous debut album is released... (1972)... Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band appear at Villanova University, Philadelphia before an audience of 25 people. Due to a strike at the time by the campus newspaper The Villanovan, the concert had gone unadvertised ~ as far as is known, it is the smallest paying crowd Springsteen has played in front of since signing a Columbia Records contract in 1972 (1973)... Bob Dylan releases the album Desire (1976)... Sid Vicious ODs on heroin, falls through a ground floor window at the Sex Pistols' San Francisco hotel, and is rushed to hospital (1978)... Paul McCartney is jailed for nine days in Tokyo for marijuana possession after being found with 219g on his arrival at Narita Airport (1980)... David Bowie's schizophrenic half-brother Terry Burnes commits suicide by lying down on the railway lines at the Coulsdon South station in the London network. He is killed instantly by a passing train ~ he was 47 (1985)...  Presenter Jools Holland is suspended from UK Channel 4's music show The Tube for 6 weeks after using the phrase 'groovy fuckers' during a live trailer broadcast in a children's hour (1987)... 24 years after The Beatles first topped the chart, George Harrison goes to № 1 on the US singles chart with 'Got My Mind Set On You' an old favourite of George's that was originally recorded by James Ray in 1962. In the UK, Belinda Carlisle is at № 1 
with 'Heaven Is a Place on Earth'... Tina Turner earns herself a place in the record books when she performs in Rio de Janeiro before an audience of 182,000, the largest crowd ever to gather in South America to hear a single artist (1988)... Eric Clapton records his Unplugged session for MTV (1992)... Reports appear in the British press that Mick Jagger has lost the chance of a knighthood because of his philandering ways, British Prime Minister Tony Blair having doubts about the message it would send with regard to family values (2000)... Michael Jackson appears in court and pleads not guilty to seven charges of child molestation. The singer, who arrived 20 minutes late, is told off by the Santa Barbara judge, who says 'Mr Jackson, you have started out on the wrong foot here ~it is an insult to the court' (2004)... Bob Dylan and his brother David Zimmerman buy Aultmore House, a mansion in the Scottish Cairngorms National Park, near Nethybridge, Invernessshire (2007).