Elvis Presley’s “Hard Headed Woman” became the first rock ’n’ roll single awarded an RIAA Gold Record. At the time, that meant documented US sales of at least one million copies; by 2002, Presley’s record sales had surpassed 100 million.

Bill Haley followed his #22 hit “Skinny Minnie” with the musically and lyrically similar “Lean Jean,” but buyers were less interested: it reached only #67 during its single week on the Billboard Hot 100.

After eight earlier Billboard Top 40 singles, Neil Sedaka earned his first #1 with “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” It also topped Cashbox’s Best Sellers chart and reached #7 in Britain.

The Rolling Stones played the third National Jazz Festival in Richmond, Surrey, on a bill topped by Acker Bilk and His Paramount Jazz Band.

The Beatles’ second film, Help!, opened in New York two weeks after its London premiere. The group had little affection for the finished film; John Lennon later said it was out of their control, unlike A Hard Day’s Night, and that director Dick Lester had not explained what it was about.

At Chicago’s Astor Towers Hotel, John Lennon apologized for the Evening Standard quotation saying the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now.” After US coverage ignited record-burning rallies, Lennon explained that he meant some fans behaved as though the band were more popular than Jesus Christ. Interviewer Maureen Cleave said he was observing Christianity’s weakness, not comparing the Beatles with Christ.

Diana Ross presented the Jackson 5 to about 350 music journalists and Hollywood figures at a Beverly Hills party, creating the widespread but mistaken impression that she had discovered them.

Guitarist Lefty Baker (Eustace Britchforth Baker) died of cirrhosis at 29, roughly a year after leaving Spanky And Our Gang. He had joined in time for their 1968 #17 hit “Like To Get To Know You.”

After five years of marriage, Elvis and Priscilla Presley filed for divorce. They agreed to joint custody of Lisa Marie; Priscilla received $725,000 outright, spousal and child support, 5% of Elvis’s new publishing companies, and half the proceeds from their Beverly Hills home.

After seeing KISS at a New York hotel, producer Bill Aucoin offered to manage the band and promised them a recording contract.

The Knack began a five-week stay at #1 on Billboard’s Top Pop Albums chart with debut LP Get The Knack. Its momentum came from “My Sharona,” which would take the Hot 100 summit on August 25 and remain there for six weeks.

Donna Summer and husband Bruce Sudano welcomed their daughter, Amada Grace Sudano.

Ray Parker Jr. had Billboard’s #1 single with “Ghostbusters.” Huey Lewis later brought a successful plagiarism claim alleging it copied “I Want a New Drug”; an out-of-court settlement followed in 1985, reportedly worth as much as $5 million.

Six reissued Monkees albums, nearly twenty years old, returned to Billboard’s Top Pop Albums chart while the group undertook a 144-date US tour marking its twentieth anniversary.

Rolling Stone named the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band the best album of the past twenty years. It was followed by the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St., the Beatles’ White Album, and Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks.

Mel Taylor, drummer for the Ventures, died of lung cancer at 62. From 1962–69 the instrumental group placed six songs in Billboard’s Top 40, including “Walk – Don’t Run” (#2) and “Hawaii Five-O” (#4). In 2008, Taylor was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band.

Bruce Springsteen’s twelfth studio album, The Rising, began a two-week run atop the Billboard 200. It also reached #1 in twelve other countries, including the UK, Canada, Germany, and Spain.

American entertainer Mike Douglas died unexpectedly on his 81st birthday. Besides hosting The Mike Douglas Show from 1965–81, he had a #6 Billboard hit in 1966 with “The Men In My Little Girl’s Life.”

Singer, guitarist, and actor Trini Lopez died at 83 from COVID-19 complications. He reached #3 in 1963 with “If I Had A Hammer,” had three other US Top 40 hits, and appeared in 1967’s The Dirty Dozen with Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavetes, Lee Marvin, Donald Sutherland, and Telly Savalas. After his chart and acting careers slowed, he kept recording and performing, chiefly in Las Vegas and Palm Springs.

A 65-year-old woman identified as J.C. sued Bob Dylan, alleging he groomed her for sex, supplied drugs and alcohol, and abused her in his Chelsea Hotel apartment in 1965. Dylan’s lawyers called the 56-year-old claim false, malicious, reckless, defamatory, and a brazen shakedown. She dropped the lawsuit in July 2022.