The Platters landed their second Billboard #1 with “My Prayer.” The tune actually dated back to 1926, originally a French composition by Georges Boulanger titled “Avant de Mourir,” which gained English lyrics in 1939. That same year, both Glenn Miller and The Ink Spots also scored hits with the song.

The Everly Brothers returned for their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing their hit “Bye Bye Love” alongside “Hey Doll Baby.”

Billboard overhauled its singles rankings, rebranding the Top 100 as the Hot 100 to create one standardized chart. Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” — his sixth US hit — claimed the very first Hot 100 #1 spot, while the old Top 100 and Most Played by Jockeys charts were retired.

A months-old comment from John Lennon resurfaced when American teen magazine Datebook reprinted his remark that The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus Christ,” originally made to London Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave. The reprint ignited a firestorm across the US, triggering mass burnings of Beatles records, an on-air ban of the band’s music by thirty-five radio stations, and even threats from the Ku Klux Klan. Lennon’s full original statement read: “Christianity will go. It will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that, I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don’t know which will go first, Rock ‘n’ Roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

The Kinks’ third single, “You Really Got Me,” hit British shelves via Pye Records. A long-standing rumor claimed future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page played the track’s solo, but both producer Shel Talmy and Page himself have since debunked that story. The only outside musician on the recording was session drummer Bobby Graham, who took over on drums while regular percussionist Mick Avory was shifted to tambourine duty. The single would go on to peak at #7 in the US and #1 in the UK.

The Temptations put out “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep” on the Gordy label, a track that would climb to #3 on the Hot 100, top the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart, and reach #18 in the UK. Despite its success, the song never landed on a standard studio album, though it did make the cut for the group’s first “Greatest Hits” compilation later that year.

Pink Floyd’s debut record, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” hit UK shelves and climbed to #6 there. Its American release that October fared more modestly, topping out at #131 on Billboard’s Top LPs chart. Decades later, in 2020, Billboard would rank the album #253 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson tied the knot with his second wife, Barbara Charren, in Los Angeles. The marriage produced two sons — Michael Dennis, born in 1971, and Carl Benton, born in 1972 — before ending in divorce four years later.

The Carpenters topped the Cashbox chart with “Yesterday Once More,” a song that also peaked at #2 on both the UK charts and Billboard’s Hot 100. It would go on to become the duo’s best-selling record worldwide, earning Gold certification in the US for a million copies sold and Silver status in Britain for 354,000 units.

Four months after taking home an Academy Award, “The Morning After” — the love theme from The Poseidon Adventure — reached the top of the Billboard chart. Songwriters Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn had passed over more established names to cast an unknown vocalist, Maureen McGovern, who was working as a secretary at the time. The song never charted in the UK, however.

Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and his family were seriously injured in a car crash while vacationing on the Greek island of Rhodes. Plant, along with his wife, son, and daughter, sustained broken bones and various bruises in the accident, which ended up pushing back the band’s planned Fall US tour by a full two years.

Prince’s sixth album, “Purple Rain,” began an extraordinary twenty-four-week reign atop Billboard’s Top LPs & Tape chart. The RIAA has since certified the album 13 times Platinum.

John Locke, who had played keyboards for both Spirit and Nazareth, passed away from cancer in Ojai, California, at age 62.

Producer, songwriter, and longtime Nancy Sinatra duet partner Lee Hazlewood died at 78 after a three-year fight with renal cancer. Beyond penning Nancy’s signature hit “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” Hazlewood also joined her on the mic for two US Top 40 hits: “Jackson,” which reached #14 in 1967, and “Some Velvet Morning,” which hit #26 in 1968.

A federal jury hit a 25-year-old Boston University graduate student with a $675,000 judgment owed to four music companies over the illegal downloading and sharing of more than two dozen songs. A judge later attempted to knock the penalty down to $67,500 on constitutional grounds, but the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the original amount, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case in 2012. Unable to cover the debt, the student filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in November 2015, and the court ultimately discharged the judgment in March 2016.

Rondor Music, the Beach Boys’ publishing company, threatened legal action against Katy Perry over her new song sharing both the title and borrowed lyrics from the band’s classic “California Girls.” A company spokesman stated that repurposing the words or melody from an existing song was inappropriate “under any circumstances,” especially for a track “as well known and iconic” as the original. Ultimately, no lawsuit was ever filed.

Don Henley reached an out-of-court settlement with Republican Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, who had used unauthorized parody versions of two Henley songs in campaign videos. “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” became “All She Wants To Do Is Tax,” while “The Boys of Summer” was reworked into “Hope Of November” for YouTube ads.

Supertramp scrapped their upcoming European tour so frontman Rick Davies could begin treatment for myeloma, a form of blood cancer. The band — which hadn’t performed live in five years — had been gearing up for a 25-city run starting November 3rd and wrapping with a sold-out Amsterdam show on December 11th. Davies fought the illness for more than a decade before passing away on September 5, 2025, at his New York home, at age 81.

Stan Lark, who played bass for The Fireballs on their Top 10 hits “Sugar Shack” (a #1 smash in 1963) and “Bottle Of Wine” (which reached #9 in 1968), died of cancer at age 81.