Motor City Radio Flashbacks

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 29

1958: New army recruit Elvis Presley arrives for boot camp at Ft. Hood, Texas. He is stationed there for six months and insists he performs KP and guard duty like any other soldier on the base. With a bank account larger than any other soldier on base, he is able to afford his own housing. His family later arrives and moves into an off-base trailer.

1966: During a concert in Marseilles, France, a rabid Stone fan throws a chair at Mick Jagger. The toss opens a gash on the singer’s forehead requiring eight stitches to close. In a totally separate incident, that same night in Cheshire, England, fans mobbing the Walker Brothers outside their hotel cause concussions in two of the three American band members.

Glen Campbell had a fantastic year in music and television popularity in 1968. — Glen Campbell in 1967

1968: Glen Campbell becomes a television star overnight when the Smothers brothers make him the host of the Summer Replacement Variety Hour on CBS-TV.

1970: Tonight’s Ed Sullivan Show on CBS-TV features performances by Bobby Gentry and Gladys Knight and the Pips, broadcasting live from VA hospitals caring for veterans wounded in service in Vietnam.

1972: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant travel to Bombay (Mumbai), India, to record versions of the band’s songs “Friends” and “Four Sticks” with the city’s symphony orchestra. Musical and cultural differences make the project from being any success. Page and Plant will return two decades later recording those songs and many more for the MTV special Unledded.

Dr. Hook makes cover of the Rolling Stone on March 29, 1973. — Dr. Hook on the cover of the Rolling Stone in 1973 *(click on image for larger view).*

1973: More likely it was destined to happen, Dr. Hook appears on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine after their recent novelty hit, in which they imagined just doing that while making Top 10 nationally on the record charts. As they had sung in their song, the band members bought five copies of the magazine each and in turn they gave them to their mothers.

1975: This week’s Billboard shows Led Zeppelin with all six of their studio albums currently present on the “Billboard 200” album chart, including a Number One with their latest, Physical Graffiti.

1978: Tina Turner is officially divorced from husband Ike Turner.

1985: Michael Jackson is honored with a wax statue at London’s famous Madame Tussaud’s museum.

1986: The Beatles records are officially licensed for sale in the Soviet Union.

1996: Phil Spector’s former bandmates in the Teddy Bears, Carol Connors and Marshall Lieb, sue the producer to collect royalties they claimed are still owned them from the group’s 1958 smash hit, “To Know Him Is To Love Him.”

2001:A three-hour musical tribute is held at New York City’s Radio Music Hall in honor of the Beach Boy’s guiding genius, Brian Wilson. Beach Boys song-cover performances were rendered that evening by Paul Simon (“Surfer Girl”), Elton John (“God Only Knows”), Billy Joel (“Don’t Worry Baby”), as well as Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson, the Go-Gos, Carly Simon, David Crosby, Wilson Philips, Aimee Mann, and songwriter Jimmy Webb. Wilson himself performs “Barbara Ann,” ” Fun, Fun, Fun,” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.”

2006: Tom Jones is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

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