1963
At the 5th Annual Grammy Awards held Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, Burl Ives won Best Country & Western Recording for “Funny Way of Laughin’.”

1966
Jim Reeves was at #1 on the country charts with “Distant Drums.” The track provided the US singer with his only UK #1 hit – albeit posthumously – in 1966, some two years after his death in a plane crash on 31 July 1964. The song remained in the UK charts for 45 weeks.

2003
Country singer June Carter Cash, the second wife of Johnny Cash, died in Nashville, Tennessee, of complications following heart valve replacement surgery, aged 73. As a member of the Carter Family, she had hits with Johnny Cash, including GrammyAward winning song, “Jackson”, “Ring Of Fire”, (which she co-wrote about their courtship), and “If I Were A Carpenter.”