Motor City Radio Flashbacks

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: APRIL 11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1956: Elvis Presley’s tour plane developed engine trouble while flying the singer from Amarillo, Texas to Nashville, forcing an emergency landing in Arkansas. When he calls his mother Gladys to tell her, she begs him to never fly again, instilling a fear in Elvis which will take him years to overcome.

 

1961: New York City gets its first introduction to a young folk singer named Bob Dylan when he makes his live debut at Gerde’s Folk City, opening for John Lee Hooker and performing a new song entitled, “Blowin’ In The Wind.”

1964: Having already set a record the week before by holding the entire Top Five positions of the Billboard singles charts, the Beatles set another record when 14 of their singles  are listed at the same time in the “Hot 100.” “Can’t Buy Me Love” is at No. 1, while “Love Me Do” holds down the bottom at No. 81.

1965: The British music trade paper New Musical Express holds its Third Annual NME Poll Winners Concert in London’s Wembly Empire Pool. The concert features the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Animals, Moody Blues, Tom Jones, Them, Donovan, Seekers, Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman’s Hermits, and Cilla Black.

1966: NBC-TV’s musical variety show Hulabaloo airs it’s last episode after sixteen months on the air, featuring Lesley Gore, Peter and Gordon, Paul Anka, and the Cyrkle.

1967: Flying back to England after participating in the Beach Boys’ aborted “Smile” sessions, Paul McCartney comes up with the idea for the Beatles film and album Magical Mystery Tour.

1968: Janis Joplin makes her television debut when Big Brother and Holding Company perform on ABC-TV’s Hollywood Palace.

1970: In Germany, Fleetwood Mac founding member and lead-guitarist  Peter Green, having just come down from a long acid trip, announces his intent to leave the band to follow an obscure religion. After pleads of coercion from other members of the group that he remain, he agrees to stay on the current tour to satisfy the band’s contract.

1976: Relaxing in his hotel after his record-breaking Sydney concert, Alice Cooper is placed under arrest for alleged breach of contract after refusing to pay another promoter $59,000 for an Australian tour the year before. When it is discovered that the promoter’s fallen short on his end of the deal as well, Cooper is released to fly back to the States.

1988: Cher wins Best Actress for the romantic comedy Moonstruck at tonight’s Oscar Awards in New York.

1990: Elton John performs at the Indianapolis, IN funeral of Ryan White, the hemophiliac 18 year-old who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion and has been shunned for it. Michael Jackson also attends the service.

2002: Aretha Franklin and seven other Motown stars are honored with street names in Detroit’s new low-income housing district off the John C. Lodge expressway, near the the site of the old Brewster projects.

 

 

 

 

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

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: APRIL 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1953: Eddie Fisher is discharged from the U.S. Army, having sold seven million records during his stint in military service.

1956: Leo Fender patents the successor to his popular “Telecaster” model of electric guitar, the new model is named the “Stratocaster” and it becomes a very  popular model for guitarists taking up the newest Fender brand.

1956: While performing at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama, Nat King Cole is assaulted by five segregationists and tackled on stage, although local police quickly arrest the perpetrators, who had originally planned to kidnap the singer. Cole bravely performs a second show later that night.

1957: Ricky Nelson, then all of sixteen, performs his recently-recorded version of Fats Domino “I’m Walking” — done to impress a date — on his family’s show The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet on ABC-TV. Nelson’s cover record sells a half-million copies in the next week alone.

1961: Del Shannon makes a guest appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on ABC-TV, singing his recent breakthrough-hit “Runaway.” 

1965: Freddie and the Dreamers hits No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with their single, “I’m Telling You Now.”

1970: Paul McCartney makes the Beatles secret-breakup public by issuing a press release to announce that he has left the group, done in a form of a fake interview: “Q: Is your break with the Beatles temporary or permanent, due to personal reasons or musical ones? PAUL: Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because i have a better time with my family. Temporary or permanent? I don’t really know.” John Lennon is furious, especially since the breakup, already agreed upon by the group, was announced just one week prior to the British release of McCartney’s first solo album. When a reporter track down Lennon for his thoughts, he replies, “Paul hasn’t left. I sacked him.”

1970: Keith Emerson of the Nice, Greg Lake of King Crimson, and Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster join forces to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

1970: At one of the band’s last concerts, in Boston, Doors front-man Jim Morrison asks the audience if they’d like to see something of his “that rhymes with ‘sock,'” and then, more bluntly, screaming “would you like to see my genitals?” The power at the stadium is switched off, and keyboardist Ray Manzarek pulls the singer off the stage. Morrison already is facing similar charges stemming from a recent gig the band held in Miami.

1976: Peter Frampton’s LP Frampton Comes Alive reaches No. 1 on the Billboard LP Chart.

1978: Aretha Franklin marries her second husband, actor Glynn Turman, in New York City. The Four Tops sings Stevie Wonders’ “Isn’t She Lovely” for the couple at the ceremony.

1999: The all-star tribute concert Here, There And Everywhere: A Concert For Linda is held at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where Paul McCartney, George Michael, Chrissie Hynde, Elvis Costello and Sinead O’Connor raise money for animal charities while remembering Paul’s wife Linda, who has recently succumbed to breast cancer.

2002: South Carolina Governor James Hodges makes it official by declaring James Brown the state’s “Godfather Of Soul.”

Deaths: Chuck Willis, 1958; Stuart Sutcliffe, 1962; Nate Nelson (The Flamingoes), 1984; Noel Fox (Oak Ridge Boys), 2003; Little Eva; 2003.

 

 

 

 

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

 

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: APRIL 9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1962: At tonight’s Academy Awards ceremony in Santa Monica, California, Henry Mancini wins Best Original Song for “Moon River,” his contribution to the film Breakfast At Tifanny’s.

1964: The Vee-Jay record label suffers a fatal blow when it settles out of court with Capitol Records, who charged that nonpayment of royalties invalidated the label’s licensing agreement to sell the Beatles’ first few singles in the United States.

1965: Bruce Johnston replaces Brian Wilson in the touring band of the Beach Boys, Brian having suffered a nervous breakdown while on the band’s recent flight to Houston, Texas.

1966: During a Yardbirds show in Marseilles, France, guitarist Jeff Beck collapses from exhaustion while on stage; eleven years later to the day in 1977, Jimmy Page causes the end of a Led Zeppelin gig in Chicago when he is struck down with stomach cramps.

1966: The Righteous Brothers’ “(You’re My) Soul And Inspiration” hits No. 1 on the charts.

1967: The Doors play before their first large crowd when they appear (along with Jefferson Airplane ) in front of 3,000 at a show in Venice, California.

1973: Queen play their first show since being signed, a “showcase” gig at London’s Marquee Club.

1974: Bruce Springsteen meets rock critic Jon Landau, who would go on to manage the singer and successfully hype him as “rock and roll’s future.

1977: Abba’s “Dancing Queen” hits No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

1979: At tonight’s Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, Best Original Song goes to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance,” from the flop movie Thank God It’s Friday.

1982: Having revived her career in the UK with a hit cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” Tina Turner begins a comeback tour in London.

1989: Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman, 52, announces his intention to marry model Mandy Smith, 19, further shocking the public by revealing that he’s been dating Mandy for the past six years — with her mother’s permission. The marriage would last just under two years.

2003: Willie Nelson holds public celebrations of his 70th birthday at the Beacon Theater in New York. Featured performers included, among many others, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, ZZ Top, Leon Russell, and country singer Ray Price.

 

 

 

 

And that’s a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day…. April 9.

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: APRIL 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1956: The first national rock and roll series, Alan Freed’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Dance Party, debuts on the CBS Radio Network.

1956: The Platters make their television debut on the Dorsey Brothers’ Stage Show, broadcast on CBS.

1958: The Capitol label officially abandons issuing 78 rpm records.

1962: Elvis Presley arrives in Hawaii to begin shooting the ocean shots for his latest film, Blue Hawaii. At his hotel, the Kaiser Hawaiian Village, he is mobbed by over a thousand female fans and sprints away from the frenzied mob, losing several pieces of jewelry in the process. (His ring was returned he next day.)

1962: Teen idol Bobby Rydell is ironically cast as Hugo Peabody in the film version hit of the broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie.

1962: Unknown London musicians Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, attending a performance of Alexis Corner’s Blues Festival at the Ealing Jazz Club, meet a young guitarist named Brian Jones.   

1967: San Francisco’s KMPX becomes the first FM station to play “deep cuts” from albums, rather than merely hit singles, a “free-form” non-format that will soon transform “underground” rock radio.

1967: Sonny and Cher’s ill-faded comedy film, a collection of film spoof skits called Good Times, debuts in Chicago.

1970: B.J. Thomas “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” featured in the Paul Newman/Robert Redford film Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, wins Best Original Song at this year’s Academy Awards.

1975: Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore leaves the group to form Rainbow. He will be replaced by Tommy Bolin.

1981: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play their first concert outside America. The band open their concert tour at the Congress Centre in Hamburg, Germany.

1988: While rehearsing a morbid “hanging” stunt for his upcoming tour, Alice Cooper is nearly killed when the safety rope breaks, leaving him swinging in the air for a few moments. Fortunately, tragedy was averted when a roadie quickly steps in and brings him down.

1990: As famed child AIDS victim Ryan White lays dying in his hospital bed, Elton John, who has taken up his cause, performs “Candle In The Wind” for him during Farm Aid IV in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1994: Percy Sledge pleads guilty to evading taxes on $260,000 on his income and is sentenced to six months in prison (which he is allowed to serve in a “half-way house”).

2006: Bob Dylan is awarded an honorary Pulitzer prize for “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical composition of extraordinary poetic power.”

2008: Olivia Newton-John begins her walk across the entire length of China’s Great Wall in order to raise funds for and awareness of the ongoing battle to help find a cure for breast cancer. The walk will take three weeks and will cover 141 miles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day…. April 7.