Ever heard of a live album being recorded in front of prison inmates? Well, all this and more went down on January 13th, an interesting date on the music calendar. Here, we bring to you some of the most interesting occurrences from a long list!
This day in 1968 witnessed the recording of Johnny Cash’s live album At Folsom Prison. The album was actually recorded at the Folsom State Prison, before an audience of 2,000 inmates. The album’s lead song Folsom Prison Blues is an updated version of Cash’s hit track of the same name in 1956. This track went on to become one of Cash’s signature songs.
On this day in 1978, The Police started recording their debut album at the Surrey Sound Studios in England. The band borrowed an amount of $2,200 from their drummer Stewart Copeland’s brother, Miles Copeland III, for the recording of the album. Featuring hit tracks such as So Lonely, Roxanne and Can’t Stand Losing You, producer Nigel Gray released the album Outlandos d’Amour in November 1978.
This day is 1990 witnessed New Kids On The Block’s track Hangin’ Tough, soar to the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles’ chart. This was the band’s second and last single to top the charts. However, the group did have another 7 more singles that hit the Top 10 towards the latter half of 1991. The band separated in 1994, but not before they sowed the seeds of endless opportunities for other hopeful boy bands.
On January 13th 2010, Jay-Z and Beyoncé won the title of Hollywood’s top-earning couple by Forbes magazine. The couple’s earning, at the time, was estimated at $122 million from June ’08 to June ’09. This amount was way more than the earnings of any other married or unmarried Hollywood couple.