1972: Ronnie Spector escapes from the Alhambra, California, mansion of her husband, legendary composer and producer Phil Spector. Ronnie, most famous as the lead singer of the Ronettes, says she had been held there as a virtual prisoner since the day she married Phil in 1968.

Barefoot at the time, she crashed out through the glass of a back door at the mansion, severely cutting her feet.

Does it need to be mentioned that she filed for divorce several days later?

2002: Paul McCartney gets married for the second time. His bride is a former model and activist for the disabled, Heather Mills at St. Salvator Church in Glaslough, Ireland.

Ringo Starr, Elton John, David Gilmour and Chrissie Hynde are among the guests in attendance.

The couple would divorce just 6 years later.

In the recording studio on this day:

1958: Elvis Presley (“A Fool Such as I”)
1964: Rolling Stones (“It’s All Over Now”)
1967: Monkees (“Pleasant Valley Sunday”)
1968: The Beatles (“Revolution No. 9”)

1989: Exactly 25 years after Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys hit #1 with “Help Me Ronda,” his daughters Carnie and Wendy, along with John Phillips’ daughter Chyna, hit the top of the charts as Wilson Phillips with “Hold On.”

1991: Bruce Springsteen marries E Street Band member Patti Scialfa. It is Springsteen’s second marriage. His first marriage to model Julianne Phillips ended shortly after Springsteen took up with Scialfa. Patti and Bruce remain married and she still performs with the band.

1972: The Fifties rock ‘n’ roll revival is taken up another notch when the Broadway musical Grease opens at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York.

Barry Bostwick and Adrienne Barbeau are the original Danny and Rizzo while Alan Paul (later to join the Manhattan Transfer) is in the cast as Teen Angel (“Beauty School Dropout” is his big number).

MEET THE BEATLES - The Beatles (1964)

Any self-respecting Baby Boomers record collection begins with “Meet the Beatles.”

While there are certainly Elvis fans among our generation, most of us didn’t reach puberty until the 1960’s, when Elvis had already entered the Army and would never be as wild as he was before he went in. For most of us, Elvis was the music our babysitters listened to while the Beatles (along with the Beach Boys and Four Seasons) were the first group we could really call our own!

Of course, despite what Capitol Records was claiming on the cover, this wasn’t the first Beatles album. In the UK, that honor belonged to “Please, Please Me.” But Capitol had passed on the opportunity to release it in the States. So Capitol’s parent company, EMI had leased that album and a handful of other early Beatles tracks to the small Vee-Jay label.

Vee-Jay actually released the first American album “Introducing the Beatles” in July of 1963. Without the money or promotion team to push the album, it went nowhere.

As 1963 came to a close, Capitol Records finally gave in to the constant pressure from EMI (and George Martin in particular) and agreed to release and promote Beatle records in the USA. The results were instantaneous and overwhelming.

“Meet the Beatles” was released on January 20, 1964. In less than a month, it climbed to the top of the American album charts, holding down the #1 position for 11 weeks until it was replaced by (what else?) “The Beatles Second Album.”

As we know now, in the early years, the American and British versions of Beatle albums differed quite a bit. One of the reasons was British albums typically contained 14 tracks while the US standard was 12. In addition, American record companies wanted the hit single on the LP while in the UK it was generally considered bad form (figuring the fans already had purchased the singles).

So nine of the tracks on “Meet the Beatles” also appear on the UK’s “With the Beatles.” In addition, Capitol added the two-sided hit single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as well as the B-wide of the British “Hold You Hand” single, “This Boy.” To top it off, Capitol took Robert Freeman’s cover photograph from the British release and added a blue tint to soften the image.

Unlike their first album which contained 50% cover songs, all but one of the tracks on “Meet the Beatles” were written by group members (10 from Lennon-McCartney and 1 from Harrison). The album also single-handedly shifted the paradigm in American pop music away from the hit single, putting the focus on albums.

“Meet the Beatles” has been named to Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, coming in at #59.

To be honest, we still prefer it to the British release.

1982: Peace Sunday, a anti-nuclear concert in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl is headlined by Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Petty, Joan Baez, Dan Fogelberg and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

1975: While Pink Floyd are recording their album Wish You Were Here, written about the group’s founder, Syd Barrett, whose sanity succumbed to an excess of LSD, the man himself wanders into their Abbey Road studio.

No one notices that Barrett is actually there and so, after a few minutes, he leaves as quietly as he entered.

1966: Janis Joplin arrives in San Francisco to accept an invitation to join a new rock band, Big Brother and the Holding Company as their lead vocalist.