Events in Music
- Jan 8 "Make Mine Manhattan" closes at Broadhurst Theater NYC after 429 performances
- Jan 8 "My Romance" closes at Shubert Theater NYC after 95 performances
- Jan 8 "Small Wonder" closes at Coronet Theater NYC after 134 performances
- Jan 13 "Along 5th Avenue" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 180 performances
- Jan 16 "Rape of Lucretia" closes at Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 23 performances
- Jan 22 "All for Love" opens at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC for 121 performances
Birthdays in Music
- Jan 1 Daniel E Gawthrop, American composer
- Jan 2 Chick Churchill, Wales, keyboardist (Ten Years After-I'm Going Home)
- Jan 5 George Brown, American rock drummer (Kool & the Gang-Celebration), born in Jersey City, New Jersey
- Jan 7 Marshall Chapman, American country singer, born in Spartanburg, South Carolina
- Jan 11 Tom Netherton, singer (Lawrence Welk Show), born in Munich. Germany
- Jan 11 [Frederick] Dennis Greene, American singer (Sha Na Na), born in New York, (d. 2015)
- Jan 11 Daryl Braithwaite, Australian rock singer
- Jan 12 Wayne Wang, American film director (Chan is Missing, Slamdance), born in Hong Kong
- Jan 12 Kentaro Haneda, Japanese composer, born in Tokyo, Japan (d. 2007)
- Jan 19 Robert Palmer, English singer-songwriter (Power Station), born in Batley, United Kingdom (d. 1997)
- Jan 22 James P Pennington, rocker (Exile)
- Jan 22 Steve Perry, vocalist (Journey-Open Arms, Oh Sherry), born in Hanford, California
- Jan 24 John Belushi, American comedian and actor (SNL, Blues Brothers), born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1982)
- Jan 26 Derek Holt, rocker (Climax Blues Band)
- Jan 29 Tommy Ramone [Tamás Erdélyi], Hungarian-American rock drummer and bassist (Ramones), born in Budapest, Hungary (d. 2014)
Deaths in Music
- Jan 9 Amilcare Zanella, Italian composer and conductor, dies at 75
- Jan 14 Joaquín Turina, Spanish pianist and composer (Rima), dies at 66
- Jan 25 Emil Axman, Czech composer, dies at 61
- Jan 27 Boris Asafiev, composer, dies at 64
- Jan 28 Gustaf Lazarus Nordqvist, Swedish organist and composer, dies at 62