1964, The Yardbirds, featuring Eric Clapton appeared at The Cavern Club, Liverpool, England.
1965, The Rolling Stones began a 16-date tour of Australia and New Zealand at the Agricultural Hall at Manufacturers Auditorium in Sydney with Roy Orbison, The Newbeats and Ray Columbus and the Invaders.
1965, The Who pre-tape their first appearance on Radio Luxembourg’s Ready Steady Radio! at the Marquee Club. The show is broadcast on January 31st.
1966, The Beach Boys went into the studio to record “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” which would be the opening track on their forthcoming album Pet Sounds.
1966, The Grateful Dead, the Loading Zone and Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters all perform at the Trips Festival, held in San Francisco’s Longshoremen’s Hall. Also on the bill, Big Brother, who plays their first official gig. Aided by Donald Buchla’s synthesizer, their repertoire consists of freak jazz – Sun Ra, Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders – R&B, music of the Mystic East and fuzz tone/feedback distortion.
1967, The Rolling Stones appear on the British TV program Sunday Night at the London Palladium, performing “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “It’s All Over Now,” and “Connection.” However, they refuse to join the rest of the line-up for the closing credits, during which the band were supposed to wave to the audience from a revolving stage. Press outrage follows.
1967, Janis Joplin and her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, appeared at the Matrix in San Francisco.
1967, The Monkees performed live for the very first time at The Cow Palace, San Francisco to a sell-out crowd.
1968, during the band’s first Australian tour, The Who played the first of two nights at Sydney Stadium, with The Small Faces and Paul Jones.
1968, The Beatles’ business venture Apple Corps. opens its first London headquarters at 95 Wigmore Street.
1969, Jimi Hendrix performed at Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria.
1969, The Beatles moved from Twickenham Film Studios to Apple studios in London to start recording the Get Back LP. Billy Preston was brought into the sessions. John, Paul, and George knew Preston from 1962, when he was a member of Little Richard’s backing group. The Beatles were determined to record the album “live,” flaws and all.
1970, Steel Mill, featuring Bruce Springsteen opened for The Elvin Bishop Band at The Matrix in San Francisco, California. Steel Mill were paid only $5 for the gig, The Elvin Bishop Band received $90 as headliner.
1970, The Allman Brothers Band played at the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles.
1971, Mad Dogs & Englishmen, a documentary about Joe Cocker’s infamous tour across America where he was accompanied by Leon Russell and an orchestra, premieres at London’s Festival Palace.
1972, David Bowie came out as bisexual during an interview in the British music weekly Melody Maker.
1972, Don McLean’s album American Pie started a seven week run at number one in the album chart.
1973, Led Zeppelin performed at Southampton University, Southampton, England. A popular Zeppelin bootleg show.
1975, Genesis appeared at the Community Theater in Berkeley, California.
1977, Wings went to number one on the album chart with Wings Over America, Paul McCartney’s sixth US chart topper after The Beatles.
1977, Rush appeared at the Civic Center in Amarillo, Texas.
1977, Stevie Wonder went to number one on the US singles chart with “I Wish,” from Songs In The Key of Life. It was his 5th US chart topper. It reached number five in the UK.
1978, Ted Nugent played at the Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee.
1983, The new 24-hour music video network MTV started broadcasting to the West Coast of America after being picked up by Group W Cable, Los Angeles.
1984, ZZ Top performed at the Kansas Coliseum, Wichita, Kansas.
1988, Faith No More made their live UK debut at Dingwalls, London at the start of a 13-date tour.
1993, Metallica kicked off their 77-date Nowhere Else To Roam world tour at Wings Stadium, Kalamazoo, Michigan.
1994, American actor and singer Telly Savalas died of prostate cancer aged 72. He scored the 1975 UK number one single “If.” Savalas played Lt. Theo Kojak, a bald New York City detective, in the television series Kojak, with a fondness for lollipops, and whose trademark line was “Who loves ya, baby?”
2001, The Strokes released their first record The Modern Age EP on Rough Trade records in the UK.
2005, One of the biggest charity concerts since Live Aid raised £1.25 million ($2 million) for victims of the tsunami disaster in Asia. The concert held at The Millennium Stadium, Cardiff featured Eric Clapton, Manic Street Preachers, Keane, Charlotte Church, Snow Patrol, Embrace, Feeder, Craig David and Liberty X, who appeared before 60,000 fans at the sold-out concert.
2006, Arctic Monkeys scored their second UK number one single with “When The Sun Goes Down,” from their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. The song contains the line, “and he told Roxanne to put on her red light,” a reference to The Police song, “Roxanne.”
2012, Adele broke an American chart record that has stood for years after being set by The Beatles and Pink Floyd. The singers second album 21 clocked up 16 weeks at number one on the US chart matching the success of the Titanic original soundtrack. 21, released in January 2011 had now beaten The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s and Pink Floyd’s The Wall, both which had runs of 15 weeks at the top of the charts.
Born on January 22: Sam Cooke (1931); Malcolm McLaren, manager of the Sex Pistols (1947); Nigel Pegrum, Steeleye Span (1949); Steve Perry, Journey (1949); Michael Hutchence, INXS (1960); Steven Adler, drums, Guns N’ Roses (1965)
