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This Week In
Rock and Roll History
July 18th
to July 24th
1940
July 20
Billboard's first Music Popularity Chart is published.
The magazine had previously printed best-seller lists submitted
by the individual record companies, but the new chart combined
the top sellers from all major labels. Their first number one
song was "I'll Never Smile Again" by Frank Sinatra and the Tommy
Dorsey Orchestra.
1946
July 20
13 year old
Petula Clark made her first appearance on British TV on a
BBC variety show called Cabaret Cartoons, which would
lead to her being signed to host her own afternoon series,
titled simply Petula Clark.
1953
July 18
18 year-old
Elvis Presley visited the Memphis Recording Service to
record "My Happiness" as a gift for his mother. The so-called
vanity disc, which cost Presley $3.98, was his first recording.
It would surface 37 years later as part of an RCA compilation
called "Elvis - the Great Performances".
1954
July 19
Sun Records releases the first
Elvis Presley single, "That's All Right", a cover of Arthur
Crudup's 1946 tune "That's All Right, Mama". Only about 7,000
original copies were pressed, but the disc became a local hit in
Memphis. After the session, Bill Black was said to have
remarked, "Damn. Get that on the radio and they'll run us out of
town."
July 20
Elvis Presley performed on one what was probably the
smallest stage of his career when he appeared on the back of a
flatbed truck outside a Memphis drugstore for its grand opening.
Elvis was then a member of The Blue Moon Boys trio with Bill
Black and Scotty Moore, who took their name from a song they had
recorded just two weeks previously, "Blue Moon of Kentucky".
1955
July 23
Slim Whitman's "Rose Marie" rose to the top of the UK singles
chart where it would stay for 11 weeks. It was a record that
would last 36 years until Bryan Adams spent 16 weeks at the top
with "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You".
1956
July 21
Billboard Magazine calls
Elvis Presley "the most controversial entertainer since
Liberace." The article also notes that Ed Sullivan, who once
said Presley would never appear on his show, just signed the
singer for three appearances.
July 22
While a song from his first recording session called "Blue Days,
Black Nights" is receiving airplay in the UK,
Buddy Holly heads back to a studio in Nashville to lay down
additional tracks. He is currently appearing at live gigs billed
as Buddy Holly and The Three Tunes.
1958
July 21
"Hard Headed Woman" by
Elvis Presley was the top tune on the Billboard chart. At
the time, the King was in Fort Hood Texas, doing basic training
in the US Army.
1960
July 18
Roy Orbison saw his first record, "Only The Lonely" climb
into the Top 5 in the United States after
The Everly Brothers and
Elvis both turned the song down. Over the next six years,
The Big O would have 22 Top 40 hits.
July 18
15 year old
Brenda Lee had the number one song in the US with "I'm
Sorry", a tune that was recorded in the last ten minutes of a
session and originally meant to be the "B" side of "That's All
You Gotta Do". The record reached #12 in the UK.
1961
July 21
Following his success as a songwriter, penning
Bobby Vee's "Rubber Ball" and
Rick Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou",
Gene Pitney makes his first appearance on American
Bandstand, singing "Every Breath I Take".
1963
July 19
Frank Ifield had the #1 single on the UK chart with "Confessin",
his fourth and final chart topper.
July 20
Jan and Dean's "Surf City" tops Billboard's singles chart
just two weeks after its release. The pair had recorded the song
in a converted garage underneath their apartment in Bel Air,
California. The single reached #26 in the UK.
July 20
Lesley Gore released "Judy's Turn To Cry", the follow up to
her number one hit, "It's My Party". The record was a
continuation of the original story and it too became a Top 5 hit
in the US.
July 22
The Beatles' first US album, "Introducing The Beatles" was
pressed by Vee-Jay Records. When it was finally released in
January, 1964, Capitol Records hit Vee Jay with an injunction
against manufacturing, distributing, advertising, or otherwise
disposing of records by the Beatles.
1964
July 18
The Four Seasons scored their fourth US number one hit with
"Rag Doll". Co-writer Bob Gaudio said that he got the
inspiration for the song from a young girl in tattered clothes
that cleaned his car windows at a stop light. The song reached
#2 in the UK.
July 18
The Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go?" is released and
enters Billboard's Hot 100. It would stay on the chart for 14
weeks and becomes the group's first number one hit.
July 18
The Rolling Stones chart in the US for the first time when a
cover of
Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" peaks at #48.
July 24
A riot broke out during a
The Rolling Stones gig at The Empress Ballroom in Blackpool,
Lancashire. Keith Richards noticed a man with his hands on the
stage exhorting the crowd to spit, and warned him, but the
spitting continued. Richards is then reported to have stood on
his hands and kicked him in the face, whereupon some of the 7000
fans in attendance started fighting, causing over £4,000 in
damage. Blackpool City Council later voted to ban The Stones
from playing in the city. 44 years later, the 2008 council voted
to lift the ban, but a spokesman for the group said they had no
plans to return.
1965
July 20
The Lovin' Spoonful release their first record, "Do You
Believe in Magic". It will reach #9 on the US Pop chart.
July 20
Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" is released by Columbia
records. It turns out to be his biggest hit ever, climbing to
number two in the US and number four in the UK.
July 22
Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Bill Wyman
appear in a London courtroom and are found guilty of "insulting
behavior" for urinating against a London gas station wall. They
argued that the owner had refused to give them the key to the
men's room, but they are fined five pounds each.
July 24
The Beach Boys' "California Girls" is released in the US,
where it will reach #3 in September.
July 24
The trio of
Dino, Desi and Billy achieve their first US chart entry with
"I'm A Fool", which will rise to #17. Dino, the son of Dean
Martin, Desi, the son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, along with
Billy Hinsche would also crack the Top 40 with "Not The Lovin'
Kind" later in the year.
1966
July 18
Bobby Fuller, who was still riding high on the success of "I
Fought The Law", was found dead in his car in Hollywood. The
incident is ruled a suicide but evidence suggests foul play, as
his clothes and lungs contained gasoline. Fuller was just 22
years old.
July 19
51 year old Frank Sinatra marries 21 year old actress Mia
Farrow. It was his third marriage, her first. Two years later,
while Farrow was filming Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby,
Sinatra sent his lawyer to the movie set to inform his wife that
he was filing for divorce.
July 19
Johnny Rivers begins recording "Poor Side Of Town", which
will become the tenth of his seventeen US Top 40 hits and his
only number one.
July 19
The Monkees record the theme song to their TV show, which
will begin airing next Fall. Although the tune appeared as an
album track on their self-titled debut LP and got some AM radio
play, it was not released as a single.
July 23
A recording engineer named Jerry Samuels, who billed himself as
Napoleon XIV, hit the top of the Billboard chart with a novelty
song called "They're Coming to Take me Away, Ha-Haaa!" The song
was banned by many US radio stations because it seemed to make
fun of the insane.
July 23
Frank Sinatra had the best selling album in the US with
"Strangers In The Night".
July 23
Country star Roger Miller reaches Billboard's Hot 100 with a
novelty tune called "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd".
It will climb to #40.
July 23
"Sunny" by
Bobby Hebb enters the Billboard charts, where it will reach
#2 during an 11 week run. The song was written for Bobby's
brother, who had been killed by a mugger in 1963, and started
out as an album filler until it was picked for a single release.
The record rose to #12 in the UK.
1967
July 22
The Doors perform "Crystal Ship" and "Light My Fire" on
American Bandstand.
July 24
Jefferson Airplane's second album "Surrealistic Pillow" is
certified Gold on the strength of the Top Ten hits, "Somebody to
Love" and "White Rabbit".
1968
July 20
Iron Butterfly's classic album, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" entered
Billboard's Hot 200 chart at #117. It was the band's second LP
and contained the 17 minute title track that filled the entire
second side of the disc. A shortened, single version of the song
only made it to number 30, but the album climbed to number 4 and
went on to sell over four million copies in the US alone. A
remastered edition was released by Rhino Records in 1995 that
contains the single version as well as a live version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".
July 20
Jane Asher announces on a national British TV show, Dee Time,
that her engagement to Paul McCartney was off. Paul reportedly
was watching at a friend's home and was surprised by the news.
She was said to have inspired many of McCartney's songs, such as
"All My Loving", "And I Love Her", "I'm Looking Through You",
"You Won't See Me", "We Can Work It Out", "Here, There and
Everywhere", and "For No One". Jane went on to have a career in
films and television as well as becoming a successful author and
business woman.
July 20
Hugh Masakela's instrumental rendition of "Grazing In The Grass"
reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. A year later, The
Friends Of Distinction would take a vocal version of the song to
number 3.
July 24
James Drake, who billed himself as Nervous Norvus for his 1956,
#8 US hit "Transfusion", a novelty tune about bloody accidents,
died of liver failure at the age of 56.
1969
July 19
The Spencer Davis Group announces their break-up. The band
had reached the Billboard chart twice in 1967 with "Gimme Some
Lovin" (#7) and "I'm A Man" (#10) and placed ten songs on the UK
charts, including two number one hits, "Keep On Running" and
"Somebody Help Me".
July 19
The Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" is released in the
US, where it will become the fifth of their eight Billboard
number one hits.
July 20
Roy Hamilton, whose version of "Unchained Melody" was the
best-selling R&B record of 1955, died of a heart attack at the
age of 40. He also scored hits with "Don't Let Go" in 1958 and
"You Can Have Her" in 1961.
July 22
Aretha Franklin is arrested for disorderly conduct after
creating a disturbance in a Detroit parking lot. After posting
50-dollars bail, she ran down a road sign while leaving the
police station.
July 23
James Brown walks out of L.A. Mayor Sam Yorty's office when
the mayor fails to show up at 10 a.m. as promised. Yorty was
going to present Brown with a proclamation declaring James Brown
Day.
1971
July 21
Carole King was having a very good week. Her single "It's
Too Late" sat on top of Billboard's singles chart and she
received a Gold album for "Tapestry". The LP, released four
months earlier, was the number one album in the US for 15 weeks
and would stay on Billboard's Top 200 album chart for 292 weeks.
July 22
Thirteen days after lead singer Jim Morrison passed away,
The Doors are awarded a Gold album for "L.A. Woman". The
L.P. included "Lover Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm".
July 24
A cover version of "Indian Reservation", a number three hit in
the UK by Don Fardon, went to number one in the US for
The Raiders. The song was actually recorded by Mark Lindsay
alone, but he chose to put the group's name on the label as a
sign of friendship for his old buddy, Paul Revere.
1972
July 24
23-year-old Bobby Ramirez, drummer with
Edger Winter's White Trash, was killed in a bar fight in
Chicago after some redneck made a comment about the length of
his hair. He died of head injuries after being kicked with
steel-tipped shoes.
1973
July 21
Jim Croce's, "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" was the number 1 song in
the US. It was taken from his second LP, "Life and Times". Jim
said that the Leroy Brown character was inspired by a tough guy
that he had met in the army a few years earlier.
1974
July 18
The US Justice Department ordered John Lennon out of the country
by September 10th. The Immigration and Naturalization Service
denied him an extension of his non-immigrant visa because of his
guilty plea in England to a 1968 marijuana possession charge.
The US Court of Appeal would overturn the deportation order in
1975 and Lennon was granted permanent resident status the
following year.
1975
July 19
Orleans' "Dance With Me" is released. It would go on to
climb to number six on Billboard's Hot 100 and has since been
played on the radio over four million times.
July 19
Paul McCartney scores his fourth, post-Beatles chart topper in
the US with "Listen To What The Man Said".
July 19
The Bay City Rollers were at the top of the UK singles chart
with "Give A Little Love", the group's second and final UK #1.
1976
July 19
Deep Purple announced that at the end of their current tour,
they were splitting up. They would reform in 1984.
July 24
Elton John, who had already achieved stardom in the United
States, had his first hit in the UK with "Don't Go Breaking My
Heart", a duet with Kiki Dee.
July 24
Hall and Oates' "She's Gone" is released. The song was taken
from their second album, "Abandoned Luncheonette" and would
climb to number 10 in the US.
July 24
The Beach Boys' "20 Golden Greats" album started a ten week
run at #1 on the UK chart.
1977
July 21
Despite protests, The Sex Pistols made their first appearance on
the UK music show Top Of The Pops, where they lip-synched
to their third single, "Pretty Vacant". The performance helped
push the song up the charts to #7.
July 22
While on stage in Cohasset, Massachusetts, Tony Orlando shocked
the crowd and his group,
Dawn, by announcing his retirement from show business.
Following a short illness, Tony was back at work two months
later, but could never find the chart success he once enjoyed.
July 23
Led Zeppelin's drummer John Bonham was charged with assault
after a concert at the Oakland Coliseum in California. Bonham
and band manager Peter Grant had the help of their bodyguard in
roughing up a security employee at the venue. After pleading
guilty to misdemeanors, the accused settle out of court for two
million dollars. The tour would eventually be cancelled after
Robert Plant's son died a few days later.
July 23
Although it failed to catch on in the UK, "Looks Like We Made
It" becomes
Barry Manilow's third US chart topper. The song had been
written by Richard Kerr, the same man who wrote the music for
Manilow's first number one, "Mandy".
July 23
Donna Summer's Disco hit "I Feel Love" tops the UK chart in
the first of a four week stay.
1978
July 18
John Travolta and
Olivia Newton-John are awarded a Platinum record for their
number one hit, "You're The One That I Want".
July 18
Gerry Rafferty, once a member of Stealers Wheel, earns a Gold
record for "Baker Street", which reached #2 in the US and #3 in
the UK.
July 20
Steve Martin's novelty tune "King Tut" became a Top Ten hit in
the US. Some of the musicians on the track were members of
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
July 24
The movie Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
starring
Peter Frampton and the
Bee Gees, opens in New York City. It bombs at the box-office
and the critics hate it.
1979
July 20
E.L.O. takes out advertisements in several US magazines
dedicating the release of "Don't Bring Me Down" to NASA's Skylab
project.
July 22
Little Richard, appearing as Reverend Richard Penniman,
speaks at a revival meeting in North Richmond, CA. He warns the
congregation about the evils of Rock 'n' Roll music and
declares, "If God can save an old homosexual like me, he can
save anybody."
July 23
The Ayatollah Khomenini bans all forms of Rock 'n' Roll in Iran,
claiming it has a corrupting influence.
1980
July 19
Billy Joel scores his first number one hit in the US with
"It's Still Rock and Roll To Me", which helped push his "Glass
Houses" LP to over 5 million in sales.
July 19
Queen enjoy their third UK #1 album with "The Game", which
featured the single "Another One Bites The Dust".
July 21
Keith Godchaux, former keyboards player with
the Grateful Dead, was killed in a car accident in Marin
County, California. Godchaux and his wife, Donna, a background
vocalist, had been with the Dead from 1971 until 1979, when they
were asked to leave.
July 24
Larry Graham, the former bass guitarist of
Sly and the Family Stone, began his first solo tour by
opening for the
Isley Brothers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Graham's "One in a
Million You" was on its way up the charts at the time and would
peak at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100.
1982
July 24
A Chicago quintet called Survivor started a six week run at #1
on the US singles chart with "Eye Of The Tiger". The song was
also #1 in the UK. Over the next four years, the band would
place six more songs on the Billboard Top 40.
1983
July 18
Abbey Road Studios in London is opened to the public, making it
one of the city's most popular tourist attractions.
July 23
"Synchronicity" by The Police went to #1 on the Billboard album
chart for the first of seventeen weeks.
1986
July 20
Santana celebrates their 20th anniversary at a concert in
San Francisco that features a jam with all previous members of
the band.
1987
July 19
Bruce Springsteen played his first ever show behind the Iron
Curtain when he appeared in East Berlin in front of 180,000
people. The show was broadcast on East German TV.
July 22
A jury in New York ruled that Morris Albert's 1975 composition
"Feelings" was plagiarized from "Pour Toi", a song written in
1956 by French composer Lou Lou Geste. The jury ruled that Geste
was owed at least a half million dollars in royalties. Albert's
rendition had reached #6 in the US and #4 in the UK in 1975.
July 24
The movie biography of
Richie Valens called La Bamba opens in US theatres.
The film starred Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens and Esai Morales
as Ritchie's older brother Bob. The production had the full
support of the Valenzuela family and Bob and Connie Valenzuela
even came to the set to help the actors portray their characters
correctly. The music was performed by Los Lobos.
1988
July 18
Ike Turner was sentenced in Santa Monica, California to one year
in jail for possessing and transporting cocaine. Police had
stopped Turner, former husband of
Tina Turner, in August 1987 for driving erratically and
found about six grams of rock cocaine in his car.
July 18
A California appeals court upholds a lower courts' decision to
dismiss a case against Ozzy Osbourne and CBS Records. In 1984 a
teenager allegedly killed himself after listening to Ozzy's
"Suicide Solution".
July 21
A judge in Aiken, South Carolina ordered
James Brown to hold a benefit concert for police and abused
children as part of a sentence on drug and firearms charges.
Brown called the sentence a back-door way of getting him to do a
concert for free.
1989
July 19
James Brown was moved to a medium security cell at the
Stevenson Correctional Institute after $40,000 in cash and
cheques was discovered in his minimum security cell. The
Godfather of Soul was serving a six year sentence for a variety
of offences that included illegal gun possession, resisting
arrest, assault and leading the authorities on a number of car
chases. He was paroled in 1990 after serving two years.
July 23
Ringo Starr launched his first tour since the break-up of
the Beatles with a show in Dallas. Starr began the concert
with his 1971 hit "It Don't Come Easy". His backup band included
guitarist Joe Walsh, organist Billy Preston and Bruce
Springsteen's sax man Clarence Clemons.
1990
July 21
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters got a little help from his friends
Joni Mitchell, Bryan Adams,
The Scorpions, Cyndi Lauper,
Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor,
The Band and others for a live performance of Pink Floyd's,
"The Wall". The event was held on the west side of the Berlin
wall and helped raise money for disaster relief. Over 200,000
fans attended the concert, which was released on CD and in video
form later in the year.
July 21
BBC's Radio One apologizes to listeners after Madonna repeatedly
cursed during a live concert broadcast.
1992
July 18
800 guests saw Whitney Houston, dressed in a $40,000 Marc Bouwer
wedding gown, marry Bobby Brown at her New Jersey home. Those in
attendance included Stevie Wonder, Gloria Estefan, Natalie Cole,
Patti LaBelle and Freddie Jackson. After years of making tabloid
headlines, she would file for divorce in September, 2006.
1994
July 22
More than 54,000 fans packed Giants Stadium in East Rutherford,
New Jersey, as
Billy Joel and
Elton John performed the first of five concerts together.
July 23
The International Astronomical Union named an asteroid orbiting
between Mars and Jupiter after
Frank Zappa, who had died the previous December.
1995
July 19
Elvis Presley's former doctor, Dr. George Nichopoulous,
loses his medical license for being "too liberal" in prescribing
addictive drugs. Nichopoulos called the decision "idiotic" and
suggested it stemmed from resentment over Presley's death in
1977.
July 21
A judge in Los Angeles threw out a lawsuit against
Michael Jackson by five of his former security guards. The
guards had claimed they were fired for knowing too much about
night time visits by young boys to Jackson's estate. The singer
denied any improprieties.
July 22
Canadian singer David Clayton-Thomas angered patrons at a
Blood, Sweat and Tears concert in the heavily Jewish Detroit
suburb of West Bloomfield. Halfway through the show, he remarked
that the weather was "as hot as the last train car going to
Auschwitz." Clayton-Thomas later apologized, saying he spoke "in
the heat of the moment."
1996
July 22
Scottish folk singer
Donovan was forced to postpone a comeback tour of the US
because of a 30-year-old marijuana conviction in Britain.
American authorities delayed granting him a waiver to enter the
country. The tour was designed to promote Donovan's first album
of new material in a dozen years.
1999
July 22
Gary "Gar" Samuelson, the drummer for Megadeth from 1984 through
1987, died of liver failure at the age of 41.
July 24
Actor Will Smith tops the Billboard Hot 100 with "Wild Wild
West", on which he simply rapped over Stevie Wonder's "I Wish".
2001
July 18
The Kiss Kasket, an actual coffin featuring the faces of the
four founding members of the band, went on sale. Also included
were the
Kiss logo and the words "Kiss Forever." Endorsing the item,
Gene Simmons quipped, "I love livin', but this makes the
alternative look pretty damn good."
July 23
59 year old Paul McCartney, who lost his first wife Linda to
cancer three years ago, becomes engaged to 33 year old Heather
Mills, an activist for the disabled. It will be the first
marriage for the 33-year-old Mills, a former swimwear model
whose left leg was amputated below the knee after she was run
down by a police motorcyclist in 1993.
2002
July 18
The Rolling Stones crew chief, 54 year old Royden Magee, who
had worked with the band for 30 years, died during a rehearsal
in Toronto. A spokesman for the band said Magee had said that he
wasn't feeling well and went to another room to take a nap. The
Stones had just finished dinner and resumed rehearsing when they
got word that Magee had collapsed and stopped breathing. He was
taken by ambulance to nearby Sunnybrook Hospital with no vital
signs after suffering an apparent heart attack. He was
pronounced dead on arrival. The members of the band said they
were devastated by his death.
2003
July 23
The Sun Records studio in Memphis was designated a national
historic landmark.
July 23
James Brown announced that he was separating from his fourth
wife by placing a notice in Variety magazine that showed
a picture of himself, his wife Tomi Rae and their two-year-old
son, James Brown II, posing with Goofy at Walt Disney World.
2004
July 19
Mark Tulin and James Lowe, two original members of the
Electric Prunes, filed lawsuits against their record label
and music publisher, alleging that the companies failed to pay
them $1 million in royalties.
July 20
For the first time in his career,
Jimmy Buffett had the number one album on Billboard's Hot
200 album chart when "License To Chill" debuted at the top spot
during its first week of US sales, selling over 239,000 copies.
2005
July 21
British R&B artist Long John Baldry died after battling a chest
infection for four months. He was 64. Baldry was one of the
founding fathers of British Rock 'n' Roll in the '60s. Eric
Clapton has stated many times that he was inspired to pick up
the guitar after seeing Baldry perform.
July 22
Eugene Record, the lead singer of The Chi-lites, died of cancer
at the age of 65. The group is most often remembered for the
1972 US #1 single "Oh Girl" and 1972 UK #3 single "Have You Seen
Her".
2006
July 21
The Rolling Stones were the top touring band in the world
for the first half of 2006, reporting $147.3 million in grosses
from 45 shows in U.S. arenas and international stadiums.
2007
July 19
US sales figures were released that showed CD sales falling a
further 11.7% since last year. In contrast, vinyl record
collectors pushed the demand for 78 RPM platters up by 12.9%.
2008
July 18
Paul Simon filed a law suit against Rhythm USA Inc., a
Georgia-based subsidiary of a Japanese firm, claiming the
company never got his permission to sell wall clocks that play
"Bridge Over Troubled Water". The suit claimed that as one of
the best known songs throughout the world, a proper licensing
agreement could command at least a $1 million licensing fee.
2009
July 18
Michael Jackson's nutritionist was served with a subpoena as
L.A. police and the DEA tried to hunt down the singer's medical
records.
July 20
Jackson Browne settled his lawsuit against U.S. Senator John
McCain and the Republican Party after his 1977 hit "Running On
Empty" was used without permission in a 2008 McCain presidential
campaign ad that aired on TV and the Internet. McCain and the
Republican Party apologized for using the song in the ad and
said that McCain himself "had no knowledge of, or involvement
in, the creation or distribution of the video."
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