Category: Flashbacks

FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: MARCH 25

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1958: reporting to Ft. Chafee, Arkansas by bus, Elvis Presley has his famous hair shorn off by an Army barber. For the occasion, the media was there with cameras in hand.

Elvis performing on stage at the Bloch Arena, at Pearl Harbor, while serving in the Army in 1961.

1961: Elvis Presley holds an afternoon press conference and, in the evening, performs the USS Arizona concert at Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena. The Presley performance raised $62,000 for the memorial dedicated to the 1,177 servicemen killed when the ship went down on December 7, 1941. It was to be his last concert appearance for eight years.

1965: After Eric Clapton quit the band, London session guitarist Jeff Beck joins the Yardbirds after being recommended by the group’s first choice, another session man named Jimmy Page.

1967: The Who plays their first American show at New York’s RKO Radio Theater.

1967: Cream arrive in the U.S. to begin their first North American tour.

1968: Roy Orbison marries his second wife, Barbara Wellhonen, in Nashville, Tennessee. They would remain married until Orbison’s death twenty-years later.

Lennon and Ono’s famous four-day bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969.

1969: A just-married John Lennon and Yoko Ono decide to use the press to promote an end to the Vietnam war, and all wars in general, during their honeymoon. The duo stay, fully clothed,  in their bed at the Amsterdam Hilton for the next four days, talking about peace to a cadre of largely skeptical reporters from around the world.

1971: New York radio station WNBC becomes the first to ban Brewer’s and Shipley’s hit “One Toke Over The Line” due to alleged marijuana references.

1976: Jackson Browne’s wife, Phyllis Major, commits suicide with sleeping pills just months after their marriage.

Michael Jackson at Motown 25 in 1983.

1983: Motown tapes an all-star concert at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California in order to celebrate Motown’s 25th year anniversary. Michael Jackson steals the show with his solo performance of his new single, Billie Jean, complete with moonwalk. That performance event alone catapults Jackson from superstar to megastar status worldwide overnight.

1985: Stevie Wonder wins his first Oscar for his theme to the film The Women In Red, entitled, “I Just Called To Say I Love You.”  Sixteen-years later to the day, Bob Dylan will win his first Oscar ever for his “Wonder Boys” song, “Things Have Changed.”

Chuck Berry performing during his worldwide 1989 tour; stops would include Detroit, Oct. 18 at the Fox.

1989: The recording studio at Chuck Berry’s ranch at Wentzville, Missouri is destroyed by a fire, taking with it 13 of Berry’s unreleased songs.

Deaths: On this date, Bill Kerney (The Inkspots fame) 1978; Joe Schermie (Three Dog Night fame) 2001; Buck Owens (Country singer) 2008; Dan Seals (England Dan and John Ford Coley fame) 2009.

 

 

 

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

 

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WKNR * MOTOR CITY MUSIC SEARCH CONTEST * 1971

WKNR had a Music Search Contest in 1971, and these were the 10 finalists:

1. Susan O’Neil – Detroit

2. Danny Mullins – Wyandotte

3. Major Reynolds – Detroit

4. Tim McKenna – Union Lake

5. Dale Bowers – Livonia

6. Earl Goodman – Southgate

7. Jeff LaDuke – Rochester

8. Rick & Brian Slotnick – Highland

9. Tim Garrick – Royal Oak

10. Custer’s Last Stand Band – Monroe

WKNR Motor City Music Search Contest 1971.mp3

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WKNR * “WORDS” CONTEST * 1971

 

In cooperation with Motown Records Corporation, WKNR is offering $1000

for the best set of lyrics that can be set to music.

Here are a couple of promos and contest airchecks from

Bill Garcia, Dan Henderson, Jim Tate, Mac Owens, Ron Sherwood & Bob Green.

The winner ended up having her words put to music with

Motown’s Funk Brothers and Stevie Wonder.

A special WKNR Promo record was the winner, it was entitled:

I’ve Got To Find Him

WKNR Words Contest 1971.mp3

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FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: MARCH 24

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1956: Elvis Presley visits friend and fellow Sun label mate Carl Perkins in a Dover, Delaware hospital, where he is recovering from his near-fatal crash.

1958: At 6:35 AM, Elvis Presley reports to the offices of Memphis’ local Draft Board 86, accompanied by his parents and longtime friend Lamar Fike, then is bused with twelve other new recruits to Kennedy Veterans Memorial Hospital.

Elvis Presley is sworn in for military service in the U.S. Army in 1958.

There, Elvis is inducted into the U.S. Army, a Private with serial number 53 310  761. Dozens of photographers and reporters attend the event. He will serve two years, and his monthly payment for military service will be $78.00 per month.

1962: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards first perform together in Ealing, England on stage for the first time, with their first band, as Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys.

1965: While playing in Odense, Denmark, Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman is instantly knocked unconscious by a poorly grounded microphone stand while on stage.

1966: The first major U.S. bootleg law is passed in New York State, a bill that makes the processing of unlicensed recordings a misdemeanor. Twelve-years later to the day, Great Britain grants all their record companies the right to confiscate unauthorized recording duplicates, officially by law as illegal property of copyrighted materials.

Rolling Stone’s Bill Wyman with Fender Mustang bass; 1966.

1973: An overly-zealous male fan climbs onstage during a Lou Reed concert in Buffalo, New York, and plants a bite on one of Reed’s buttocks. The attendee-culprit who performed this unusual behavior was, not surprisingly, tossed out of the event immediately by the band’s security unit. Reed later remarked that, “America seems to breed real animals.”

2001: Macon, Georgia’s Hwy 19 is renamed Duane Allman Boulevard. The renaming of the stretch of highway running through Macon is in remembrance of the famed band member guitarist who was killed in a motorcycle accident there some thirty-years earlier.

2002: After a record fifteen nominations, Randy Newman wins his first Oscar for The Monster, Inc. composition “If I Didn’t Have You.” The number was awarded for Best Song.

Deaths: Harold Melvin (of the Blue Notes) 1997; Rod Price (Foghat) 2005; Henson Cargill (Country singer, 1968 “Skip A Rope” fame) 2007; Uriel Jones (Drummer, Funk Brothers) 2009.

 

 

 

 

And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day . . . .  M  A  R  C  H   2  4

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