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Boats
A fleet of ships, known as The First Fleet, leaves Portsmouth, Great Britain with a cargo of over 1,000 convicts who will found a penal colony that will become the first European settlement in Australia. They will reach Australia at Botany Bay in mid-January 1788, inspiring the oft-recorded folk song Botany Bay. Here we have a version by Kate Rusby.
The Shipping Forecast begins as a series of telegraph messages sent to harbour towns around the United Kingdom to warn of impending storms. From 1924 it will be broadcast daily on BBC radio. The forecast will inspire many musicians, including Tears For Fears (Pharaohs), Thomas Dolby (Windpower), Radiohead, Blur, Beck, The Prodigy, Jethro Tull and Manfred Mann, to incorporate audio samples of the forecast or lyrics based on the forecast into their songs.
The steamer Charles Macalester takes Washingtonians to Marshall Hall, Maryland, USA, for patriotic music and dancing all day.
Early in the morning, the liner RMS Titanic, believed to be unsinkable, sinks in The Atlantic Ocean, with the loss of over 1,500 lives. The 1932 song Titanic Blues by blues musicians Hi Henry Brown and Charley Jordan will be inspired by the disaster. Other topical songs on the same theme are The Titanic by Ernest V. Stoneman and The Last Scene Of The Titanic by Frank Hutchison. The 1989 song Rest In Pieces (April 15 1912) by San Francisco band Metal Church is also about the sinking of The Titanic.
Having spent two days aboard the S.S. Berengaria in Southampton, UK, American bandleader Paul Specht and his band are given permission to disembark. They had been refused work permits, but US Secretary of State, Charles Hughes, who had travelled on the same ship, used his influence with the British Government to gain them entry.
Country music singer and guitarist Ernest Stoneman records The Titanic and The Face That Never Returned at OKeh Recording Studio, 25 West 45th St., Manhattan, New York City, USA. Neither track is released.
Ben Selvin And His Orchestra record Suite 16 and In A Little Love Boat, in new York City, USA. The tracks will be released under various names including The Palm Beach Players and The Maryland Dance Orchestra on various labels including Vocalion, Duophone and Beltona.
The musical Show Boat by Jerome Kern plays at The Ziegfeld Theatre, Broadway, New York City, USA, during a run of 572 performances.
The original London West End production of Show Boat opens at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, England, UK, Europe. The cast includes Paul Robeson as Joe, Edith Day as Magnolia, Cedric Hardwicke as Capt. Andy and Alberta Hunter as Queenie.Harry Reser and His Orchestra, record Where Did You Get That Name? and Here Comes The Show Boat [as Harry Reser's Syncopaters] in New York City, USA, for Columbia Records.
The Imperial Japanese Navy launches a surprise military strike against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, USA. The attack will lead to the United States' entry into World War II, and it will also inspire the 1942 Frank Loesser song Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition. (More specifically, the inspiration came from an apocryphal tale about a chaplain at Pearl Harbour who manned a gun turret while uttering what would become the song's title phrase).
Blues singer and harmonica player Jazz Gillum, with Big Maceo on piano, records Reckless Rider Blues, Look On Yonder Wall, Keep On Sailing and Fast Woman Blues, for RCA Victor Records in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Bobby Mitchell And The Toppers headline the Shipwreck Dance at The F + M Patio, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.Harbor Lights by Guy Lombardo And His Orchestra enters the Billboard Chart in the USA, where it will peak at No2 during a run of twenty weeks on the chart.
Harbor Lights by The Ray Anthony Orchestra on Capitol Records enters the Billboard Chart in the USA, where it will peak at No15 during a run of fifteen weeks on the chart.
Perry Como records There's No Boat Like A Rowboat and There's A Big Blue Cloud, with Mitchell Ayres And His Orchestra and The Fontane Sisters at The Manhattan Center, New York City, USA.
It is reported that teenage RCA Victor recording duo The Bell Sisters, whose song Bermuda has made them suddenly successful, have had to turn down several guest spots on television because schoolwork comes first.
MGM's movie remake of the Kern-Hammerstein musical play Show Boat, starring Howard Keel, Ava Gardner and Kathryn Grayson, is released to cinemas in Finland, Europe.
Charlie Parker plays a gig aboard the excursions boat SS Peter Stuyvesant, New York City, USA.
The transatlantic liner Andrea Doria sinks after colliding with the Swedish vessel Stockholm in fog near Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts, USA. On board the Andrea Doria is songwriter Mike Stoller of the famed Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller songwriting and record production partnership. Rescued by a freighter, he is taken to New York City, USA. During filming of his latest movie, Summer Holiday, in Greece, Cliff Richard and various cast members charter a boat to visit the island of Hydra.
Paul Barbarin And His Jazz Band record Slide Frog Slide, Too Late, The Second Line, Give It Up and Take A Ferry Boat To New Orleans, for Atlantic Records in Preservation Hall, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Kenyon Hopkins, with orchestra and sound effects, records Living Tomb, Ghost Ship and other tracks in New York City, USA, for Verve Records.
Little Richard arrives by ship at Southampton, UK, to begin a tour and make tv appearances.
Peggy Lee records It's A Big Wide Wonderful World, Close Your Eyes, Cloudy Morning and Where Can I go Without You? in Studio B, Capitol Records, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd records Bossa, Cantaloupe Island and Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA.
The Who, billed as The High Numbers, play on The Riverboat Shuffle, an afternoon event aboard a boat sailing down The Thames from Westminster Pier, London, UK.
Bill Anderson records Riverboat and I Don't Love You Anymore in Columbia Recording Studio, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, for Decca Records.
Popular saxophonist and broadcaster David Ede dies in a boating accident off Blackpool, UK. David Ede And The Rabin Band appeared regularly on the BBC Radio show Go Man Go. Ede also sang as part of Go Man Go's regular vocal group, The Travellers, whose name was a humourous reference to the name of the show.
During a violent storm, the MV Mi Amigo, home to pirate radio station Radio Caroline, is washed ashore at Frinton Beach in Essex, UK, Europe.The Tornados release a new single, Is That A Ship I Hear?, in the UK. It will be their last single with Joe Meek as producer.
Ringo Starr of The Beatles records a farewell message for UK pirate radio station Radio London, at their premises in Curzon Street, London, England, UK, Europe. Like all pirates, the station is shortly to be forced to cease broadcasting.
In a Chinese junk sailing round the Statue Of Liberty in the harbour of New York City, USA, John Lennon and Paul McCartney of The Beatles hold a business meeting with Ken Mansfield, head of Apple Records in the USA.
Every Mother's Son perform Rainflowers and Come On Down To My Boat on US tv show The Cypress Gardens Special, hosted by Johnny Carson.
Steve Taylor of The Face magazine shares a compartment with Joe Strummer and his girlfriend Gaby Salter. on a boat train to Paris, France, Europe.
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Billy Joel marries Christie Brinkley aboard the 147-foot boat Riveranda in New York City harbour. The boat is covered with one thousand white tulips
Oasis, Gomez, Jimmy Eat World, Starsailor, Proud Mary, Basement Jaxx, A, Idlewild, Less Than Jake, Morcheeba, Rival Schools, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Badly Drawn Boy, Groove Armada and others play on the first day of the T In The Park Festival, Balado, Kinross, Scotland.
Jack White of The White Stripes marries British model Karen Elson in a canoe on the Amazon River, with the ceremony being conducted by a Shaman priest. The wedding is followed with a more conventional blessing by a catholic priest in a cathedral in Manaus, Brazil, South America.
When the liner Queen Mary 2 sets sail from New York City to Southampton, UK, singer-songwriter James Taylor is aboard. During the six-day journey Taylor and his band play two concerts in the ship's Royal Court Theatre, as part of a deal with the Cunard Line to transport the group across the Atlantic in return for the performances.While in Venice, Italy, Europe, Elton John and his partner David Furnish take their adopted son Zachary Jackson Levon for a boat ride on a canal.
The heavy metal cruise known as the 70,000 Tons Of Metal Festival, comes to an end in Miami, Florida, USA. Artists appearing aboard the ship, The Majesty Of The Seas, over the past five days have included Amorphis, Exciter, Cannibal Corpse, Atheist, Stratovarius, Venom, Children Of Bodom, Crowbar, Nightwish and Hammerfall.
Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden spends one of three days on board the nuclear submarine HMS Victorious at Faslane Naval Base, Scotland.Duke Vin, a Jamaican-born pioneer of Jamaican-style sound systems in London, England, UK, Europe, who played a vital role in popularising ska music in Britain, dies in hospital in London, aged 84, after suffering a series of strokes.
Chris Baio of Vampire Weekend and James Murphy [formerly of LCD Soundsystem] are among the guests attending the SKYY Vodka at Sea Governors Ball Kick Off Party aboard a yacht in New York City, USA.
Cloud Boat release their second album, Model Of You, on Apollo / R&S Records in the USA.
Yes, The Adrian Belew Power Trio, Casey McPherson, 1787 |
2018 |