From the MCRFB music calendar:
Events on this date: MARCH 26
1962: Elvis Presley begins filming his 11th motion picture, titled Girls! Girls! Girls!
1963: Funny Girl, opens on Broadway today, starring Barbra Streisand. It features the hits, “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and the song that would become her signature-song in popularity, “People.”
1964: Tonight on the CBS-TV’s I’ve Got A Secret panel show as guest, is former Beatles drummer Pete Best, whose “secret” is almost guessed immediately. When show-host Gary Moore asks Best why he left the group (Best was fired), he replied, “I thought I’d like to start a group of my own.”
1965: The Walker Brothers make their first UK television appearance, performing on ITV’s Ready Steady Go!
1969: Pat Boone guest-stars as himself on tonight’s Beverly Hillbillies episode, titled, Collard Greens An’ Fatback on the CBS Televison Network.
1970: Just days after winning a Grammy for Best Recording For Children with their album Peter, Paul, And Mommy, Peter, Paul and Mary are scandalously rocked when group leader Peter Yarrow is arrested in Washington D.C., for allegedly “taking immoral liberties” with a minor, a fourteen-year-old girl. He would serve three months and would later be given clemency by President Jimmy Carter.
1975: In London, the rock musical Tommy, based on the Who album bearing the same title name, makes it premier film debut today. Directed by Ken Russell, Who lead-singer Roger Daltry is cast in the title role, and co-starring are American actors Jack Nicholson and Ann Margaret. Guest stars includes Tina Turner and Elton John.
1976: Keith Richards and model-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg becomes the proud parents of a son, Tara. Sadly, he would die ten weeks later of pneumonia.
1976: Riding near the scene of a multi-car pileup in Memphis, Elvis Presley jumps out of his limo, displays his honorary Captain’s police badge given to him by the city, and attempts to help the victims until police and paramedics arrive.
1980: Pink Floyd’s landmark 1973 LP Dark Side Of The Moon surpasses Carole King’s Tapestry as the album with the longest consecutive stay on the Billboard 200 album chart. It would remain on the chart until 1988.
1985: After Stevie Wonder’s Oscar acceptance speech the previous night, at which he dedicated his Best Song Award to Nelson Mandela, South Africa bans all Stevie Wonder records from playing on it’s nation’s airwaves in response (oops).
Deaths: Little Willie John (of “Fever” fame) 1968; Duster Bennett (British blues singer; member John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers) 1976; Jon-Jon Paulos (The Buckinghams) 1980; Jan Berry (of Jan and Dean); 2004.
And that’s a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day….
