January 10, 1956 — Elvis Presley's first RCA Victor recording session is held in Nashville, Tennessee, two days after his 21st birthday and includes his initial #1 hit, "Heartbreak Hotel."
                          1980 — Little Richard sings at the funeral of Larry Williams (right) ("Short Fat Fannie," "Bony Maronie," "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"), who had replaced him at Specialty Records in 1957 when he entered the ministry. Williams, a cousin of R&B star Lloyd Price, had died four days earlier of a gunshot wound to the head, deemed a suicide.

January 11, 1963 — The Whiskey-a-Go-Go nightclub, where Johnny Rivers records several of his hits, opens in West Hollywood, California.

January 12, 1959 — Berry Gordy, who had a hit as a songwriter in 1958 with "Lonely Teardrops" by Jackie Wilson, launches the Tamla Record Company with $800 he borrowed from his family. The first record he issues is "Come To Me" by Marv Johnson (Billboard #6 R&B, #30 Hot 100). A year later, he changes the label's name to Motown.


January 13, 1962 — "The Twist" by Chubby Checker returns to #1 in the U.S. sixteen months after holding that position for one week in September, 1960. It is the only rock record by a single artist to achieve that status. This time, it stays at the top for two weeks.


January 14, 1955 — Alan Freed holds his first New York City rock 'n' roll concert at a boxing arena after local ballrooms turned him down because of previous events where youth audiences had rioted. The program includes the Clovers, Drifters, Harp tones, Moonglows, Fats Domino, and others who perform to a swaying, but well-behaved sellout crowd estimated at 12,000, nearly split evenly between black and white teens.


January 15, 1928 — Blues great and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Howlin' Wolf (left, ca. 1951) plays his first gig at age 17 around Ruleville, Mississippi before moving to West Memphis, Tennessee in 1948 and Chicago in 1952, where his electric guitar blues helped shape rock.

                           1961 —  A Detroit teen girl group called the Primettes signs with Motown Records after agreeing to change their name to the Supremes at the insistence of label owner Berry Gordy. He had turned them down before, but with persistence and a record on another local label behind them, they had worked their way into Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studios as background performers, eventually recording demos with Smokey Robinson until Gordy relented and offered them a contract.