On this day in music history…
In 1980, UB40 released their debut album, Signing Off. It was successful in their native U.K., peaking at number 2 on the albums chart. UB40 wouldn’t chart in the U.S. for three more years.
In 1986, the Jim Goddard film Shanghai Surprise hit theaters. Based on the Tony Kenrick novel Faraday’s Flowers, the movie starred the husband-and-wife duo of Sean Penn and Madonna. The production company behind Shanghai Surprise was HandMade Films, which was co-founded by George Harrison, and Harrison had a cameo in the movie as a nightclub singer. Shanghai Surprise was panned by critics, and it was a commercial failure. Harrison later revealed that working with Madonna was difficult, in part because “we were doing a comedy movie. She hasn’t got a sense of humor.”
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