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This Week In
Rock and Roll History
March 7th to March 13th
1955
March 7
Carl Perkins becomes the
first Country artist to have a hit on the Billboard R&B chart
when his "Blue Suede Shoes" makes the list.
March 10
RCA Records placed a half page ad in Billboard Magazine claiming
that Elvis Presley was 'the new singing rage'.
1956
March 10
Bobby Darin makes his
first television appearance on The Stage Show, where he
sings "Rock Island Line".
March 13
Elvis Presley's first
album is released by RCA. The self-titled disc would sell over a
million copies and become The King's first Gold record.
1957
March 9
Fats Domino had the number
1 record on the Billboard R&B singles chart with "I'm Walkin'",
which had just replaced his own, "Blue Monday". Domino would
keep the Top 40 hits coming for the next 5 years before fading
to the oldies tours.
March 12
Buddy Holly and the Crickets
record "Maybe Baby", which would be released the following year
and climb to #17in the US and #4 in the UK.
1958
March 11
After finding out that her husband,
Jerry Lee Lewis has
married his 13 year old cousin, Jane Mitcham files for divorce.
March 12
Jazz singer Billie Holiday, who had pled guilty to a
narcotics-possession charge in 1956, is given a year's probation
by a Philadelphia court.
March 13
The Quarry Men, with both
John Lennon and Paul McCartney playing guitar, perform at the
Morgue Skiffle Cellar in Oakhill Park.
1959
March 8
Just four weeks after being released,
Frankie Avalon's "Venus"
tops the US singles chart. Al Martino was offered the song
first, but he turned it down.
March 11
RCA sends a Gold record to
Elvis Presley as his
single, "A Fool Such As I" reaches the one million sales mark.
March 12
An American Bandstand viewer's pole lists 15 year old
Fabian Forte as the Most
Promising New Talent. The young man is currently enjoying
success with "Turn Me Loose", which will crack the US Top 10 in
April.
March 13
Friday the 13th proved unlucky for The Kingston Trio when they
were involved in an emergency airplane landing in Indiana and
nearly killed. Their song, "The Tijuana Jail" was rising up the
charts, stopping at number 12 a couple weeks later.
1960
March 10
Record Retailer, a publication that featured a chart
showing the top 50 records by sales, is launched in the UK.
Their first number one was "Poor Me" by Adam Faith.
1961
March 9
The Beatles make their
first of over 300 appearance at Liverpool's Cavern Club. The
group had played the venue in the past as
The Quarry Men.
March 12
At RCA's Nashville studios,
Elvis Presley records his
entire upcoming album, "Something For Everybody" in less than
twelve hours.
March 13
Ricky Nelson records "Travelin'
Man", which would go on to become his second and final US number
one hit as well as reaching number two in the UK.
1962
March 8
The Beatles, with
Pete Best on drums, appear
on television for the first time when they play Roy Orbison's
"Dream Baby" on the BBC program Teenager's Turn. It was
reportedly the first time they wore suits onstage.
March 10
Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby" sat at the top of the Pop chart in
America and at number 2 in the UK.
March 13
Cliff Richard is named
Show Business Personality of 1961 at the Variety Club of
Great Britain Awards.
Helen Shapiro is voted
Most Promising Newcomer Of The Year, an honor she shared
with actress Rita Tushingham.
1963
March 8
25,000 people attended the funeral for Country singer Patsy
Cline, killed three days earlier in a plane crash near Camden,
Tennessee.
March 8
The Four Tops ink a deal
with Berry Gordy's Motown label and receive a $400 signing
bonus.
March 9
The Beatles appeared at
the East Ham Granada in London as a support act for
Tommy Roe and
Chris Montez.
March 11
The English Rock group,
Manfred Mann, give their
first concert in London.
1964
March 7
Capitol Records is swamped with requests for heavyweight boxing
champion Cassius Clay's album, "I Am the Greatest", after Clay
defeated Sonny Liston on February 25th.
March 8
The Dave Clark Five make
their first of 13 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.
March 10
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel
record "The Sounds Of Silence" as an acoustic duo. It wasn't
until electric guitar, bass and drums were added that the song
would become a hit.
1965
March 13
Freddie and the Dreamers'
"I'm Telling You Now" enters Billboard's Hot 100, where it will
stay for eleven weeks, eventually climbing to #1 for two weeks
starting April 10. It will be the biggest hit of the band's
brief career.
March 13
The Beatles topped the
Billboard Hot 100 for the seventh time with "Eight Days A Week".
March 13
Eric Clapton quit
The Yardbirds due to
musical differences with the other band members. Clapton wanted
to continue in a bluesier vein, while the rest of the band
preferred the more commercial style of their first pop hit, "For
Your Love".
1966
March 7
Brian Wilson released "Caroline No", the first solo single by a
Beach Boy. Before it evolved into the final number we know
today, the song was originally written as "Carol I Know".
March 7
Tina Turner laid down vocal tracks for the Phil Spector produced
"River Deep Mountain High", which would go on to reach #3 in the
UK and #88 in the US.
March 8
Lulu became the first
British female singer to appear behind the Iron Curtain when she
toured Poland with
The Hollies.
March 12
The Levi Strauss Company began selling bell-bottom blue jeans in
the US. Don't you wish you could still fit into yours?
1967
March 10
Sonny and Cher guest star
on an episode of NBC-TV's The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
March 11
The Supremes enjoy their
ninth Billboard number one record with "Love Is Here and Now
You're Gone", a #17 hit in the UK.
March 11
Northern Songs, who publish The Beatles' tunes, announce that in
the 18 months since "Yesterday" made its appearance, 446 other
artists have also recorded it.
1968
March 8
Bill Graham opens The Fillmore East in an abandoned movie
theater in New York City. The opening acts are Albert King and
Tim Buckley along with
Big Brother and the Holding Company.
March 9
Grammy Awards are presented to
The Fifth Dimension for
"Up, Up and Away" - Record of the Year and Best
Performance by a Vocal Group.
The Beatles' "Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is named Album of the Year,
Best Contemporary Album, Best Engineered Record
and Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts.
March 9
Bob Dylan started a
ten-week run at the top of the UK album chart with "John Wesley
Harding". The LP would reach #2 in the US.
March 13
The Byrds received a Gold
record for their "Greatest Hits" album.
1969
March 7
Tommy's Roe's single,
"Dizzy" earns a Gold record for sales of over one million.
March 12
Paul McCartney marries photographer Linda Eastman. Contrary to
the popular rumor of the day, she is not related to the Eastmans
of Eastman-Kodak fame. Paul's brother, Mike McGear is the best
man. None of the other Beatles is in attendance.
1970
March 9
Having recently changed their name from Earth to
Black Sabbath,
Ozzy Osbourne,
Tony Iommi,
Geezer Butler and
Bill Ward make their
concert debut at The Roundhouse in the North London district of
Camden Town.
March 11
The Grammy Award winners are announced.
The Fifth Dimension's
"Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" is Record of the Year.
Blood, Sweat and Tears, by
the band of the same name is Album of the Year and Joe South's
"Games People Play" is Song of the Year.
Crosby, Stills and Nash
won the Best New Artist. Blood, Sweat and Tears were nominated
for a then-record eleven Grammy Awards (They won three).
1971
March 11
TV's fictional Rock band, The Partridge Family, featuring
David Cassidy on vocals,
receives a Gold record for "Doesn't Somebody Want to be Wanted".
It's the second of their five US Top 20 hits.
March 13
The L.A. duo of
Brewer and Shipley entered
the Billboard Hot 100 with "One Toke Over The Line". The song,
which featured The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia on steel guitar,
would reach #10 despite being banned by several radio stations
for its drug references. Brewer and Shipley maintained that the
word "toke" meant "token" as in ticket, hence the line "waitin'
downtown at the railway station, one toke over the line."
1972
March 9
Carole King,
James Taylor and Carly
Simon did their part to keep Richard Nixon out of office when
they appeared at a fund-raiser for George McGovern. Joining them
were Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones, Mama Cass Elliot, Burt
Lancaster, Jon Voight, Britt Ekland and Jack Nicholson. Their
efforts were in vain, as McGovern lost the November 7th election
to Nixon by nearly 18 million votes.
March 10
The group
America receive a Gold
record for their self-titled debut album.
1973
March 7
A song from the movie Deliverance called "Dueling Banjos"
by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel, becomes one of the few 1970s
instrumentals to be awarded a Gold record.
March 8
Paul McCartney pleads guilty to charges of growing marijuana
outside his Scottish countryside farm and is fined $240. Paul
says that a fan gave him the seeds and he didn't know what they
would grow.
March 8
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan of
The Grateful Dead, died of
a stomach hemorrhage and liver failure, brought on by alcohol
poisoning. He was just 27 years old.
March 10
Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of
The Moon" was released in America, where it would spent over 740
weeks on the chart.
1974
March 11
Janis Joplin's manager,
Albert Grossman, was awarded $112,000 on her life insurance
policy. The insurance company had argued that Joplin's drug
overdose death in 1970 was a suicide, not an accident.
March 12
John Lennon and
Harry Nilsson are thrown
out of the Troubador nightclub in Los Angeles for heckling the
Smothers Brothers. Nilsson, a good friend of
Tom Smothers, thought he
was helping the act because Tom had struggled through weak
material at an earlier date.
1975
March 8
Olivia Newton-John's "Have
You Never Been Mellow" becomes her second Billboard number one
record. She would go on to have three more.
March 8
The New Musical Express announces that
The Rolling Stones have
chosen Wayne Perkins to replace the recently departed
Mick Taylor. Two weeks
later, The Stones themselves will issue a statement saying that
Ron Wood will fill the position. Mick Jagger would say, "No
matter how great Wayne Perkins is...he plays very similar to
Mick Taylor."
1976
March 7
Elton John becomes the
first Rock star since the Beatles to be immortalized at Madame
Tussaud's Wax Museum in London.
March 8
Former Spooky Tooth singer Gary Wright is awarded a Gold record
for "Dream Weaver".
March 9
Queen's breakthrough
album, "A Night at the Opera," is certified Gold.
March 13
The Four Seasons score
their fifth and final US #1 hit with "December 1963 (Oh What A
Night"). It was also their only UK #1. Since 1962, the group had
placed 31 songs in Billboard's Top 40.
March 13
Johnny Taylor's "Disco Lady" begins a six week stay at the top
of the Billboard R&B chart. It is the first number one song to
contain the word "Disco" in the title.
1977
March 9
The Jacksons TV show aired
for the final time on CBS-TV, finishing dead last in the
ratings.
March 12
The Sex Pistols were involved in a fight at London's Speakeasy
Club, resulting in one of the show's engineers needing 14
stitches in his head. Two days later, Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert
of A&M Records cancelled the Pistols contract and halted
production of the their first single, "God Save The Queen".
1978
March 11
Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of
Hell" album began a 416 week run on the UK chart and would go on
to sell over 2 million copies.
March 11
French singer Claude Francois, who scored a 1976 UK hit with
"Tears On The Telephone", was electrocuted when he changed a
light bulb while standing in his bathtub.
1979
March 10
Believe it or not,
James Brown played the
Grand Ole Opry. Some Country artists such as Jean Shepard
complained, but others like Barbara Mandrell said that Brown
should have been invited five years earlier.
March 10
Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" found its way from B-side
obscurity to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a #1
in the UK.
1980
March 13
Pink Floyd's "The Wall"
goes Platinum a few weeks into its fifteen week stay at number
one on the Billboard chart. The two-record set is mostly the
brainchild of bassist Roger Waters, who emerges as the group's
creative leader.
1982
March 11
Jimy Sohns, lead singer of the
Shadows of Knight is
arrested for distributing cocaine. The band's biggest hit was a
cover version of "Gloria", originally recorded by
Van Morrison and Them.
1983
March 7
Stevie Wonder and
Neil Sedaka are inducted
into the Songwriter's Hall Of Fame during a ceremony at the
Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
1985
March 9
Mick Jagger releases a solo single called "Just Another Night"
which will reach #12 in the US and #32 in the UK.
March 9
REO Speedwagon returned to
Billboard's top spot with "Can't Fight This Feeling". The song
made #16 in the UK. It had been a little over five years since
the band's first number one hit, "Keep On Loving You".
1987
March 7
Now that Beatles' albums are finally being released on CD, the
Fab Four returned to the UK charts with "A Hard Day's Night" at
#30, "Please Please Me" is #32, "With The Beatles" sits at #40
and "Beatles For Sale" is #45.
March 13
Bob Seger receives a star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1988
March 10
30 year old Andy Gibb, younger brother of
Bee Gees Robin, Maurice
and Barry, died from a viral infection in his heart. Andy hadn't
had a chart hit since 1981, but did have a stint as host of the
Solid Gold TV show. Shortly before his death and just
after he declared bankruptcy, Andy had signed a record deal and
was working on a new album for Island Records. It was never
completed.
1990
March 8
Rolling Stone Magazine let
Jefferson Airplane know
exactly how they felt about the group's reforming when they
named their new album as the Most Unwanted Comeback of the Year.
The L.P. featured all of the main members from the band's glory
days, but little has been heard from the Airplane since this
embarrassment.
March 10
According to Billboard Magazine, New Kids On The Block
receive 125,000 calls a day to their 1-900 number.
1991
March 7
The readers of Rolling Stone Magazine voted
George Michael as the best
male singer and sexiest male artist.
March 11
Janet Jackson signs a $30 million deal with Virgin Records. It's
the largest record deal ever until brother
Michael signs with Sony a
week later.
1993
March 11
Eric Clapton hit number 1
in the US with his "Unplugged" album that had been in the top 10
for six months. The additional attention created by his six
Grammys at the annual awards ceremony pushed sales of his live
album even higher. "Unplugged" beat out "Achtung Baby", "The
Beauty and The Beast" soundtrack and albums by Annie Lennox and
kd lang for album of the year.
1996
March 9
George Burns, who scored a Billboard hit in 1980 with "I Wish I
Was Eighteen Again", passed away at the age of 100.
March 11
Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr turn down a $225
million offer to do a reunion tour.
1997
March 10
R&B singer LaVern Baker, who placed 7 songs in the US Top 40 in
the mid-1950s and early 1960s, including "Tweedlee Dee" and "I
Cried A Tear", died of heart failure at the age of 67.
March 11
The investiture ceremony where Paul McCartney was knighted by
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II took place.
1999
March 7
Marvin Inabnett of The Four Preps died of a heart attack at the
age of 60. The group placed seven songs on the Billboard Top 40
between 1958 and 1961, including "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)", a
number 2 hit in 1958.
March 13
It had been nearly fifteen years since
Cher led the US hit parade
with "Dark Lady", but she was back on top with her fourth solo
number one, "Believe". It was also #1 in the UK.
2001
March 7
The Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for
the Arts announced that Judy Garland's "Over The Rainbow" had
been selected as their "song of the century". Rounding out their
Top Ten were (#2) "White Christmas by Bing Crosby, (#3) "This
Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie, (#4) "Respect" by Aretha
Franklin, (#5) "American Pie" by Don McLean, (#6) "Boogie Woogie
Bugle Boy" by The Andrews Sisters, (#7) "West Side Story"
(album) by the original cast, (#8) "Take Me Out To The Ball
Game" by Billy Murray, (#9) "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" by
The Righteous Brothers, (#10) "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin.
March 12
In a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of
America, music fans voted Judy Garland's "Over The Rainbow" as
the Song Of The Century. The Rolling Stones'
"Satisfaction" came in at #16 and The Beatles' "I Want To Hold
Your Hand" was #26.
2002
March 11
Connie Francis launches a
lawsuit against her record label for unpaid royalties and
inappropriate licensing of her recordings.
2003
March 8
Adam Faith suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 62. He
was one of England's major Pop stars in the early 1960s and
enjoyed a run of eleven British Top 20 hits prior to the arrival
of The Beatles.
March 13
A jury awarded concert promoter Marcel Avram $5.3 million in his
suit against
Michael Jackson over the
cancellation of two planned 1999 concerts. Avram filed suit
against Jackson in 2000 in Santa Barbara County Superior Court,
claiming the singer had pulled out of New Years shows planned
for Sydney and Honolulu. On the witness stand, Jackson insisted
that Avram cancelled the shows over concerns they would not be
profitable.
2004
March 11
Edmund Sylvers, the lead singer of the Sylvers on their 1975,
number one hit, "Boogie Fever", died after a ten month battle
with cancer. He was just 47 years old.
March 12
Rosalind Morganfield, the 34 year old daughter of Blues artist
Muddy Waters, surrendered to police after a warrant was issued
accusing her of being involved in the 1996 murder of 19 year old
Timothy Jason Harrington during a drug deal.
2005
March 10
Michael Jackson arrived at
the Santa Moria court an hour late, dressed in his pajamas after
being treated for a back injury.
2006
March 7
A US federal judge ordered
Rod Stewart to pay
Harrah's casino in Las Vegas more than $3 million for a canceled
show in December 2000.
March 8
Boy George pleaded guilty in Manhattan criminal court to a
misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report over a
burglary. Judge Anthony Ferrara returned a sentence of a
conditional discharge that required George to undergo a drug
treatment program in Salisbury, England and to perform five days
of community service in Manhattan.
2007
March 8
Roy Head's son, 28 year-old Jason "Sundance" Head, was voted off
the American Idol TV program in a move that shocked even
the judges. "Sundance, you've been one of our finest. I'm
speechless," said Paula Abdul. Sundance received a further blow
after the show was over when he was told his cousin, Burl Head
died in a house fire in Houston. Burl had reportedly given
Sundance $1,500 for his stay in Los Angeles during the
competition.
March 9
Brad Delp, the lead singer for the band
Boston, was found dead in
his home in southern New Hampshire. He was 55.
March 12
Levon Helm, the former drummer for
The Band, filed a lawsuit
against a Manhattan advertising firm over the use of the group's
song, "The Weight" in a television commercial for cell phones.
Helm received a royalty payment for the use of the song, but
didn't feel he was adequately compensated.
2008
March 10
Pop diva Madonna, rocker John Mellencamp, singer/songwriter
Leonard Cohen, British Invasion pioneers
The Dave Clark Five and
instrumental Rock legends
The Ventures were inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during a ceremony at New
York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
March 12
Seven years of trying to secure the rights to use the
Lennon-McCartney catalog paid off for TV's American Idol,
when over 31 million viewers tuned in to the show. The following
day, the top five Google searches were also Beatle related.
2009
March 7
Jimmy Boyd, the child vocalist best known for singing the 1952,
Christmas novelty hit "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus", died at
age 70.
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