Popular music in the UK continues to be dominated by American acts, but a homegrown style of pop music has begun to evolve, led by performers such as Cliff Richard and The Shadows. The Hollies, The Swinging Blue Jeans, The Merseybeats, The Nashville Teens and The Rolling Stones all form during this year. The Beatles begin to be known outside Merseyside. Novelty records with a British flavour, such as Mike Sarne's "Come Outside" and Anthony Newley's "That Noise", continue to be successful.
Events[]
1 January – The Beatles and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes both audition at Decca Records, a company which has the option of signing one group only. The Beatles are rejected, mainly because the Tremeloes are Dagenham-based, and thus nearer London.
5 January – The first album on which The Beatles play, My Bonnie, credited to "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers" (recorded last June in Hamburg), is released by Polydor.[1][2]
24 January – Brian Epstein signs a contract to manage the Beatles.
21 February – Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev dance together for the first time, in a Royal Ballet performance of Giselle.
March – Record Mirror stops compiling its own chart and begins publishing Record Retailer's instead.[3]
30 May – Meredith Davies co-conducts with Benjamin Britten, the première of Britten's War Requiem, now regarded as a landmark of British 20th-century choral music, following the re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral.[5][6]
16 August – The Beatles fire Pete Best and replace him as drummer with Ringo Starr.
17 August – Telstar by The Tornados is released in the UK. It will eventually be the first song by a British group to reach the top spot on the Billboard Top 100, proving a precursor of the British Invasion.
18 August – The Beatles play their first live engagement with the line-up of John, Paul, George and Ringo, at Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight.[2]
23 August – John Lennon marries Cynthia Powell in an unpublicised register office ceremony at Mount Pleasant, Liverpool.
5 October – The Beatles' first single in their own right, "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You", is released on EMI's Parlophone label.[7] This version was recorded on 4 September at Abbey Road Studios in London with Ringo Starr as drummer.
17 October – The Beatles make their first televised appearance, on People and Places.[8]
^Reed, Philip; Cooke, Mervyn, eds. (2010). Letters From A Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol. 5 1958–1965. Boydell Press. p. 398. ISBN978-1-84383-591-2.