From the MCRFB music calendar:
Events on this date: OCTOBER 16
1951: Jump-blues singer Richard Penniman, already going by the stage name Little Richard, makes his first recordings at Atlanta radio station WGST, though it would take four years and a move to clubs in New Orleans’ French Quarter to turn him into a rock and roll phenomenon.
1954: Elvis Presley, still stinging from his rejection at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, joins the Shreveport, LA radio broadcast Louisiana Hayride, appearing weekly for the grand sum of eighteen dollars. The show, broadcast on local station KWKH-AM, represents Presley’s first major musical exposure and would prove invaluable to getting him noticed nationally.
1962: Motown launches its first “package tour,” a revue of the label’s artists featuring Marvin Gaye, The Miracles, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and Mary Wells, in Washington DC.
1966: Folk singer Joan Baez is among 124 antiwar protesters arrested for blocking entrance to an Army Induction Center in Oakland, CA. She is sentenced to ten days in jail.
1972: Internal strife between the three remaining band members — reportedly due to leader John Fogerty’s reluctance to give up creative control — lead to today’s public breakup of Creedence Clearwater Revival. The press statement tries to put the best possible face on the incident, “We don’t regard this as breaking up. We look at it as an expansion of our activities.”
1986: Chuck Berry is the center of an all-star “60th birthday” bash in his hometown of St. Louis, a tribute concert — held three days before his actual 60th — where the legendary rocker is joined by Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Etta James, Robert Cray, Linda Ronstadt, and many others on stage at the local Fox Theatre. The making of the concert and the show itself are filmed by veteran director Taylor Hackford for the critically acclaimed hits 1987 documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll.
1993: Aretha Franklin sings the US national anthem in Toronto before tonight’s World Series game between the city’s Blue Jays and the visiting Philadelphia Phillies.
2001: After Bob Dylan hires extra security guards in preparation for his comeback “Love And Theft” tour, two of the guards turn Dylan himself back when the singer forgets his own pass. The new guards are fired.
2002: Country legend Dolly Parton begins her first tour of the United Kingdom in nearly two decades.
2002: Billy Joel leaves the Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, CT, where it is rumored he’s been undergoing treatment for alcoholism.
2003: Simon and Garfunkel open their new “Old Friends” tour with a concert in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
Deaths: 1969: Leonard Chess; 1973: Gene Krupa; 1990: Art Blakey; 1999: Ella Mae Morse; 2001: Etta Jones
Births: 1911: Mahalia Jackson; 1923: Bert Kaempfert; 1935: Sugar Pie DeSanto; 1937: Emile Ford (Emile Ford and the Checkmates); 1938: Nico; 1942: Dave Lovelady (The Fourmost); 1943: C.F. Turner (Bachman-Turner Overdrive); 1947: Bob Weir (The Grateful Dead)
Releases: 1957: Sam Cooke, “You Send Me” 1971: Isaac Hayes, “Theme From Shaft”
Recording: 1941: Will Bradley, “Fry Me Cookie, With A Can Of Lard” 1951: Johnnie Ray, “Cry” 1965: The Beatles: “Day Tripper,” “If I Needed Someone” 1968: Jay and the Americans, “This Magic Moment”
Charts: 1976: Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots’ “Disco Duck” hits No. 1 nationally on the charts 1976: Stevie Wonder’s album ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’ hits No. 1 nationally on the LP charts
And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day . . . .
