One Hit Wonders John Fred and the Playboy Band started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Judy In Disguise, (With Glasses)’. It topped at No.3 in the UK. The song was allegedly inspired by The Beatles ‘Lucy In The Sky’.
Pete Evans of Badfinger commits suicide. Eight years earlier, his bandmate Tom Ham died in similar fashion. The acclaimed band had extraordinary bad business dealings with their record labels, Apple and Warner Bros., which were a contributing factor in their deaths.
The Beatles started an eleven-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘The Beatles 1’. The album features virtually every number-one single released from 1962 to 1970. Issued on the 30th anniversary of the band’s break-up, it was their first compilation available on one CD. The world’s best-selling album of the 21st century, 1 has sold over 31 million copies.
A guitar played by George Harrison was set to fetch more than £100,000 at a London auction. The Maton MS500 guitar was used on The Beatles first album.
A 1976 Rolling Stones album bought for £2 at a car boot sale sold for £4,000 at an auction. The ‘Black and Blue’ LP was signed by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Paul and Linda McCartney and George Harrison as well as members of the Rolling Stones. The seller obtained the album after haggling the cost down from £3.
A furious letter from John Lennon to Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, written after The Beatles’ break-up sold for nearly $30,000 (£24,200), to an anonymous collector in Dallas. In the two-page typed draft with handwritten notes, Lennon criticises the couple for their treatment of him and his wife, Yoko Ono. The attack is said to be in response to Linda’s criticism of him not publicly announcing his departure from the band.
The Beatles played at the Kaiserkeller Club in Hamburg, Germany without George Harrison. The guitarist had been deported on this day for being underage (he was 17) and not legally allowed to remain in a nightclub after midnight.