This Day in Music History: Chicago releases their debut album, the iTunes Music Store opens

1963 – Nineteen-year-old Andrew Loog Oldham, who had done some PR work for The Beatles, checks out The Rollin’ Stones at a show in Richmond, England. He becomes their manager shortly thereafter and makes them add the “g” to Rollin’.

1964 – Elvis Presley releases Viva Las Vegas.

1964 – The Beatles record the TV special Around The Beatles at Wembley studios in England. In addition to songs, they perform Act V Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream. John plays the female role of Thisbe, Paul plays Pyramus, George acts as Moonshine, and Ringo as Lion. Paul later names his cat Thisbe.

1969 – Chicago releases their debut album, the then self-titled Chicago Transit Authority.

1973 – Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon hits #1 in the US. The album goes on to enjoy a record-breaking 741 discontinuous weeks on the Billboard chart, and notched another 759 weeks on the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Chart, for a total of over 1,500 weeks on the combined charts by May 2006. The album has now sold over 45 million copies worldwide.

1985 – Bryan Ferry releases the single “Slave To Love.”

1986 – For the first time, a compact disc of an album (The Art of Excellence by Tony Bennett) is released before its vinyl version.

1990 – Don Everly’s daughter Erin, who inspired the song “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” marries Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses. The rocky union lasts nine months.

2003 – The iTunes Music Store opens with over 200,000 items to purchase.

2004 – The iTunes Music Store marks its first anniversary with over 70 million songs sold.

Birthdays

1938 : Duane Eddy

1943 : Fantastic Johnny C

1945 : John Wolters (Dr. Hook)

1952 : Kim Gordan (Sonic Youth)

1955 : Eddie Jobson (Curved Air, Roxy Music)

1956 : Jimmy Barnes (Cold Chisel, INXS)

Information for this post was gathered from This Day in Music, The Music History Calendar, On This Day, and Wikipedia.