Calendar Search Results: ne hits
November 3, 1960 Elvis Presley's "It's Now Or Never" hits #1 in the UK, where it stays for eight weeks. The UK release was delayed because "O Sole Mio," on which the melody is based, is still under copyright in Britain, but not in America, where "It's Now Or Never" went to #1 in August.
October 10, 1960 Larry Verne's novelty song "Mr. Custer" hits #1 in America.
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.
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.
April 3, 1960 Working at RCA's Studio B in Nashville, Elvis Presley pulls an all-nighter, recording nine songs, finishing with "Are You Lonesome Tonight" in the wee hours of the morning. The mournful song becomes one of his biggest hits, going to #1 in America for six weeks.
October 23, 1959 "Weird Al" Yankovic is born Alfred Matthew Yankovic in Downey, California, and raised in Lynwood. He's an architecture student at California Polytechnic State University in 1979 when he gets the idea to spoof The Knack hit "My Sharona" as "My Bologna," leading to a career as the top parody artist in history.More
July 13, 1959 Paul Anka's "Lonely Boy" hits #1 for the first of four weeks.
June 1, 1959 Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans," about a real battle in the War of 1812, hits #1 on both the country and pop charts in the US.
April 27, 1959 Sheena Easton is born in Glasgow, Scotland, the youngest of six children. She wins the Best New Artist Grammy in 1981 and has a string of hits that decade, including "Morning Train (Nine To Five)" and the Bond theme "For Your Eyes Only."
September 27, 1958 Pop singer/actor Shaun Cassidy is born in Los Angeles, California. Although he doesn't join The Partridge Family cast with mom Shirley Jones and half-brother David Cassidy, he stars on The Hardy Boys Mysteries and lands a trio of Top 10 hits in 1977 - including the chart-topper "Da Doo Ron Ron."
August 18, 1958 Domenico Modugno's "Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu (Volare)" hits #1 for the first of five weeks.
August 7, 1958 Bruce Dickinson, who takes over as Iron Maiden's lead singer in 1981, is born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England. His soaring vocals lead the band into a new era as they become one of the most popular UK rock bands. Dickinson-sung hits include "Aces High" and "Bring Your Daughter To the Slaughter."
July 30, 1958 Kate Bush is born in Bexleyheath, Kent, England. At 19, she releases her debut single, "Wuthering Heights," which goes to #1 in the UK.More
May 3, 1958 The popular disc jockey Alan Freed hosts a rock concert at the Boston Arena (a hockey rink) that does not go well. The city doesn't host another rock concert until 1964.More
April 27, 1958 Kate Pierson is born in Weehawken, New Jersey. In the early '70s she moves to Athens, Georgia, where she forms The B-52s. Her voice is one of the most recognizable in rock, heard on the group's hits like "Love Shack" and "Rock Lobster," and also on R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People."
March 17, 1958 The first "Greatest Hits" compilation is released, and it's by Johnny Mathis. It's a huge hit, and the format catches on quickly. The Mathis album stays in the Billboard 200 album chart for over nine years, a record not broken until Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon.More
January 20, 1958 Seventeen-year-old Ricky Nelson's debut album, Ricky, hits #1 in America.
December 16, 1957 Pat Boone's "April Love" hits #1 in the US for the first of six weeks. The song is from the movie of the same name starring Boone and Shirley Jones.
December 11, 1957 In what remains one of the most shocking celebrity scandals, Jerry Lee Lewis marries 13-year-old Myra Gale Brown, who was the daughter of his cousin (and bass player), J.W. Brown. The marriage lasts 14 years but seriously damages Lewis' career.More
November 24, 1957 Chris Hayes, lead guitarist for Huey Lewis & the News from 1979–2001, is born in Great Lakes, Illinois. He co-writes some of the band's biggest hits, including "I Want A New Drug" and "The Power of Love."
September 23, 1957 "Honeycomb" by Jimmie Rodgers (the pop singer, not the country singer born in 1897) hits #1 for the first of four weeks. It's one of the few non-Elvis chart-toppers on 1957.
September 1, 1957 Gloria Estefan is born Gloria Fajardo in Havana, Cuba. Raised in Miami, she joins Miami Sound Machine in 1977 and marries their leader, Emilio Estefan, a year later. She becomes a formative figure in Latin pop, crossing over to an English-speaking audience with hits like "Conga," "Anything For You" and "Coming Out Of The Dark."
June 3, 1957 Pat Boone's "Love Letters In The Sand" hits #1 on the US Top 100 and stays for seven weeks. Boone would have two of the Top 5 songs of 1957 ("April Love" is the other), while Elvis has the other three.
June 2, 1957 Johnnie Ray's "Yes Tonight Josephine" hits #1 on the UK singles chart.
September 7, 1956 Songwriter Diane Warren, whose many hits include Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" and Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time," is born in Van Nuys, California.
June 5, 1956 Saxophone player Kenny G is born Kenneth Gorelick in Seattle, Washington. His instrumental hits "Songbird" and "Silhouette" usher in a new radio format in the '80s: Smooth Jazz. With at least 50 million albums sold, he lays claim to the title of best-selling instrumentalist in history.
November 26, 1955 Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" hits #1 in America for the first of eight weeks.
November 9, 1955 The Everly Brothers, recently signed to Columbia as a country act, cut their first tracks in a studio lodged in Nashville's Old Tulane Hotel. The four recordings, which take only 22 minutes to lay down, yield no hits, and the duo is soon dropped from the label.
September 17, 1955 Pat Boone banks his first #1 on the US Pop charts when "Ain't That A Shame" hits the top spot. Some folks think it's a shame that his sterilized version is far more popular than Fats Domino's original, but Boone's cover draws lots of attention to Domino and earns the New Orleans singer substantial royalties.
August 27, 1955 Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame" hits #10 in the US, becoming the first R&B song to hit the Top 10 on the Pop chart. Three weeks later, Pat Boone's cover hits #1.
©2026 Songfacts®, LLC