1963 - The Beatles release "Please Please Me" in America. It gets little attention, but becomes one of their big hits a year later when Beatlemania strikes and the song is re-released. Lennon-McCartney was the standard alphabetical credit for their Beatles songwriters compositions except on Please Please Me, where for reasons unknown, the names were reversed.
1972 - Led Zeppelin appeared in front of more than 25,000 fans at the Western Springs Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand, the group's first ever gig in New Zealand (and the largest crowd ever to attend a concert on the island). News reviews the next day reported the band could be heard more than five miles from the stadium.
1985 - U2 launched their first full-scale arena tour of North America, starting at the Dallas Reunion Arena in Texas. In a few it would land in Denver at McNichols Sports Arena March 17th. Were you there?
1985 - Tears For Fears release their sophomore album, Songs From The Big Chair, featuring the hits "Shout" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World." If The Hurting (their debut) was mental anguish, Songs from the Big Chair marks the progression towards emotional healing, a particularly bold sort of catharsis culled from Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith's shared attraction to primal scream therapy. The title inspired by the 1976 TV movie Sybil, about a woman with multiple personalities who reveals her true self from the safety of her psychiatrist's big chair.
1992-With her haunting solo debut Little Earthquakes, released on this day, Tori Amos carved the template for the female singer/songwriter movement of the '90s. Amos' delicate, prog rock piano work and confessional, poetically quirky lyrics invited close emotional connection, giving her a fanatical cult following and setting the stage for the Lilith Fair legions
1998 - Bob Dylan won three Grammys, including one for Best Album for Time Out Of Mind. During Dylan's performance of the song "Love Sick," Michael Portnoy, hired as a background dancer, ripped his shirt off and jumped in among the band, revealing the words "Soy Bomb" painted on his chest.
Also in the evening, during Shawn Colvin's acceptance speech, Ol Dirty Bastard grabbed the microphone and made various observations such as "Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best" and "Wu-Tang is for the children". He was then escorted from the stage.(Photo credit TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
2019 - Mark Hollis, co-founder and singer of Talk Talk, died at age 64. Their hits like 'It's My Life' (1984) and 'Life's What You Make It' (1986).
Birthdays:
George Harrison was born today in 1943. Nicknamed "the Quiet Beatle" at the height of Beatlemania, George Harrison did indeed seem somewhat reserved compared to the other members of the Fab Four. Harrison's measured, considered persona was reflected in his music, particularly his clean, composed lead guitar parts but also in his earliest songs for the Beatles where he didn't seem to waste a line. With the introduction of psychedelics, spirituality, and Indian music in the mid-'60s, George's horizons expanded considerably and he started to come into his own as a musician, settling into a songwriting style that spliced Dylanesque introspection with his natural pop grace, while also developing a unique slide guitar technique that owed nothing to the blues.
Doug Yule, Velvet Underground is 75.
John Doe of X is 69.
Mike Peters of The Alarm is 63.
On this day In Music History is sourced from Allmusic, This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia.