Day: March 18, 2012
FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: MARCH 18
From the MCRFB music calendar:
Events on this date: MARCH 18
1958: Jerry Lee Lewis becomes the first musician to appear on American Bandstand actually singing and not lip-synching through his performance. Singing “Great Balls Of Fire,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin On,” and “Breathless” live, he also becomes the first guest to perform three songs on the D.C. program.
1959: EMI announces its intentions to halt productions of 78 rpm records.
1965: In a scandal that further marred their reputations as a “bad boys” band, the Rolling Stones are arrested for publicly urinating on a side wall of a gas station after a concert in Essex, England.
1967: The Beatles “Penny Lane” spends its sole week at No. 1 in the U.S.
1970: Brook Benton is certified gold by the RIAA for his (over) one million-selling hit, “A Rainy Night In Georgia.”
1972: Ringo Starr, in his first directing role, is behind the camera filming tonight’s T-Rex concert in Wembley, for his upcoming Marc Boland documentary Born To Boogie.
1973: At Earl’s Court in London, Pink Floyd perform their just-released album On The Dark Side Of The Moon in its entirety for the first time.
1975: The Who is immortalized on stage by the band’s movie version of Tommy. The play premiered in New York City in “Quintophonic Sound.”
1978: Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees occupies the top three spots on the Billboard charts as a writer and producer: Samantha Sang’s “Emotion” at No. 3, younger brother’s Andy Gibb’s “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water” No. 2, and the Bee Gees’ own “Night Fever” is at the top spot at No. 1 for the first of eight solid weeks on the charts.
1982: Returning from a Philadelphia ’76ers basketball game, Teddy Pendergrass is permanently paralyzed from the waist down when the brakes on his Roll Royce fails, causing the vehicle to swerve unto oncoming traffic and crash into a tree. Miraculously, Pendergrass returns to the stage two years later in 1984.
1992: Donna Summers is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.
1994: Darryl Jones replaces longtime bassist Bill Wyman in the Rolling Stones.
2002: In New York, Issac Hayes, Brenda Lee, and Gene Pitney (among others) are inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day . . . . M A R C H 1 8
GLADYS’ KNIGHT DEBUTS THE ‘COPA… JULY 20, 1968
From the MCRFB news archives:
Gladys Knight & The Pips Put On One Pip Of A Show In NYC
By ED OCHS
NEW YORK — Gladys Knight & The Pips, another one of Motown’s crack soul squads, proved once again in their Copacabana debut on Thursday night, July 18, 1968, that, in the Motor City, the motor is soul – powered and gassed up with Motown premium. Bongos and blues flavored with that old-time rock harmony struck the right cord for perky Gladys Knight and her three Pips.
A shade shorter than Martha Reeves and a hair-do higher than Diana Ross, Gladys Knight switched from R&B to clean pop vocal as easily as she changed gowns mid-show from red to green. Whether whipping the beat in “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” their biggest hit thus far, or cooing the blues in “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” she proved fluent in either language. Singing support for Miss Knight came from the Pips, whose driving sounds were tempered with straight-forward harmony and answering echoes. In “Girl Talk,” the Pips, minus Gladys Knight, cooled off the beat with a folksy, street-corner session.
Sandwiched in between their latest chart winner, “It Should Have Been Me,” the group stomped through “Every Road Leads Out Of Here,” followed with “Just Walk In My Shoes” and a soulful “Fever,” which dropped to funky part-way before it was rescued by the bluesy Miss Knight. The group, heard on the Motown Soul record label, charged up the opening-night crowd with their fancy footwork, burst of choreography and rally-round-the-microphone in sync while harmonizing. Even Al Foster and the Copa band reeled with the festivities, often overwhelming the voices with blaring horns and a beat falling like sequoia trees. END.
(Information and news source: Billboard Magazine; July 20, 1968).
RUFFIN LEAVES THE TEMPTATIONS… JULY 20, 1968
From the MCRFB news archives:
David Ruffin Leaves The Temptations — Will Go Solo
NEW YORK — David Ruffin, former lead singer with the Temptations, has quit the group to pursue a solo career. Dennis Edwards replaced Ruffin starting with the recent Valley Forge Music Fair, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Temptations, one of the top recording and in-person acts for Motown Records, will appear at the Westbury Music Fair for one week, beginning Monday, July 22. After the week’s stay, the group will return to the Motown studios in Detroit for recording sessions. The Temptations will also tape an NBC-TV special starring Diana Ross and the Supremes which will be aired December 9.
Ruffin will continue to record for Motown and will be managed by International Management Co., the management wing of the Detroit-based recording complex.
The five Temptations, with Ruffin on lead vocals, are currently on the charts with “I Could Never Love Another,” another hit from the group’s long standing recordings with the Motown Gordy label. END.
(Information and news source: Billboard Magazine; July 20, 1968).