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 - The posthumously released Otis Redding single '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay' started a five week run at No.1. Otis was killed in a plane crash on 10th December 1967 three days after recording the song. 'Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay', became the first posthumous No.1 single in US chart history and sold over four million copies worldwide.
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, who wrote the rest of the song with him.
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. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Otis Redding 75th Birthday Celebration)
2019 - 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. 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.
Nancy Wilson of Heart is 68.
Flavor Flav is 63.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia.