From the MCRFB music calendar:
Events on this date: MARCH 28
1957: Ral Donner, later to hit with Elvis-sound-alike “The Girl Of My Best Friend,” sees Elvis Presley for the first time performing at the International Amphitheater in Chicago.
1958: Alan Freed’s Big Beat Show tour kicks off the first of its 43 shows at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater with Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Danny and the Juniors, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Chantels, The Diamonds, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and more.
1964: Madame Tussuad’s famous Wax Museum in London unveils its four news statues of the Beatles — the first of any rock star to be created and displayed there. The figures will eventually become even more famous when the Beatles decide to use them on the cover of their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
1975: Barbra Streisand attends tonight’s Elvis Presley show in Las Vegas and meets him backstage to discuss offering him the lead role in her latest film project, A Star Is Born. Despite the fact that Streisand’s boyfriend, Jon Peters, is slated to produce an direct, Presley is said to be ecstatic about the offer.
1982: After driving erratically due to a toxic shock from drug abuse, David Crosby (formerly of the Byrds) is arrested in San Diego for driving under the influence and possession of Quaaludes, cocaine, drug paraphernalia, and an unlicensed .45 pistol. When cops ask why Crosby carrying the gun, according to the police report he promptly replied, “John Lennon.”
1984: Mick Fleetwood, whose band, Fleetwood Mac, had the biggest-selling album of all time just seven years earlier, files for bankruptcy.
1985: At 10:15 am EST, 6,000 North American radio stations begin playing the all-star benefit single, “We Are The World,” written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and performed by a cast of 45 of music’s biggest stars, including Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Diana Ross, Billy Joel, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson and Daryl Hall. Proceeds from the sale of the single and related items had raised nearly $38,000,000 for the victims of the Ethiopian famine.
1987: After hearing that Arizona Governor Evan Mecham would not honor the new national holiday for Martin Luther King Day, the racially integrated Doobie Brothers, in protest, had removed and re-scheduled their Phoenix show over to Las Vegas instead.
2000: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page wins his libel suit against Ministry, a UK magazine that claimed Page actually watched fellow-band member John Bonham choke to death while trying to revive him with Satanic spells.
2005: On Reverend Jesse Jackson’s internet radio show, Michael Jackson claims his recent child-molestation charges against him personally are a racist conspiracy.
And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day….
