September 8, 1960 Singer-songwriter Aimee Mann is born in Bon Air, Virginia. With her group 'Til Tuesday, she has a hit with "Voices Carry," and later embarks on a successful solo career.
September 4, 1960 Kim Thayil (lead guitarist for Soundgarden) is born in Seattle, Washington. He would be raised near Chicago in Park Forest, Illinois.
August 28, 1960 A 17-year-old Barry White completes his four-month prison term for stealing 300 tires from a Cadillac dealership. Having heard Elvis sing "It's Now Or Never" in prison, he leaves determined to make music his life.
August 26, 1960 Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis is born in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, to a family of musicians. He played sax and miscellaneous percussion on Sting's 1985 solo debut, The Dream of the Blue Turtles.
August 17, 1960 The Beatles start their run at the Indra Club in Hamburg, Germany, honing their skills with four-hour sets where they play lots of R&B covers along with their original songs.
August 15, 1960 Elvis Presley's "It's Now Or Never," with a melody based on the Italian song "O Sole Mio," hits #1 in America for the first of five weeks, bumping off "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" by Brian Hyland.
August 15, 1960 The 12,000-seat Cobo Arena opens in Detroit. It's home to the NBA's Pistons, but also a great place to hear music. Kiss (Alive!), J. Geils Band (Blow Your Face Out) and Bob Seger (Live Bullet) all record live albums there.
August 8, 1960 Decca Records in England refuses to release Ray Peterson's latest single, "Tell Laura I Love Her," going so far as to throw away 25,000 pressings of the teen-tragedy song, which they feel is "too tasteless and vulgar for the English sensibility." A cover by Ricky Valance proves them wrong by going straight to #1. (The grisly song, in which a stock-car driver mutters the title words before he dies, ironically only reaches #7 in America.)
August 8, 1960 Brian Hyland's "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" hits #1, where it stays for one week.
August 6, 1960 Chubby Checker performs "The Twist" for the first time on TV when he does it on Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show. The song goes to #1 and starts a huge dance craze.
August 1, 1960 Aretha Franklin begins her first non-gospel recording session, an abortive attempt at jazz-pop with the Columbia label.
August 1, 1960 Chubby Checker releases "The Twist," starting a dance craze that soon grips the nation.
July 18, 1960 Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry," recorded when she was just 15, hits #1 for the first of three weeks. It's the first of her two chart-toppers; her next single, "I Want To Be Wanted," also goes to #1.
July 3, 1960 Synth-pop innovator Vince Clarke is born Vincent John Martin in South Woodford, England. An early member of Depeche Mode, he writes the group's breakthrough hit, "Just Can't Get Enough," before forming Yazoo ("Only You," "Situation") and Erasure ("A Little Respect," "Chains of Love").
July 3, 1960 Muddy Waters brings the blues to a wider audience with a riveting performance at the Newport Jazz Festival punctuated by his rendition of "Got My Mojo Working."
July 1, 1960 The Shadows release the instrumental call-to-arms "Apache," which goes to #1 in the UK and is a US hit the next year for Jorgen Ingmann. Variations of the song are later sampled on a number of hip-hop tracks.
June 29, 1960 Disco singer Evelyn "Champagne" King is born in The Bronx, New York City.
June 27, 1960 Connie Francis becomes the first solo female act with a Hot 100 #1 hit when "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" tops the chart.
June 24, 1960 Siedah Garrett, co-writer of Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror" and his duet partner on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," is born in Los Angeles.
June 23, 1960 Dean Martin and Judy Holliday sing "Just In Time" in the romantic comedy Bells Are Ringing, an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical.
June 20, 1960 John Taylor (bassist for Duran Duran) is born Nigel John Taylor in Solihull, Warwickshire, England. As well as co-founding Duran Duran he later achieves a second round of success in rock supergroup The Power Station.
June 6, 1960 The RIAA gives Bing Crosby a special platinum record to signify career sales of 200 million records, many of them "White Christmas."
June 6, 1960 Roy Orbison releases "Only The Lonely," one of the most melancholy hits of the '60s and the first in a string of sad songs he becomes famous for.
June 2, 1960 Bobby Darin plays the Copacabana in New York for the first time.
May 30, 1960 Stephen Duffy is born in Alum Rock, Birmingham, England. A founding member of Duran Duran, he leaves the band shortly before they are signed to EMI. He later finds moderate success as a solo artist under the name Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy with the song "Kiss Me."
May 23, 1960 The Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown" hits #1 in America for the first of five weeks. In the UK, it has been at #1 since May 11, making it the first song to top both charts at the same time.
May 12, 1960 On Frank Sinatra's TV variety show, it's the Welcome Home Elvis special to honor The King, who was recently discharged from the US Army. The famous singers perform a medley of "Love Me Tender" and "Witchcraft" together.
May 10, 1960 Paul Hewson is born in Dublin. He shortens his nickname from Bono Vox (Latin for "good voice") to simply Bono and fronts the band U2.More
May 9, 1960 The birth control pill is introduced in the US, inspiring Loretta Lynn to sing a song about it.More
May 2, 1960 Ben E. King leaves The Drifters and signs a solo contract with Atco Records.
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