Day: March 21, 2012

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 21

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1952: At the Cleveland arena, influential (notably R&B) deejay Alan Freed holds what is considered today the first true “rock and roll concert,” as his Moondog Coronation Ball features Billy Ward and the Dominoes, Tiny Grimes, and Paul Williams and the Hucklebuckers. With ten-thousand attendees (and twice that many outside waiting to get in), the Cleveland police shut down the concert down prematurely for potential fire code violations, causing a near riot.

1956: After performing in Norfolk, Virginia, while en route to New York to appear on the Perry Como Show, Carl Perkins is badly injured in a Dover, Delaware car crash that also kills his manager and his brother Jay Perkins. The crash derails Perkin’s career, almost for good, as he is forced to spend nine months in a hospital nursing a fractured neck, broken collarbone, as he suffered a severe concussion as well. In the meantime, while Perkins was on his extended recovery mend, Elvis Presley takes on Perkin’s own hit, “Blue Suede Shoes” in 1956. The Presley version becomes more popular on the charts than the Carl Perkins Sun records release, who incidentally, wrote the song.

1961: The Beatles, still featuring Pete Best on the drums, play their first evening gig at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, opened for a band called the Bluegenes (later renamed the Swinging Blue Jeans of “Hippy Hippy Shake” fame).

1964: Judy Collins is catapulted into stardom after a momentous appearance at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

1967: John Lennon takes his first major LSD trip and ‘freaks out’ while recording backing vocals on the track “It’s Getting Better.” Producer George Martin, not realizing the effects of the drug, takes Lennon for air on the roof of Abbey Road Studios. Paul and George, upon learning where John was, rush up to get him down. The group resumes more work on a piano track for “Lovely Rita” instead.

1973: After a large throng of teenage girls cause a riot as teen-heartthrob David Cassidy performs on the BBC show Top Of The Pops, the program bans all teen idols from performing on future shows.

1976: David Bowie and Iggy Pop are arrested in New York and are charged with marijuana possession, of which charges are later dropped.

1984: John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, dedicates a section of New York City’s Central Park as a place of meditation called Strawberry Fields. Every December 9, thousands of fans converge on the spot to remember John Lennon, who was murdered by a deranged fan on that day in 1980.

1990: Tony Orlando is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard.

1994: Bruce Springsteen wins an Oscar for penning the song “Streets Of Philadelphia” for the Tom Hanks movie as titled, Philadelphia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day….