1964 - The Beatles set a new record for advance sales in the US with 2,100,000 copies of their latest single 'Can't Buy Me Love.' When pressed by American journalists in 1966 to reveal the song's 'true' meaning, Paul McCartney stated 'I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggests that 'Can't Buy Me Love' is about a prostitute, I draw the line'.
1968 - Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" hits #1, becoming the first-ever posthumous #1 hit. Redding died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967. Redding really was sitting on the dock of the (San Francisco) Bay when he came up with the line, "I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again." He took the idea to Steve Cropper, his producer at Stax Records and guitarist in Booker T & the MGs, who wrote the rest of the song with him. Cropper made it about Redding's life, how he went from a small town in Georgia to headlining the famous Fillmore West in San Francisco ("I left my home in Georgia, headed for the 'Frisco bay"). Near the end of the song, Redding runs out of words and starts whistling. The plan was to fill in this section with lyrics, but he died before he could.
1972 - The Dripping Springs Reunion festival kicks off in a field near Austin, Texas. Envisioned as the Woodstock of country music, the 3-day event features performances by Willie Nelson, Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Kris Kristofferson, Loretta Lynn, Buck Owens and Dottie West. The festival is poorly promoted and a huge flop. But, Two years later, Willie Nelson uses the same site for the first of his Fourth of July Picnic concerts, which becomes a popular annual event and helps establish Austin as a music destination.
1977 - After being with the label for just six days the Sex Pistols were fired from A&M due to pressure from other label artists and its Los Angeles head office. 25,000 copies of 'God Save The Queen' were pressed and the band made $127,500 from the deal.
2012 - A series of 'medical mishaps' forced Morrissey to cancel the rest of his forthcoming concerts in the US. The ex-Smiths frontman had suffered a number of illnesses including a bleeding ulcer, Barrett's oesophagus and double pneumonia. The 53-year-old, had already called off 21 gigs this year due to poor health. (Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images)
2015 - Andy Fraser songwriter and bass guitarist with Free died of a heart attack aged 62. The London-born musician became a founding member of the group when he was just 15 and went on to write most of the material with lead singer Paul Rodgers, including Free's 1970 hit 'All Right Now' and 'Every Kinda People', a hit for Robert Palmer.
2019 - Guitarist Dick Dale died of heart failure at the age of 81. He was known as The 'King of the Surf Guitar'. He pioneered and created what many call the surf music style. Dale worked closely with Fender to produce custom made amplifiers, including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. His song 'Misirlou' featured over the opening credits to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
Birthdays:
Songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, best known for penning the tune "Mr. Bojangles", was born on this day in 1942.
Michael Bruce, guitarist with the Alice Cooper Band, is 73.
Nancy Wilson of Heart is 67.
Flavor Flav is 62.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock, Song Facts and Wikipedia.