1962 in British music

This is a summary of 1962 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year.

Summary

Popular music in the UK continued to be dominated by American acts, but a homegrown style of pop music had 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 formed during this year. Novelty records with a British flavour, such as Mike Sarne's "Come Outside", and Anthony Newley's "That Noise", continued 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.
• 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.
• 21 March - 17-year-old Jacqueline du Pré makes her concerto début at the Royal Festival Hall, playing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Rudolf Schwarz.
• 7 April – Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet Brian Jones at The Ealing Club, a blues club in London
• 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, at the re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral.
• 17 August – Telstar by The Tornados is released in the UK. It would 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.
• 23 August – John Lennon secretly marries Cynthia Powell.

The Official UK Singles Chart

• See UK No.1 Hits of 1962

Classical music: new works

• Malcolm Arnold - Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra
• Benjamin Britten -
  • War Requiem
  • A Hymn of St Columba
• Dilys Elwyn-Edwards - Caneuon y Tri Aderyn
• Alun Hoddinott - Folksong Suite
• William Mathias - Postlude
• Robert Simpson - Symphony No. 3
• Michael Tippett - Piano Sonata No. 2

Opera

• Michael Tippett – King Priam

Film and Incidental music

• John Addison - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, starring Tom Courtenay.
• Antony Hopkins - Billy Budd directed by and starring Peter Ustinov, co-starring Terence Stamp.
• Monty Norman - Dr. No directed by Terence Young, starring Sean Connery.

Musical theatre

• 8 May - Blitz!, Lionel Bart's new musical, opens at London's Adelphi Theatre, and runsfor 568 performances.

Musical films

• The Cool Mikado, starring Frankie Howerd and Lionel Blair
• It's Trad, Dad!, starring Helen Shapiro and Craig Douglas
• Play It Cool, starring Billy Fury

Births

• 4 January - Robin Guthrie (The Cocteau Twins)
• 16 January – Paul Webb (Talk Talk)
• 31 January – Sophie Muller, British music video director
• 5 March - Craig Reid and Charlie Reid, The Proclaimers
• 15 March – Terence Trent D'Arby, American-born singer
• 17 March – Clare Grogan, actress and singer
• 14 May - Ian Astbury, British rock singer (The Cult)
• 8 June – Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran)
• 22 June - Bobby Gillespie, vocalist (Primal Scream)
• 27 June – Michael Ball, actor and singer
• 3 November – Marilyn, pop vocalist
• 24 November - John Squire, guitarist, musician (The Stone Roses), (The Seahorses)
• 6 December - Ben Watt, DJ, and record producer, one half of Everything but the Girl
• 12 December - John Jones, record producer
• date unknown - Tolga Kashif, composer

Deaths

• 14 March - Norman Coke-Jephcott, organist and composer, 67
• 10 April – Stuart Sutcliffe, former member of The Beatles, 21 (cerebral paralysis caused by a brain hemorrhage)
• 30 April - Edward Clark, conductor and radio producer, 73
• 12 June – John Ireland, pianist and composer, 82
• 13 June – Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens, conductor, 69
• 24 August - Henry Ley, organist, composer and music teacher, 74
• 18 November - Clifford Bax, playwright, poet, lyricist and hymn writer, brother of Arnold Bax, 76
• date unknown - Anderson Tyrer, pianist