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
