By GERRY GALIPAULT
Happy 50th birthday, rock 'n' roll!
Fifty years ago, on July 9, 1955, the rock era was born. What's so special about that day? That's when Bill Haley & His Comets' "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" began the first of an eight-week reign atop Billboard's Hot 100 pop singles chart.
It wasn't the first rock record, but it certainly became the burgeoning genre's most successful song, a defining moment that continues to resonate today.
From that point on, rock turned popular music on its ear. Many legends would soon follow - Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, U2, Madonna, Nirvana - all the way to today's Coldplay.
So many events, names, faces and recordings have come and gone since. To mark the occasion, Pause & Play is going back, way back, to a feature it abandoned in the mid-1990s - "As It Were (a rock history moment)." Only for now, it's going to be P&P's "As It Were Project." Because it's so time-consuming to compile a chronology of rock history, we're going to piecemeal it. Pardon the ongoing construction, but please join us as we put together "As It Were" moment by moment, day by day, month by month - beginning ... now ...
JANUARY
JAN. 13
Hello, music censorship. The BBC banned Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax" in 1984 - thus, assuring its hit status. The song and its video had been played more than 80 times on Radio One, but after the band appeared on the "Top of the Pops" TV show, programmers decided the heavy sexual overtones were too much. Fifteen days later, the song debuted at No. 1 on the British singles chart, where it stayed for five weeks.
JAN. 16
In 1980, Paul McCartney was arrested at Tokyo International Airport in Narita for possession of nearly a half-pound of marijuana. His concert tour of Japan scrapped, the former Beatle spent nine days in jail before being deported.
JAN. 18
Pink Floyd completed recording its landmark "The Dark Side of the Moon" LP at Abbey Road Studios in London in 1973. It debuted on Billboard's album chart two months later and stayed there for 741 weeks, an all-time record for longevity on any chart.
JAN. 21
RCA Records announced in 1970 that it had signed 21-year-old give-away millionaire/peace activist Michael James Brody Jr. to a recording contract. Brody, who liked to hand out large bills to strangers, made his debut as a rock singer and guitarist on "The Ed Sullivan Show." His first single was his own composition, "The War Is Over."
JAN. 25
A repentant Paul McCartney, known as Prisoner No. 22 for nine days, was deported from Japan in 1980 for bringing nearly a half-pound of pot into the country. "I'm fine, I'm fine," McCartney shouted to reporters as he boarded a plane at Narita International Airport. "I'm very sorry that the tour was canceled."
JAN. 27
Michael Jackson suffered second-degree burns to his scalp when an overcharged explosion set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in Los Angeles in 1984.
JAN. 28
Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones gathered 45 pop artists at A&M Studios in Hollywood in 1985 to record "We Are the World." The all-star ensemble, known as USA For Africa, began work at about 10 p.m. By 8 a.m. the next day, the track was finished and later edited. By April, the charity song climbed to the top of the U.S. singles chart, staying there for four weeks and selling more than 4 million copies. The song and subsequent album raised more than $47 million for African famine relief efforts.
JAN. 29
Sixteen-year-old Brenda Spencer opened fire on a San Diego elementary schoolyard with a .22-caliber rifle in 1979, killing the school's principal and chief janitor and wounding nine children and a police officer. "I just did it for the fun of it. I just don't like Mondays," she told reporters over the phone shortly after the shootings. Bob Geldof of the British post-punk sextet Boomtown Rats was on a promotional tour of the United States at the time and was so shaken by the crime, he penned "I Don't Like Mondays." The song spent four weeks at No. 1 in Britain in July that year but peaked at only No. 75 in America.
FEBRUARY
FEB. 15
Broadway great Ethel Merman, 75, died after undergoing brain surgery in New York in 1984. Her string of successful musicals included "Annie Get Your Gun," "Girl Crazy" and "Panama Hattie." She was best known for singing the hits "There's No Business Like Show Business" and "I Got Rhythm."
FEB. 24
In 1992, Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were married in Honolulu by a female nondenominational minister, with a roadie as a witness.
MARCH
MARCH 5
Private Elvis Presley, US 53310761, was discharged from the Army in 1960, after serving a two-year hitch as a jeep driver in Friedburg, West Germany. As soon as he returned home to Memphis, RCA got him into a studio to record his first post-Army single, "Stuck On You." It entered the charts on April 4 and was No. 1 three weeks later.
E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, who wrote "Over the Rainbow" and other songs for the movie "The Wizard of Oz," died in an auto accident in 1981. He was 82. The Academy Award-winning lyricist also wrote such jazz standards as "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," "April in Paris," "It's Only a Paper Moon" and "What Is There to Say?" When he was blacklisted by movie studios in the McCarthy-era 1950s, he returned to Broadway and penned songs for such musicals as "Bloomer Girl," "Finian's Rainbow" and "Jamaica." He was inducted in the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1972.
MARCH 12
In 1969, Paul McCartney married freelance photographer Linda Eastman, the same day George Harrison and wife Patti were arrested on marijuana possession charges.
MARCH 22
"All You Need Is Cash," the fictional story of The Rutles, premiered on NBC in 1978. The 90-minute special followed the Rutles' saga from a rathskeller in Hamburg to a breakup with so many lawsuits that "Sig sued himself accidentally."
MARCH 23
Psychedelia was at its peak in 1967, with Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow" and The Doors' self-titled album debuting on the American charts.
MARCH 30
In 1963, Lesley Gore went into a studio with four songs to record, one of which was "It's My Party." Wall-of-sound producer Phil Spector also wanted "It's My Party" - but for his all-girl group, The Crystals.
Gore's producer, Quincy Jones, rushed her version through and saw it race to the top spot in just four weeks. Gore said she was unaware of the rush job at the time.
"I didn't find out about it until the mid-'70s when Quincy told me about it," she told Pause & Play. "He said he had dealt with Phil. All I know is that I was just 17 years old, we cut the song and the following Friday I was driving along and heard it on the air. I couldn't believe it; I was flabbergasted."
APRIL
APRIL 5
Rob Pilatus, one-half of the disgraced pop duo Milli Vanilli, died in 1998 of an apparent drug overdose in Hamburg, Germany. He was 32. Pilatus and partner Fabrice Morvan fronted the dance-pop group founded by producer Frank Farian. The group's debut Arista album, "Girl You Know It's True," sold more than 6 million copies in 1989, spawned three straight No. 1 hits and netted the duo the Grammy Award for best new artist. They later were stripped of the award when it was learned they never sang on the album.
APRIL 6
Tammy Wynette, the first lady of country music, died in 1998 in her sleep from an apparent blood clot in her lung at her Nashville home. She was 55. The former beautician was discovered by producer Billy Sherrill in the mid-1960s and shot to stardom with her trademark hit, "Stand By Your Man," in 1968. She recorded more than 50 albums, sold more than 30 million records, had 20 No. 1 country hits from 1967 to 1976 and was married to country legend George Jones from 1969 to 1975. Despite frequent health problems, she enjoyed international popularity well into the 1990s, lending her vocals to The KLF's dance hit, "Justified & Ancient," in 1992.
APRIL 10
Paul McCartney stunned the music world in 1970 with the announcement that he was leaving the Beatles and, that same day, was releasing his solo debut album, "McCartney." In an interview with himself, which was tucked into the album sleeve, McCartney cited personal, business and musical differences, "but most of all I have a better time with my family." He said he wasn't sure if his break from the Beatles was temporary or permanent and that he didn't anticipate an active songwriting partnership with John Lennon ever again.
APRIL 13
The Star Club in Hamburg, West Germany, opened in 1962, with the up-and-coming Beatles topping the bill. Nearly 2,000 fans lined up outside the club on Grosse Freiheit (Great Freedom) to see other acts such as Tex Roberg, Roy Young, the Graduates and the Bachelors. The former movie house stayed open during its self-dubbed "rock-and-twist parade" until 4 a.m.
MAY
MAY 17
On the British pop charts in 1975, it was better late than never for Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man." The first lady of country music's signature hit failed to chart in Britain the first time around in 1968, but it was revived seven years later by Epic Records, debuted in the U.K. Top 10 and, by May 17, became one of the few country songs to go No. 1 in Britain during the 1970s. More recently, "Stand By Your Man" was rereleased stateside in March 1998 by Sony Music Nashville to mark the song's 30th anniversary. It re-entered Billboard's country chart at No. 56 after Wynette's unexpected death on April 6 that year.
Elton John was riding high in 1975 with the release of "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy." It scored a few firsts: It was the first album in rock history to be certified platinum (for sales of more than 1 million) on the day of its release, and it was the first LP ever to debut at No. 1. There was a downside; critics didn't care for the album, and it spawned only one chart hit, "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."
MAY 18
Sister Souljah was a little-known rapper until the Washington Post quoted her in 1992 as saying "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" Her comments came in an interview after the Rodney King verdict and the ensuing riots in Los Angeles. President Clinton denounced Souljah's remarks as "the kind of hatred we do not honor." The Post said her album, "360 Degrees," contained "probably the most fervid denunciations of white people ever marketed by a major label."
MAY 25
The Kinks' Dave Davies stumbled into drummer Mick Avory's cymbals and was knocked unconscious during a concert in London in 1965, forcing the cancellation of the band's remaining tour dates.
JUNE
JUNE 4
Bassist Ronnie Lane, co-founder of the Small Faces, died in 1997 in Trinidad, Colo., after a 20-year battle with multiple sclerosis. He was 51. Lane co-wrote many of the band's best-known songs, including the U.K. No. 1 "All or Nothing" and "Itchycoo Park," which reached No. 16 on Billboard's pop chart in early 1968. He formed the British rock quartet in 1965 with guitarist Steve Marriott, organist Ian McLagen and drummer Kenney Jones. After Marriott left in 1968 to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, the band became The Faces and added Jeff Beck Group singer Rod Stewart and future Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood. Lane left in 1973, and Jones joined The Who in 1978. Lane teamed with Pete Townshend in 1977 for the "Rough Mix" album, which cracked the Top 50. In one interview, Lane said his battle with MS left him "a bloody useless cripple."
The body of folk-rock singer Jeff Buckley was found in the Mississippi River off Beale Street in Memphis in 1997, six days after he jumped in fully clothed for a swim and disappeared under the surface after a boat passed. He was 30. Buckley, the son of the late folk legend Tim Buckley, was in Memphis to begin recording the followup to his 1994 breakthrough album, "Grace" (Columbia). That album, which peaked at No. 149 on Billboard's pop chart, contained his modern-rock hit "Last Goodbye."
JUNE 5
"Urban Cowboy," starring John Travolta and Debra Winger, premiered in 1980, introducing country music to a new generation of consumers and briefly touching off a mechanical bull craze. The movie was set at singer Mickey Gilley's honky-tonk club in Pasadena, Texas. The platinum-selling soundtrack album, released on Asylum, featured songs from Gilley, Charlie Daniels Band, Bonnie Raitt and former Gilley backup vocalist Johnny Lee, who scored a Top 5 pop hit with "Lookin' for Love." Lee met "Dallas" actress Charlene Tilton on the set of "Urban Cowboy" and married her on Valentine's Day 1982.
JUNE 6
Bulletin, June 6, 1968 - "Robert F. Kennedy, 42, died at 1:44 a.m. PDT Thursday, 25 hours after he was hit by bullets fired in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles." It was a gripping moment in U.S. history, and for music as well. At the time, the No. 1 song was Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," which lamented a nation's lost innocence. A few days later, as the eight Kennedy children participated in an emotional Mass, Leonard Bernstein conducted Gustav Mahler's "Fifth Symphony" and Andy Williams followed with his rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Later in the year, Dion immortalized RFK in the hit "Abraham, Martin and John."
Everyone was jumping on the "ban" wagon in 1987. Radio stations in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Denver, New Orleans, Minneapolis and Burlington, Vt., joined BBC's Radio One in refusing to play George Michael's "I Want Your Sex." Particularly "angry" over the BBC's decision, Michael said in a news release, "The media has divided love and sex incredibly. The emphasis of the AIDS campaign has been on safe sex, but the campaign has missed relationships. It's missed emotion. It's missed monogamy. 'I Want Your Sex' is about attaching lust to love, not just to strangers." Undeterred, the song debuted stateside at No. 51 (and eventually peaked at No. 2). Meanwhile, in Singapore, the government's Controller of Undesirable Publications axed Simply Red's "Men and Women" and Prince's "Sign 'O' the Times," the citing the albums' "crude lyrics."
JUNE 8
Guitarist Brian Jones quit the Rolling Stones in 1969, citing "musical differences." In reality, Jones' drug and legal problems and unreliability forced the group to make a change, offering him a hefty settlement. Jones considered forming a CCR-like blues band, supposedly along with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, but it never came to be: He was found dead in his swimming pool a month later.
JUNE 11
George Michael, Sting and Whitney Houston led an all-star tribute to jailed South African black leader Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday in 1988, held at London's Wembley Stadium. Among the other performers were Dire Straits, Phil Collins and Stevie Wonder.
JUNE 14
Thousands witnessed the "No Nukes" benefit concert at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1979. The MUSE Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future featured Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, the Doobie Brothers, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills. A film and soundtrack album were released later in the year.
JUNE 30
KISS marveled the comic-book world with the 1977 release of "KISS Book," telling the tale of the group's antics. Each band member reportedly dripped their own blood into the red ink used to print the Marvel Comics book. It went on to sell more than 500,000 copies.
JULY
JULY 2
Elvis Presley recorded "Don't Be Cruel," "Hound Dog" and "Anyway You Want Me," using the Jordanaires for the first time as backup singers, in a New York studio in 1956.
Michael Jackson made pop chart history (yet again) by becoming the first artist to score five No. 1 singles from the same album. He accomplished that in 1988 with "Dirty Diana," the fifth hit off his "Bad" album. The previous No. 1s were "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Man in the Mirror."
Dozens of people were injured after Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose sparked a riot at Riverpoint Amphitheatre in a St. Louis suburb in 1991. Twenty minutes into the show, Rose walked offstage after noticing a fan videotaping the concert. When he didn't return, the crowd of 19,000 grew angry and damaged the venue and the band's equipment. Rose was charged with assault and property damage but never surrendered to police. A year later, he was arrested at New York's Kennedy International Airport and later was given two years probation and ordered to pay $50,000 to community groups.
JULY 3
Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones was found dead in the swimming pool of his English home in 1969. The coroner's report cited "death by misadventure."
Doors lead singer Jim Morrison died in 1971 of a heart attack in the bath of his home in Paris. Ten years later, surviving members Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore joined hundreds of fans in a graveside tribute at Pere Lachire cemetery.
(Feel free to ignore the filmmaker who recently claimed that Morrison is alive and well and living in southern Oregon. Rodeo photographer Gerald Pitts, who says he met Morrison in 1998, says the rocker staged his death because of a French conspiracy to kill him, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix with narcotics because they were all Vietnam War protesters.)
Brian Wilson joined his fellow Beach Boys on stage for the first time in 17 years, playing to 70,000 fans at Anaheim Stadium (Calif.) in 1976.
JULY 4
High winds sent 40 spotlights crashing onto a bandstand during a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons concert in Philadelphia in 1980. Pianist Jerry Corbetta suffered a broken hand, requiring surgery. Backup singer Toby Tyler had minor cuts of the head, neck and arm. Valli, who wasn't injured, accompanied both to the hospital. Four fans were treated and released. The concert was part of the city's three-day Fourth of July Freedom Festival.
With Bruce Springsteen's blessing, 2 Live Crew released the controversial single "Banned in the USA," which heavily sampled the Boss' "Born in the USA," in 1990. The release came several days after three members of the Miami rap group were formally charged for performing their raunchy songs at a club in Hollywood, Fla. A Broward County record store owner also was slapped with obscenity charges for selling the group's "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" album.
JULY 6
In 1957, John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time at St. Peter's Parish Church Garden Fête in Liverpool, England, where The Quarry Men skiffle group was appearing. Lennon was impressed with McCartney's ability to tune a guitar and his knowledge of rock lyrics. McCartney began performing with the Quarry Men three months later.
Louis Armstrong, who topped the charts with "Hello, Dolly!" at the height of Beatlemania in 1964, died in his sleep in New York in 1971, two days after his 71st birthday.
The Jacksons' much-ballyhooed "Victory" tour opened in Kansas City, Mo., in 1984. Stung by criticism of greed for the tour, Michael Jackson canceled a mail-order ticket arrangement, pledging to donate his proceeds to charity.
JULY 7
The Yardbirds, the blues-based rock band that spawned three guitar heroes (Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck), broke up in 1968, prompted by Beck's departure in November 1967. Singer Keith Rolf and drummer Jim McCarty formed Together, while Page founded The New Yardbirds - that quickly evolved into a little band called ... Led Zeppelin.
Mama Cass Elliot died of a heart attack brought on by obesity in London in 1974. A coroner's report overruled earlier accounts that Elliot choked on a ham sandwich.
The body of Gits lead singer Mia Zapata, who had been strangled with the cord of her sweatshirt, was found on a street in Seattle's Capitol Hill area in 1993. The murder case went unsolved for more than a decade until the arrest of Jesus Mezquia, a 49-year-old Florida man who was linked to the slaying through DNA evidence. He was convicted of murder on March 25, 2004. Dozens of family, friends and fans showed up at the courthouse, hoping to convince the judge to issue a sentence longer than the standard maximum for felony murder. King County Superior Court Judge Sharon Armstrong "was surprised that 11 years after Mia's death so many people showed up in support of the prosecution," the surviving Gits members said in a statement on their Web site. "She said that it seemed that Mia was still alive. That we kept her alive. She sentenced him to 440 months in prison, 36.66666 years. He'll be 86 or dead when he leaves Walla Walla. Maybe now Mia can have some peace and feel free to join that blues band with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith."
JULY 9
Johnny Carson was mighty mad at Barbra Streisand for canceling a well-promoted appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show" in 1975. He told his audience: "Don't get mad at me, folks, get mad at her. It is possible she never will be on the show again."
JULY 10
Kenny Rogers left the New Christy Minstrels in 1967 to form the First Edition. Past Minstrels players included Barry McGuire ("Eve of Destruction") and Kim Carnes ("Bette Davis Eyes").
Chuck Berry was sentenced to four months in prison for tax invasion in 1979. He pleaded guilty to shortchanging the government more than $200,000 on his 1973 federal income tax return.
Only nine days after getting married in a Caesars Palace suite in Las Vegas, Cher filed for divorce from Gregg Allman in 1975. In a statement, Cher said: "Gregg and I made a mistake and I've always believed it best to admit one's mistakes as quickly as possible. We just cannot live together as man and wife."
Boy George, wanted for questioning about alleged heroin use, was placed under 24-hour medical care in 1986. The day before, police arrested five people, including George's brother, on drug charges after a series of London raids. Virgin Records appealed to the media to leave George alone for one month.
JULY 11
Jerry Lee Lewis fought for his life in 1981 after doctors in Memphis were forced to perform additional surgery on a perforated ulcer. He was given a 50-50 chance of survival.
JULY 12
Minnie Riperton, whose five-octave voice made her one of pop's most distinctive singers, died of breast cancer in Los Angeles in 1979. Her biggest album, "Perfect Angel" (produced by longtime friend Stevie Wonder), contained the hit "Lovin' You," a No. 1 in 1975. Riperton had a mastectomy in 1976 and was a spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society's 1978 and '79 campaigns.
Disco took a beating in 1979. Do you remember "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park? Before the second game of a doubleheader between the White Sox and Detroit, local DJ Steve Dahl organized the ritual bombing of disco records.
But midway through the first game, fans got a head start. They whirled records onto the playing field. Then when it came time for the blast, some 7,000 fans stormed the field, setting small fires, destroying the batting cage and literally stealing bases.
White Sox pitcher Ross Baumgarten told reporters, "It was the sickest thing I've seen in my life. I didn't know people could have such little regard for other people's safety."
About 40 people were arrested and the second game was postponed until the following Sunday.
JULY 13
"It's not just the greatest show on Earth," said Live Aid organizer and singer Bob Geldof. "It's the greatest gig in the galaxy." That pretty much summed up the feelings after nearly 2 billion people worldwide watched the broadcast of the megabenefit concerts staged in Philadelphia and London in 1985. The event, which raised more than $70 million for hunger relief in Africa, attracted such stars as U2, Paul McCartney, The Who, Mick Jagger, Madonna, Bob Dylan and David Bowie - to name a few.
JULY 14
In 1992, Olivia Newton-John revealed that she had breast cancer, but doctors expected her to make a full recovery because the cancer was detected early. "I am making the information public myself to save 'inquiring minds' 95 cents," she said, referring to the National Enquirer.
JULY 16
Folk-pop balladeer Harry Chapin ("Cat's in the Cradle," "Taxi") was killed in 1981 when his Volkswagen Rabbit was struck by a tractor-trailer on the Long Island Expressway. He was 38. Chapin was trying to drive his disabled car to the shoulder of the highway when it was hit by the truck. More than five years later, Chapin's widow, Sandy, received $10 million from a jury's verdict in her lawsuit against the truck's owners.
JULY 17
Billie Holiday, one of jazz's all-time greatest singers, died of a heroin overdose in 1959. She was 44. Bouts with drugs and alcohol and numerous arrests in the '50s marred an otherwise remarkable career that saw her record with Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Artie Shaw.
JULY 19
A high school teacher in Stanford, Ky., was fired in 1984 for showing her class the R-rated rock film "Pink Floyd - The Wall." The Lincoln County school board viewed the film and considered it pornographic. The teacher told the board she held a file folder over the projector lens during the film's nude scenes.
JULY 20
Acid rock reached its peak in 1968 with the chart appearance of Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." The album's focal point was the 17-minute title song, which was also trimmed for the Top-40 format. The album sold more than 3 million copies, spent 140 weeks on the chart and was Atlantic Records' biggest-selling LP until Led Zeppelin came along. Led by singer-keyboardist Doug Ingle, Iron Butterfly broke out of San Diego, snared a record deal and gained national exposure by touring with The Doors and Jefferson Airplane in 1967.
In 1969, while the Apollo 11 crew was landing on the moon, band leader Duke Ellington sang his first and only solo song, "Moon Maiden," during the TV coverage of the historic event. In the song, he told a space woman, "Your vibrations are coming in loud and clear."
JULY 22
Tony Orlando, lead singer of Dawn, surprised a concert audience in suburban Boston in 1977 when he announced he was temporarily retiring to devote more time to his family. Orlando's publicist said the singer "still has problems with the death of (actor) Freddie Prinze." Prinze, star of the hit TV series "Chico and the Man," committed suicide earlier in the year. Orlando told the crowd: "I'm going to take a guitar and sit singing along the bedside of an ill child."
JULY 25
Playing songs off his "Bringing It All Back Home" album, Bob Dylan made his "electric debut" at the Newport (R.I.) Folk Festival in 1965, but he was greeted by a chorus of boos from folk purists angry over his conversion to rock.
Vanessa Williams reluctantly gave back her Miss America title in 1984, saying Penthouse's publication of sexually explicit photos of her and another woman made it impossible for her to finish her reign. Williams was the first black woman to hold the title and also the first to lose it. She went on to a successful recording career.
KISS introduced its new drummer, Peter Criss, at a New York Palladium show in 1980. He replaced Eric Carr.
JULY 26
In 1969, Elvis Presley made a grand return to Las Vegas, performing 57 shows from July 26 to Aug. 28 at the International Hotel, for the first time since 1956. They were his first live performances in more than eight years.
In 1979, Iran observed the first day of Ramadan by banning Western music from radio and TV stations. Only religious sermons and revolutionary songs were permitted.
JULY 27
John Lennon's four-year battle with the U.S. Immigration Service over a marijuana possession conviction in England ended in 1976, when the agency finally approved his application for permanent resident status.
JULY 28
A crowd of 600,000 fans, more than three times the size promoters expected, gathered for the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen Race Track in New York in 1973. The 15-hour concert featured the Grateful Dead, The Band and the Allman Brothers Band.
JULY 29
They made John Lennon eat his words in 1966 after his infamous "We're more popular than Jesus" quote.
In March of that year, Lennon told reporter Maureen Cleave of the London Evening Standard: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue anymore with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity."
The comments went unnoticed in Britain. They were accustomed to Lennon's off-the-cuff remarks. But on July 29, the American magazine Datebook published the Cleave article, and reaction was quick and fervent in the States and eventually around the globe. Radio stations from Birmingham, Ala., to Holland began boycotting Beatles records, some providing 10 seconds of silent prayer in its place. Beatles records, sweatshirts, buttons and pictures were thrown into bonfires.
Cleave quickly came to Lennon's defense, telling fellow journalists, "I do not think for one moment that he intended to be flippant or irreverent. He was certainly not comparing the Beatles with Christ."
Brian Epstein, the group's manager, flew hastily to New York to douse the flames, particularly since the Fab Four were about to embark on a four-week, 14-city tour of the States beginning Aug. 11.
JULY 30
Bob Dylan was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident near his Woodstock, N.Y., home in 1966. He went into semiretirement and later brought in members of The Band to rehearse and record with him. The recordings quickly showed up in bootleg form, and not until 1975 with "The Basement Tapes," were they officially released.
AUGUST
AUG. 1
Long before Live Aid and Farm Aid, rock stars occasionally gathered for a common cause. In 1971, George Harrison and friends hosted the Concert for Bangladesh at New York's Madison Square Garden. Joining Harrison were Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Billy Preston and Ravi Shankar.
Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn. These names are etched in rock history. Why? They helped usher in the music video revolution as the original video-jocks on MTV, the 24-hour music video cable channel which premiered in 1981. The first video played was the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star."
AUG. 3
Paul McCartney announced the formation of Wings in 1971. The band included former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and American session drummer Denny Selwell, as well as McCartney's wife, Linda - much to the consternation of critics who regarded her talentless. Wings first appeared on the singles "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and then on the "Wild Lamb" album.
Jeff Baxter left Steely Dan in 1974 and joined the Doobie Brothers.
AUG. 4
In 1979, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt were among the performers who joined 20,000 fans and California Gov. Jerry Brown at the Los Angeles Forum for a musical tribute to Little Feat singer-songwriter Lowell George. Two months earlier, during the middle of a tour, George died of a drug-induced heart attack. He was 34.
AUG. 5
"American Bandstand," with a young Dick Clark as the host, made its network TV debut on ABC in 1957. "Bandstand" began broadcasting locally in Philadelphia in 1952 and was then a showcase for Philly-area singers like Fabian and Frankie Avalon. "Bandstand" went on to become TV's longest-running pop music series.
AUG. 8
Christine McVie, wife of bassist John McVie, joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970. Before, she was known as Christine Perfect (her maiden name) and had been in the British blues-rock band Chicken Shack.
AUG. 11
Just as "Revolver" was released in 1966, the Beatles opened their final U.S. tour in Chicago. John Lennon held a press conference there and reluctantly apologized for earlier remarks that the Fab Four were more popular than Jesus.
AUG. 12
Singer Kyu Sakamoto, whose "Sukiyaki" took America by storm in 1963, was among 524 people killed when Japan Air Lines Flight 123 crashed in rugged mountains northwest of Tokyo in 1985. He was 43. "Sukiyaki" was the first foreign-language song to top the U.S. charts.
AUG. 13
In 1990, Curtis Mayfield was paralyzed from the waist down after a lighting structure fell on him before an outdoor concert at the Brooklyn Boys and Girls High School in New York. Wheelchair-bound, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer released an album ("New World Order") in 1996. He died the day after Christmas 1999 at North Fulton Regional Hospital in Roswell, Ga. He was 57.
AUG. 14
Beating out Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono, Michael Jackson was the high bidder at $47 million for ATV's music catalog, including the publishing rights to hundreds of Beatles songs in 1985. Ten years later, Jackson and Sony merged music publishing businesses. Since 1995, Jackson and Sony/ATV Music Publishing have jointly owned most of the Beatles songs. McCartney owns the rights to "Love Me Do," "Please, Please Me," "P.S. I Love You" and "Tell Me Why."
AUG. 15
The three-day Woodstock Music & Arts Fair opened on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, N.Y., in 1969. A half-a-million strong showed up for "peace, love and music" - lots of music, from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Grateful Dead, Santana, Sly & The Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, The Band, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Richie Havens, among many others.
AUG. 16
Elvis Presley died of a heart attack brought on by drug abuse at his Graceland mansion in Memphis in 1977. He was 42. More than 80,000 fans converged on Graceland the following day to mourn the rock era's all-time No. 1 performer. Presley sold more than 480 million records worldwide and continues to hold records for most charted albums, most Top-10 singles, most Top-40 songs and most weeks at No. 1. He also starred in 31 movies.
Madonna married actor Sean Penn in Malibu, Calif., in 1985. They had met on the set of her video for "Material Girl." Their four-year marriage was rocky from the start. They bombed together in the 1986 film "Shanghai Surprise," and Penn had several run-ins with paparazzi; he even spent time in jail for assault in 1987. "I never liked being under the spotlight," Penn told MaleFirst.co.uk. "Our marriage guaranteed that we lived in the public gaze, which meant that we had no real marriage at all. We didn't even have time to have a proper conversation. She was in the process of becoming the biggest star in the world. I just wanted to make my films and hide."
Popular Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one of the world's greatest singers of Sufi devotional music and an influence on rock groups such as Pearl Jam, died in 1997 in a London hospital from an undisclosed illness. He was 49. His songs appeared on the "Dead Man Walking" and "Natural Born Killers" film soundtracks.
AUG. 24
Paul Anka's duet with Odia Coates, "(You're) Having My Baby," began a three-week run at No. 1 in 1974, just as women's groups voiced objections to the song. The National Organization for Women awarded Anka one of their annual "Keep Her in Her Place" awards. Conceding to pressure, he agreed to change the lyrics to "having our baby" whenever he performed it on tour.
AUG. 27
While "All You Need Is Love" was dominating the airwaves, the Beatles were in Wales in 1967, beginning a six-month involvement with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi when they got word that their manager, Brian Epstein, died of an apparent accidental overdose of sleeping pills in London. He was 32.
Epstein, who owned a local record store, discovered the Beatles playing in a Liverpool cellar pub and masterminded their rocket ride to fame and fortune.
Blues-rock guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin in 1990. Hours after performing at an all-star concert with Eric Clapton, Robert Cray and Buddy Guy at the Alpine Valley Music Theater, Vaughan's copter was bound for Chicago and encountered heavy fog. It crashed into a man-made ski slope in East Troy, killing Vaughan, the pilot and three members of Clapton's entourage.
SEPTEMBER
SEPT. 3
In a weekend of song and computer technology, more than 200,000 people celebrated the US Festival at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1982. Over the three days, Sept. 3-5, the well-behaved crowds were treated to performances by Fleetwood Mac, the Kinks, the Cars, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffett, the B-52's, Ramones, Talking Heads and The Police, to name a few. Also on hand were Grateful Dead and Santana, the only groups to appear at both the US and Woodstock festivals. Stephen Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computers Inc., forked out $12.5 million to conduct US and said he was prepared to lose $10 million.
SEPT. 7
After attending the premiere of the movie "The Buddy Holly Story" the night before, drummer Keith Moon of The Who died of a sedative overdose in his London apartment in 1978. He was 31.
OCTOBER
OCT. 3
In 1990, an all-white jury convicted Fort Lauderdale record store owner Charles Freeman of obscenity for selling 2 Live Crew's "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" album, which had been banned in three South Florida counties by a federal judge because of obscene lyrics. About a month later, Freeman was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine but was spared a one-year prison term.
OCT. 9
High-powered guests couldn't save Fox Broadcasting's "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers," which debuted in 1986. Her first guests were Cher, Elton John, David Lee Roth and Pee-wee Herman. Rivers and Cher joined John on a version of "The Bitch Is Back." The talk show was canceled two and half years later.
OCT. 11
NBC's "Saturday Night Live" debuted in 1975, with the show's first host, comedian George Carlin. His musical guests were Billy Preston and Janis Ian, who sang her Top 10 hit, "At Seventeen."
OCT. 15
Led Zeppelin made its first stage appearance in 1969 at a small London pub after just three rehearsals. On Oct. 19 that same year, the band's thunderous second album was issued and later spent seven weeks atop Billboard's pop chart.
OCT. 17
Manfred Mann completed a cross-Atlantic sweep in 1964, topping the singles chart in America with "Do Wah Diddy Diddy." Named for and fronted by the South African jazz/blues pianist born Michael Lubowitz, the British rock group went No. 1 in the United Kingdom earlier that summer.
Fleetwood Mac's classic "Rumours" was released on Oct. 15, 1976, and became one of the biggest-selling albums ever.
OCT. 20
Three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were among six people killed in a plane crash outside Gillsburg, Miss., in 1977. The band was traveling in a chartered jet from Greenville, S.C., to a show in Baton Rouge, La. Killed were singer Ronnie Van Zandt, guitarist Steven Gaines and his sister, Cassie. The other band members escaped with injuries.
Initially, it was thought that the plane had run out of gas, but a court ruled later that the plane's personnel and mechanical integrity were to blame.
Three days before the crash, the band's sixth LP, "Street Survivors," was released with an ominous cover photo - the band was pictured standing amid flames. The album also included an order form for a "Lynyrd Skynyrd survival kit." MCA immediately recalled it and replaced it with a generic design.
Bob Dylan made a rare TV appearance in 1979, performing "You Gotta Serve Somebody" on NBC's "Saturday Night Live."
OCT. 24
The Guinness Book of World Records honored Paul McCartney in 1979 for becoming the most successful composer and recording artist of all-time. Guinness credited the former Beatle with writing or co-writing 43 songs that sold more than 1 million copis each from 1962 to 1978.
OCT. 25
Jefferson Starship's Paul Kantner was hospitalized with a brain aneurysm in 1980. The 39-year-old guitarist, who was finishing work on the group's seventh album, was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after complaining of severe head pains.
OCT. 26
The Rolling Stones made their first (and nearly last) performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." A coast-to-coast TV audience in 1964 witnessed fans tearing the studio to shreds. The spectacle angered Sullivan so much that he issued a statement saying, "I promise you, they'll never be back on our show." The Stones did return in May 1965 and were praised by the venerable host.
In 1965, the Beatles became the first rock 'n' rollers to receive MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) awards from the queen. The scene outside Buckingham Palace that day was mass hysteria as thousands of fans tried to storm the gates. After the ceremony, Paul McCartney said of Queen Elizabeth, "She was just like a mum to us." John Lennon said, "She was showing a bit of leg. She looked good."
Dressed in a sequined Dodgers uniform, Elton John packed Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium in 1975. At the height of his world popularity, John was the first rocker to play at the stadium since the Beatles in 1966.
OCT. 29
The rock musical "Hair" opened on Broadway in 1967.
Guitarist Duane Allman, co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, was killed in a motorcycle accident in his hometown of Macon, Ga., in 1971. His death came less than three months after the band's heralded "At the Fillmore East" album was released. The remaining members, including his brother, Gregg, played at Duane's funeral.
NOVEMBER
NOV. 2
Marvin Gaye's father, Marvin Sr., received five years probation in 1984 for fatally shooting the Motown singer, who was ruled to have "tragically provoked" the incident after a quarrel on April 1 that year. "I love my son, I love my son, and I wish he could come through that door," the ailing 71-year-old former minister said in a rambling statement after the sentencing. Marvin Gaye Sr. died of pneumonia in October 1998.
NOV. 11
Just three blocks from where Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident a year earlier, Allman Brothers Band bassist Berry Oakley suffered a similar fate in 1972 in Macon, Ga. He was 24. Lamar Williams took his place; he died of cancer in 1983.
NOV. 15
Milli Vanilli producer Frank Farian admitted in 1990 that Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan never sang on their debut Arista album, "Girl You Know It's True." The actual singers were Charles Shaw, John Davis and Brad Howe. Pilatus and Morvan claimed Farian made the announcement as a preemptive strike because they wanted to sing on their next album. A week later, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences stripped the dance duo of its 1989 Grammy for best new artist. (Incidentally, Milli Vanilli beat out Neneh Cherry, Technotronic, Indigo Girls, Soul II Soul and Tone Loc for that award.) The group had three straight No. 1s in 1989 - "Baby Don't Forget My Number," "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" and "Blame It on the Rain."
NOV. 23
Jerry Lee Lewis was arrested in 1976 outside Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion in Memphis, where police said Lewis was drunk, screaming and waving a pistol. He told reporters he resented the good publicity Presley, a former Sun labelmate in the 1950s, always received.
NOV. 24
Don Kirshner's "In Concert" premiered in 1972, as part of ABC's late-night attempt to lure viewers away from Johnny Carson. The first show featured Chuck Berry, Alice Cooper, Blood, Sweat & Tears, the Allman Brothers Band, Poco and Seals & Crofts, among others.
NOV. 25
"The Last Waltz" danced in 1976 at San Francisco's Winterland theater, with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills and Ringo Starr among the artists on hand to say farewell to The Band.
Band Aid, led by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in London in 1984. Benefitting the victims of Ethiopia's devastating famine, the song quickly topped the British charts a few weeks later and became the country's biggest seller ever.
DECEMBER
DEC. 3
Eleven people were trampled to death when concertgoers panicked outside Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati to see The Who in 1979. Not enough doors were opened to allow fans to get inside, and because the arena used the festival-seating policy, it was first-come, first-serve for good seats. The tragedy prompted Cincinnati and many other cities to ban festival seating.
DEC. 6
Four people, including a Hell's Angel security guard, were killed during a melee at a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway near San Francisco in 1969. All of it was captured on film and released a year later as "Gimme Shelter."
DEC. 11
In 1964, soul legend Sam Cooke was shot and killed by hotel manager Bertha Franklin in Los Angeles. A court later ruled that the shooting was in self-defense after Franklin said Cooke attacked her while he was in pursuit of 22-year-old Elisa Boyer, who had fled his room. Franklin said Cooke had attempted to rape Boyer and then tried to assault her in anger. Despite the circumstances surrounding his death, more than 200,000 grieving fans attended funeral services in Los Angeles and his native Chicago.
DEC. 16
"Saturday Night Fever," starring John Travolta as a Brooklyn youth obsessed with dancing at a local disco, premiered in U.S. theaters in 1977. The movie was a box-office smash, but the soundtrack was even bigger and ushered in the disco movement into mainstream America. The Bee Gees scored three straight No. 1 songs ("How Deep Is Your Love," "Stayin' Alive," "Night Fever") and wrote other hits for the soundtrack, including "If I Can't Have You" (Yvonne Elliman) and "More Than a Woman" (Tavares). The double LP, which spent 24 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's pop charts, became the top-selling soundtrack of all time, topping more than 25 million.
DEC. 19
In 1986, a California judge refused to reinstate a lawsuit against Ozzy Osbourne and CBS Inc. brought on by the parents of John McCullum, a 19-year-old who they claimed was influenced to kill himself by Osbourne's lyrics to "Suicide Solution." The judge ruled that the case involved areas "clearly protected by the First Amendment.
"I'm very sorry," Osbourne said of the lawsuit. "But I think the young man was obviously ill before it happened."
Osbourne said he wrote the song as a lament for a rock musician friend who had killed himself with drugs and alcohol, and that he meant it as an urgent message that suicide is not the answer to troubles. "I'm confused by this whole thing," Osbourne said. "I'm just a rock 'n' roll singer."
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