January 24, 1957 - Elvis records "Teddy Bear"
...also, because I'm Frank Saxon fan...
January 24, 1962 - Brian Epstein signs the Beatles to a management contract.

"There was something about their trousers..."

"The Prefab four are coming here to talk about their trousers!"

-Bill Murray The K

January 25, 1958 - "Jailhouse Rock" becomes the first single to ever enter the UK pop chart at #1.
...and...
January 25, 1980 - Paul McCartney is released after 10 days from a Tokyo jail for having tried to smuggle a half pound of pot through Japanese customs.

Never could figure that one out. You're an internationally known pot-head. Your bags are routinely checked at every airport you go to. Japan has an extremely strict drug-enforcement policy. It ain't rocket science.

To paraphrase Ross from the Friends episode where his parents found out he had been getting high in college and blamed Chandler for it... "I didn't know what I was doing. I was high all the time."

"If you ask me about it, I'm gonna tell the truth. I have had tea. Lots of tea. Indian tea.

"And biscuits."

January 26, 1956 - Buddy Holly's first recording session.
January 26, 1970 - John Lennon & Phil Spector write & record Instant Karma
January 26, 1984 - Michael Jackson suffers neck & scalp burns after his hair catches fire while filming a Pepsi commercial.

The King took the day off, Bob?

He needed a break!

I believe Elvis ate a peanut butter and bacon grease sandwich on this day in 1976.

Also, on 1/26/74, Ringo Starr received his second, solo #1 with "You're Sixteen"

Surprisingly enough, Ringo was something of a chart dynamo in the early seventies, racking up quite a tally of top ten hits.

Ringo had 7 top 10 hits between 1971 and 1975. As I recall, he was the first Beatle to get a solo top 10 hit with "It Don't Come Easy" and possibly the first to get a number 1 with Photograph.

Close but no Seegar.

John had the first solo top ten with Instant Karma (We All Shine On) in early 1970, and George had the first solo number one with My Sweet Lord in late 1970.

January 27, 1956 - Elvis releases Heartbreak Hotel
January 27, 1968 - The Bee Gees make their US debut
January 27, 1969 - The Beatles are signed to a 9 year contract with EMI

Another one that boggles my mind. During the month of January 1969, The Beatles were as close as they had ever been to breaking up (George had quit on the 10th and had just rejoined the group on the 21st, and they were just 4 days away from finishing up the ill-conceived "Get Back" project) and yet they signed a contract binding them together for the next nine years!

That contract bound them together as a group for nine more years?

I didn't know about this. How did they get out of that?

In 1970/71 Paul sued the other three to have the contract dissolved. New contracts were drawn up, binding them individually to EMI through 1976.

Was the 9 year contract part of what formed Apple Records?

Apple was formed in 1968 and required a whole different set of contracts! Interestingly enough, although the Beatles LP's and 45's bore the Apple label they retained the Parlophone/Capitol numbering (depending on which side of the Atlantic you were on).

There was a mistake in Bob's post about the events of yesterday in rock history. A mistake which (in my current codeine induced state) I compounded. The Beatles signed their nine-year contract with EMI in 1967, not 1969. Not a great deal of differenc to be sure, but in the life-span of the group it's practically an eternity. In January of '67, the boys were just about a month and a hal;f into the sessions of what would become Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. At this point they were still operating as one big happy Beatle family. By January '69 (as I pointed out above) they were anything but a harmonious unit. That's what made me question it above. When I responded to Leo that EMI had renegotiated the contracts thru 1976 it struck me that the math wasn't right. So I did a little digging before I went to bed last night and came up with the correct dates. Sorry for the confusion. We now return you to your regularly shceduled thread.


....Oh, Bob?

'Twould appear I have some faulty "sources".

Ahhh...it was on Beatle stuff, tho'...