Jan 5Alan Jay Lerner andFrederick Loewe's musical "Camelot", starringRichard Burton,Julie Andrews, andRobert Goulet, closes at Majestic Theater, NYC, after 873 performances and winning 4 Tony Awards

Jan 6 Lionel Bart's musical "Oliver!", based onCharles Dickens' "Oliver Twist", and featuring a youngDavy Jones, opens at Imperial Theater, NYC; runs for 774 performances, winning 3 Tony Awards

Jan 8Dmitri Shostakovich' opera "Katharina Ismailova" premieres in Riga

Jan 31Tony Sheridan & Beat Brothers (later known as The Beatles) record "What'd I Say" & "Ruby Baby"

Feb 23 Italian tenorLuciano Pavarotti makes his debut at the Vienna State Opera inGiuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata"

Mar 7John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman record their self-titled album "John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman" at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Mar 12 the Beatles perform as a trio, at Granada Cinema, in Bedford, England, asJohn Lennon is ill with a cold

Mar 13Paul Hindemith andThornton Wilder's opera "Long Christmas Dinner" premieres in NYC

Mar 14 MusicianFrank Zappa (22) tapes an appearance for syndicated "TheSteve Allen Show" - he and the host 'play' bicycles as musical instruments along with the show's orchestra; program airs later in the month

Mar 21 David Heneker and Beverly Cross' musical "Half a Sixpence", starring Tommy Steele and Marti Webb, and based on the 1905 novel "Kipps" by H.G. Wells, opens at the Cambridge Theatre in London'd West End; runs for 677 performances

Apr 14 Quiet BeatleGeorge Harrison is impressed by unsigned British blues band "Rolling Stones"

Apr 15Steve Allen's musical "Sophie", based on the life of American singer, and comic actress Sophie Tucker, opens at Winter Garden Theater, NYC; runs for 8 performances

Apr 19Johnny Cash releases single "Ring of Fire" written by his future wifeJune Carter and Merle Kilgore

Apr 21 Beatles meetthe Rolling Stones for the first time

May 12Bob Dylan walks out of "TheEd Sullivan Show" over a dispute about his song choice

May 15 5th Grammy Awards: "I Left My Heart In San Francisco";Robert Goulet win

May 15 Folksinging trio Peter, Paul & Mary win their 1st Grammy for cover version ofPete Seeger's song "If I Had a Hammer"

May 24Barbra Streisand performs "Happy Days Are Here Again" at White House Press Correspondents Dinner, and meets US PresidentJohn F. Kennedy

Jun 8Irving Berlin's final musical "Mr. President" closes at St James Theater, NYC, after for 265 performances

Jun 15Richard Rodgers andOscar Hammerstein II's musical "The Sound of Music", closes at Lunt Fontanne Theater, NYC, after 1443 performances

Jun 22 "Little"Stevie Wonder aged 13 releases his first single "Fingertips" (first live non-studio recording to go to No. 1 on Billboard)

Jul 15Paul McCartney is fined £17 for speeding

Aug 23 DrummerRingo Starr reveals he wrote a song titled "Don't Pass Me By" in an interview, the Beatles don' t record it until 1968

Sep 1Cliff Richard and the Shadows 1st British rock group to perform in Israel

Sep 6 RockerJerry Lee Lewis leaves Sun Records as his contract expires and signs with Smash Records

Sep 29 "TheJudy Garland Show" debuts on CBS-TV

Sep 29 Rolling Stones' first tour as the opening act forBo Diddley and the Everly Brothers

Oct 17 Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz's musical "Jennie," starringMary Martin, opens at the Majestic Theater in New York City and runs for 82 performances

Oct 23Neil Simon's stage play "Barefoot in the Park" starringRobert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley opens at the Biltmore Theatre, NYC; runs for 1530 performances

Oct 31Ed Sullivan witnesses Beatlemania firsthand at London's Heathrow Airport as the Beatles are greeted by their fans upon the group returning from Sweden

Nov 11Brian Epstein andEd Sullivan sign a three-show contract for appearances by The Beatles

Nov 13 Dale Wasserman's stage play "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", adapted from the novel by Ken Kesey, starringKirk Douglas, Ed Ames; Joan Tetzel, andGene Wilder, opens at Cort Theatre, NYC; runs for 82 performances

Dec 6 PresidentLyndon B. Johnson confers Presidential Medal of Freedom on 31 recipients selected byJFK, including: contraltoMarian Anderson; diplomatRalph Bunche; cellist Pablo Casals; Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter; labor leader George Meaney; architect Mies van der Rohe; pianist Rudolf Serkin; writersE. B. White and Thorton Wilder; and painter Andrew Wyeth; as well as posthumously to JFK himself, and PopeJohn XXIII

Dec 10 6-year old Donny Osmond's singing debut on "TheAndy Williams Show"

Dec 10Leonard Bernstein premieres his Third Symphony "Kaddish" with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, in Tel Aviv, Israel

Dec 18 "The Pink Panther" film premieres, directed byBlake Edwards, and starringPeter Sellers andDavid Niven, with theme music composed byHenry Mancini

Dec 28Merle Haggard's 1st appearance on country music chart with "Sing a Sad Song"

Dec 31Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead play music together for the first time at Dana Morgan's Music Store in Palo Alto, California