Motor City Radio Flashbacks

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 23

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1955: The juvenile-delinquent flick The Blackboard Jungle premiers in U.S. theaters. While it is a solid and even daring drama, its remembered mainly for prominently featuring Bill Haley and his Comets’ “Rock Around The Clock.” The single, which had been released to little fanfare a year earlier, rockets back into the charts and straight to No. 1, officially kicking off the birth of the rock and roll era.

1955: Elvis Presley, along with band mates Scotty Moore and Bill Black, audition for Arthur Godfrey’s Talents Scouts in New York with a surprisingly tepid version of “Milkcow Blues Boogie.” They are subsequently rejected.

1956: At a Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers concert in Hartford, Connecticut, eleven young hooligans are arrested for allegedly inciting a riot.

1960: Songwriter Carole King and husband and writing partner Gerry Goffin are proud parents to their first child, a daughter Carole named Louis.

1963: Dion, formerly of the Belmonts, take wed to his own “Runaround Sue,” and her name is, in actuality, Sue Butterfield.

1969: In response to the Doors infamous recent concert there ( at which Jim Morrison allegedly exposed himself before the audience), a “Rally For Decency” is held in Miami featuring Jackie Gleason, The Letterman, Kate Smith, and Anita Bryant and they were assured by its promoters that the crowd of 30,000 will contain “no longhairs and weird dressers.”

1970: Although the Beatles had abandoned the tracks originally cut for the Let It Be album, their business manager, Allen Klein, invites Phil Spector to remix the recordings. Spector’s tampering with the original recordings further alienates Paul McCartney from the band, who instead is working on his first solo album in the studio next room over.

1977: Elvis Presley begins what will be his last tour with a concert at Arizona State University.

1985: John Fogerty engineers an amazing comeback when his LP Centerfield goes No. 1, fifteen-years after after the breakup of his band, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

1985: Billy Joel marries supermodel Christie Brinkley on a boat in New York Harbor, near the Statue of Liberty. The marriage will last 10 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  3

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 22

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1955: New York’s Coral Records hires   deejay Alan Freed for A&R duties. The recording company also gives Freed his own contract to record under his name.

1956: Sammy Davis, Jr., becomes an instant celebrity when he stars in the Broadway play Mr. Wonderful.

1958: The eight-year old Hank Williams, Jr. makes his first stage appearance in Swainsboro, Georgia.

1962: 19-year-old Barbara Streisand becomes an instant celebrity when she stars in the Broadway play I Can Get It For You Wholesale.

1963: EMI releases the Beatles album Please Please Me in the United Kingdom.

1967: Elvis Presley begins filming his 25th movie, Clambake, in Los Angeles.

1967: The Who makes it first U.S. stage debut, performing at the Paramount in New York City.

1971: The Allman Brothers are arrested at a truck stop in Jackson, Alabama, and are charge with possession of marijuana and heroin.

1975: Barry Manilow makes his first U.S. television appearance today. Manilow performs “Mandy” and “It’s A Miracle” on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on ABC-TV.

1976: While campaigning for the presidency, Jimmy Carter tells the National Association of Records Merchandisers that he listened to Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, and Led Zeppelin while he was Governor of Georgia.

1977: ABC-TV airs the John Denver special Thank God I’m A Country Boy.

1978: The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, a Beatles parody special that grew out of sketches on the ex-Monty Python member Eric Idol’s show Rutland Weekend Television, get it’s first U.S. airing on ABC-TV.

1979: Chaka Kahn gives birth to her second child, Damien Milton Patrick Holland.

1994: Ted Nugent makes a PSA warning kids of the dangers of abusing inhalants.

1997: Paul McCartney’s original birth certificate is sold to a private Beatles collector for $84, 146.00.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  2

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 21

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1952: At the Cleveland arena, influential (notably R&B) deejay Alan Freed holds what is considered today the first true “rock and roll concert,” as his Moondog Coronation Ball features Billy Ward and the Dominoes, Tiny Grimes, and Paul Williams and the Hucklebuckers. With ten-thousand attendees (and twice that many outside waiting to get in), the Cleveland police shut down the concert down prematurely for potential fire code violations, causing a near riot.

1956: After performing in Norfolk, Virginia, while en route to New York to appear on the Perry Como Show, Carl Perkins is badly injured in a Dover, Delaware car crash that also kills his manager and his brother Jay Perkins. The crash derails Perkin’s career, almost for good, as he is forced to spend nine months in a hospital nursing a fractured neck, broken collarbone, as he suffered a severe concussion as well. In the meantime, while Perkins was on his extended recovery mend, Elvis Presley takes on Perkin’s own hit, “Blue Suede Shoes” in 1956. The Presley version becomes more popular on the charts than the Carl Perkins Sun records release, who incidentally, wrote the song.

1961: The Beatles, still featuring Pete Best on the drums, play their first evening gig at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, opened for a band called the Bluegenes (later renamed the Swinging Blue Jeans of “Hippy Hippy Shake” fame).

1964: Judy Collins is catapulted into stardom after a momentous appearance at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

1967: John Lennon takes his first major LSD trip and ‘freaks out’ while recording backing vocals on the track “It’s Getting Better.” Producer George Martin, not realizing the effects of the drug, takes Lennon for air on the roof of Abbey Road Studios. Paul and George, upon learning where John was, rush up to get him down. The group resumes more work on a piano track for “Lovely Rita” instead.

1973: After a large throng of teenage girls cause a riot as teen-heartthrob David Cassidy performs on the BBC show Top Of The Pops, the program bans all teen idols from performing on future shows.

1976: David Bowie and Iggy Pop are arrested in New York and are charged with marijuana possession, of which charges are later dropped.

1984: John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, dedicates a section of New York City’s Central Park as a place of meditation called Strawberry Fields. Every December 9, thousands of fans converge on the spot to remember John Lennon, who was murdered by a deranged fan on that day in 1980.

1990: Tony Orlando is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard.

1994: Bruce Springsteen wins an Oscar for penning the song “Streets Of Philadelphia” for the Tom Hanks movie as titled, Philadelphia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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