1963 in Music - Events

Events

• January 1 – The Beatles start a 5-day tour in Scotland to support the release of their new single, "Love Me Do".
• January 4 – At Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy, Dalida receives a Juke Box Global Oscar for the year's most-played artist on juke boxes.
• January 7 – Gary U.S. Bonds files a $100,000 lawsuit against Chubby Checker, claiming that Checker stole "Quarter to Three" and turned it into "Dancin' Party." The lawsuit is later settled out of court.
• January 11
  • "Please Please Me" is released in the United Kingdom by The Beatles, with "Ask Me Why" as the B-side. It would be the first Beatles' single to reach #1 (on most record charts) in the UK.
• January 12 – Bob Dylan portrays a folk singer in The Madhouse of Castle Street, a radio play for the BBC in London.
• February 16
  • The Beatles achieve their first #1 hit single, when "Please Please Me" tops the charts in the UK
  • Paul Anka marries Marie-Ann DeZogheb
• February 22 – The Beatles form Northern Songs Publishing Company.
• March 5 – Patsy Cline is killed in small plane crash near Camden, Tennessee, while on her way to Nashville, Tennessee from Kansas City, Missouri at the height of her career.
• March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me.
• March 23 – The 8th Eurovision Song Contest is held in two studios at the BBC Television Centre, London. After much confusion regarding the results of the Norwegian jury, Denmark snatches victory from Switzerland after a close run. The Danish husband-and-wife duo Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann take the prize with "Dansevise".
• April 29 – 19-year-old Andrew Loog Oldham signs a contract with The Rolling Stones, becoming their manager. Oldham had seen the band in concert the previous day at the Crawdaddy Club in London.
• May 15 – Opening of the National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet of Mongolia.
• May 29 - On the 50th anniversary of its stormy première, 88 year-old Pierre Monteux conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in The Rite of Spring at the Royal Albert Hall, with the composer Stravinsky (81) in the audience.
• June 7 – The Rolling Stones' first single "Come On" is released in the UK and reaches #21.
• August 3 – The Beatles perform at The Cavern Club for the final time.
• September 6 - Nippon Crown record label is established as Crown Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Music Entertainment.
• October 15 – The Daily Mirror uses the term "Beatlemania" in a news story about the group's concert the previous day in Cheltenham.
• Dalida is rejected by Decca in the UK again.
• Philips introduce the Musicassette at the Berlin Funkaustellung.
• Coxsone Dodd opens the first black-owned recording studio in Jamaica, named Studio One.
• Lord Shorty's "Clock and Dagger" is widely considered the first soca recording.
• I Nyoman Rembang leaves the Surakarta Conservatorium to teach at the College of Music SMKI in Bali.