Work

Manuel Manetta is born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He will find success as a jazz multi-instrumentalist working with The Eagle Brass Band, The Tuxedo Brass Band, Kid Ory and Papa Celestin.

Joe Marsala is born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He will find success as a jazz clarinet player, working with Buddy Rich, Red Allen, Eddie Condon, Shelly Manne and others.

Howard Loach is born in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. He will make his mark as a trumpeter and arranger, working with King Kolax, Nat King Cole and Ruth Ellington.

Jazz tenor saxophone player Leon 'Chu' Berry, who will work with Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway and Benny Carter, is born in Wheeling, West Virginia, USA.

While striking miners are enjoying a Christmas Party in The Italian Hall, Calumet, Michigan, USA, a mass panic is caused when someone shouts 'Fire!'. In the ensuing rush for the doors, seventy-three people are trampled to death, fifty-nine of them children. The horrific tragedy, known as The Italian Hall Disaster, will be recorded in Woody Guthrie's 1941 song, 1913 Massacre.

Leonard Caston is born in Mississippi, USA. He will find success as blues pianist/guitarist Baby Doo Caston, often working with Willie Dixon.

Tenor saxophone star Arnette Cobb is born in Houston, Texas, USA. Nicknamed 'The Wild Man Of The Tenor Sax', he will work with Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald and others.

Guitarist Billy Byrd is born in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. After working with Little Jimmy Dickens and George Morgan, he will back Ernest Tubb from 1949-1959, then return for two more stints with The Texas Troubadours.

Little Willie Anderson is born in West Memphis, Arkansas, USA. A respected Chicago harmonica player, Anderson will work with Little Walter, Muddy Waters and others.

Ten days after arriving in the UK, American bandleader Paul Specht and his band are granted work permits enabling them to perform in Britain. 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 have the permits granted.

Eddie Thompson is born in Shoreditch, London, UK. Although blind, he will find success as a jazz pianist working with Johnny Dankworth, Ronnie Scott and many others.

Session saxophonist Clarence Ford is born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He will be best known for his work with Fats Domino.

Session saxophonist Clarence Ford is born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He will be best known for his work with Fats Domino.

Gerald L. Bron is born in Hendon, Middlesex, UK. He will find success as record producer, music publisher and record company owner Gerry Bron, working with artists including The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Uriah Heep, Motorhead and Manfred Mann. His record company, set up in 1971, will be known as Bronze Records.

Blues guitarist, harmonica player, organist and pianist Frank Frost is born in Augusta, Arkansas, USA. He will work as a sideman to Sonny Boy Williamson II, B.B. King, Carl Perkins, Conway Twitty and Little Milton.

Carey Bell is born in Mason, Mississippi, USA. As a blues harmonica player, he will work with John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and many others, as well as enjoying a solo career as a recording artist.

Record producer Joe Saraceno is born in Utica, New York State, USA. Among his hit productions will be Let's Go by The Routers, and he will also work with The Ventures, The Marcels, Gene McDaniels, The Sunshine Company and The Beach Boys.

Radio show Bing Crosby's Music Hall in the USA features Ken Carpenter, Bob Burns, The Paul Taylor Choristers, Josephine Tuminia, Verree Teasdale and Adolphe Menjou. Songs performed include Nice Work If You Can Get It, Sail Along, Silv'ry Moon, I've Got Rings On My Fingers, Roses In December, When The Organ Played At Twilight and Down By The Old Mill Stream.

Wilhelm Rabenbauer is born in Viechtach, Bavaria, Europe. He will find success as filmscore composer Peer Raben, working memorably on the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Blues pianist Josh Altheimer dies in Chicago, Illinois, USA. A revered accompanist, his best work can be found on recordings by Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Boy Williamson Ist.

Lord Invader performs his composition Rum And Coca Cola for the first time in front of a paying audience in the Victory Calypso Tent [an informal music venue set up for the carnival season] in Port of Spain, Trindidad, West Indies. Six months later, visiting US radio comedian Morey Amsterdam will hear the song, take it back to the USA, sanitise its saucy lyric and copyright it in his own name. Rum And Coca Cola will be a huge hit for The Andrews Sisters but Lord Invader will have to go to court to win his royalties.

Nelson Riddle arrives in Los Angeles, California, USA, to begin a job as musical arranger for bandleader Bob Crosby.

The Walt Disney animated film Cinderella, including the songs A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo, So This is Love, Sing Sweet Nightingale, The Work Song, and Cinderella, is released to cinemas in Sweden.

Eddy Arnold releases a new single, A Full Time Job, on RCA Victor Records in the USA.

Tennessee Ernie Ford records Hey, Mr. Cotton Picker for Capitol records in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Blues pioneer Tommy Johnson dies of a heart attack after working at a local house party in Warm Springs, Mississippi, USA. Born in 1896, he had worked with Charlie Patton and Willie Brown.

Tony White, virtuoso saxophonist known for his work with 10,000 Maniacs, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Tony Bennett and others, is born in Queens, New York, USA.

Marlon Williams is born in Queens, New York City, USA. He will find fame as hip-hop producer Marley Marl, working with LL Cool J, Roxanne Shante, Chaka Khan and many others.

Sam Cooke has a recording session at RCA Studios, Los Angeles, California, USA, working on the songs You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You and Ease My Troublin' Mind.

Johnny Western records Light The Fuse, Turn Around And Look At Me, Tender Years and Sincerely Your Friend, in Columbia Recording Studio, 804 16th Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

Nina Simone records the Bob Dylan composition The Ballad Of Hollis Brown, plus Strange Fruit and Tell Me More And More And Then Some More for Philips Records in New York City, USA.

The Beatles are in Studio One, Abbey Road, London, England, UK, Europe, working on We Can Work It Out for their album Rubber Soul.

The Beatles are in EMI Studio 2, Abbey Road, London, England, UK, Europe, working on the song Think For Yourself. During this day they also record The Beatles Third Christmas Record for distribution to members of their Fan Club.

Songwriter Alex Zanetis, best-known as the co-writer of the song Snap Your Fingers, sustains a fractured jaw, broken arms and other injuries in a car crash on Highway 50 in Flora, Illinois, USA. He is admitted into Clay County Hospital.

Bob Dylan is working on the songs Just Like A Woman, Pledging My Time and Absolutely Sweet Marie in Columbia Records' Studios, Music Row, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, for his Columbia Records album Blonde On Blonde.

Anna Leigh, the daughter of Bob Dylan and Sara Lowndes, is born. She will grow up to work as an artist, living in Santa Monica with her husband.

Led Zeppelin are working on the songs Since I've Been Loving You, Feel So Bad/That's All Right Mama and That's The Way at Headley Grange Studios, Hampshire, UK.

The Miners' Strike in the UK is declared official. Songs about the strike include Daddy What Did You Do In The Strike written by Ewan MacColl and The Great 1974 Mining Disaster by Barclay James Harvest.

Bob Dylan is in Studio A, A & R Recording, New York City, USA, working on the song Buckets Of Rain, for the album Blood On the Tracks.

Manic Street Preachers start work on their fourth album, Everything Must Go, at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, London, UK. On the same day, Paul McCartney joins beat poet guru Allen Ginsberg onstage at the Royal Albert Hall, London, UK.

Paul Griffin, the legendary session pianist whose work can be heard on many Bob Dylan songs including Like A Rolling Stone and Positively Fourth Street, dies of a heart attack.

Jazz singer/pianist/arranger Roy Kral, best-known for his work as one half of the duo Jackie And roy, dies aged 80, after a career in which he recorded over forty LPs.

It is reported that Janet Jackson, the sister of Michael Jackson, has completed work on her movie Why Did I Get Married Too - the sequel to 2007's Why Did I Get Married?

Sir Charles Ogle Mather dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. As a theatrical agent and manager, Mather worked with stars including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Tom Jones, Mel Torme and Shirley Bassey. He is said to have been responsible for arranging The Beatles work permits when they played in Vegas.