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Today in Rock History – April 20

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1968, Deep Purple made their live debut at a gig in Tastrup, Denmark. Formally known as Roundabout, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore suggested a new name, Deep Purple,  after his grandmother’s favorite song. “Deep Purple” had been a hit for Peter De Rose. Blackmore’s grandmother had repeatedly asked if they would be performing the song.

1968, Apple Music ran advertisements soliciting tapes from unknown artists, offering financial grants as part of a deal to release records on the Apple label. Artists such as Badfinger, James Taylor, Mary Hopkin, Jackie Lomax, David Peel, and Elephant’s Memory were signed up.

1968, The Righteous Brothers played at the Civic Center in Charleston, West Virginia.

1969, Session drummer Benny Benjamin died. One of “The Funk Brothers,” he played on many Tamla Motown hits including songs by The Four Tops, Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, and Stevie Wonder. The film Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, released in 2003, features his work.

1969, Jimi Hendrix appeared at McFarlin Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, Texas.

1970, The New York Times reported that Catholic and Protestant youth groups had adopted The Beatles Yellow Submarine as a religious symbol.

1970, Traffic, Mott The Hoople, If and Bronco all appeared at The Roundhouse, London, tickets, 25 shillings.

1971, Jethro Tull played at the Michigan State Fairgrounds Coliseum in Detroit, Michigan.

1972, David Bowie appeared at the Harlow Playhouse, Harlow, England.

1973, King Crimson performed at the Kinetic Playground, Chicago.

1974, Queen headlined at the Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee.

1975, Roxy Music played at the Festival Theatre, Adelaide, Australia.

1976, George Harrison joins Monty Python onstage to sing “The Lumberjack Song.”

1976, The Rolling Stones finally release their long-awaited album Black and Blue.

1977, Led Zeppelin performed at Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, Ohio.

1979, The Allman Brothers Band appeared at the Capitol Theater, Passaic, New Jersey.

1980, 84 year old George Burns, who starred in the movie Oh God with John Denver, became the oldest person to have a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 when “I Wish I Was 18 Again” peaked at No.49. When asked if he wished he were 18 again, Burns replied “I wish I was 80 again.” Before this, his most recent charting record had been a spoken word comedy routine with his wife and partner Gracie Allen, in the summer of 1933.

1981, John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas was jailed for five years after pleading guilty to drug possession charges. The sentence was suspended after 30 days. Phillips started touring the US lecturing against the dangers of taking drugs.

1983, The Grateful Dead played at the Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

1985, The charity record “We Are The World” by USA For Africa was at number one on the UK singles chart. The US artists’ answer to Band Aid had an all-star cast including Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan, Daryl Hall, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Kim Carnes, Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul Simon, plus the composer’s of the track, Michael Jackson, and Lionel Richie.

1991, Steve Marriott leader of Small Faces and Humble Pie, died in a fire at his home in Essex. His work became a major influence for many 90’s bands. Small Faces had the 1967 UK number three and US number 16 single “Itchycoo Park,” plus the 1968 UK number one album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. With Humble Pie, he notched the 1969 UK number four single “Natural Born Bugie” As a child actor he played parts in Dixon of Dock Green and The Artful Dodger in Oliver.

1992, A Concert For Life took place at Wembley Stadium as a tribute to Queen singer Freddie Mercury and for AIDS awareness. Acts appearing included Elton John, Roger Daltrey, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Mick Ronson, James Hetfield, George Michael, Seal, Paul Young, Annie Lennox, Lisa Stansfield, Robert Plant, Joe Elliott and Phil Collen, Axl Rose, and Slash.

1993, Aerosmith released Get A Grip, their 11th studio album which became their best selling album to date with sales over 20 million. The album which featured the hits “Livin’ On The Edge” and “Crazy,” also featured guests Don Henley and Lenny Kravitz.

2002, In the dispute over who owned the rights to Nirvana’s recordings former members Dave Grohl and Kirst Novoselic asked a Seattle Court to prove that Courtney Love was mentally stable. They told the court that Love was “irrational, mercurial, self-centred, unmanageable, inconsistent and unpredictable.” They also claimed a contract was invalid because Love was stoned at the time.

Born on April 20: Jimmy Winston, Small Faces (1945); Craig Frost, Grand Funk (1948); Luther Vandross (1951);  Mickey Welch, Weezer (1971)

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Today in Rock History – November 5

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1965, The Who released the single “My Generation” in the US. While the UK release would reach the second spot, the song barely rippled in the US peaking at number 74 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1965, The Doors appeared at the Pioneer Club Boat Ride, Los Angeles, California.

1966, The Monkees were at the top of the Billboard singles chart with “Last Train To Clarksville,” the group’s first number one. It was later revealed that due to filming commitments on their TV series, none of the group had played on this or most of the group’s early recordings.

1967, Pink Floyd played two shows, afternoon and evening at The Cheetah Club, in Venice, California. Smokestack Lightning and The Candymen were support.

1967, Bee Gee Robin Gibb was a passenger on a train which crashed in South East London in England killing 49 people and injuring 78. Robin was treated for shock after the accident.

1968, Herman”s Hermits singer Peter Noone married Mirellie Strasser in London.

1969, Led Zeppelin performed two shows,  7 pm and  9:30 pm at Memorial Hall, Kansas City, Missouri.  The group’s stage equipment was sent to San Francisco from their show in Ontario, Canada the night before, in preparation for their dates at Winterland. On this night in Kansas City, they played with rented P.A.’s and amps from Mission Music.

1970, More £1 ($1.60)  Backtrack LP’s are by The Who released in the U.K. Backtrack 8 is a reissue of A Quick One (mono), Backtrack 9 is The Who Sell Out and Backtrack 14: The Ox is a collection of Who songs all written by John Entwistle.

1970, Led Zeppelin III was released in the UK on Atlantic records. The album peaked at No.1 on both the UK and US charts. It has now been certified 6 times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for US sales in excess of 6 million copies.

1970, The Grateful Dead played the first of four days at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York.

1971, Elvis Presley kicked off a 15-date North American tour at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Minneapolis. Announcer Al Dvorin uttered the well known phrase, “Elvis has left the building” at the end of the show. He was asked to make the announcement in an effort to quiet the fans who continued to call for an encore.

1971, Pink Floyd appear at Assembly Hall, Hunter College, New York.

1971, Yes performed at the Whiskey A Go-Go, Los Angeles.

1972, Roxy Music appear at Top Rank, Birmingham, England.

1973, Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance played their first gig in a circus tent on Clapham Common, London.

1973, King Crimson performed at Rhine Halle, Düsseldorf, Germany.

1973, The wear on The Who caused by the complicated Quadrophenia material explodes into violence on stage. At the performance at the Odeon Theatre in Newcastle, Pete loses it during “5:15” when the tapes come in too slow. He attacks road manager Bobby Pridden, drags him over the soundboard, starts ripping up the tapes, before announcing to the audience that he will never play live again and stalking offstage. The curtain drops only to go back up ten minutes later as The Who with Pete come back onstage and perform a set of oldies.

1974, Black Sabbath perform at Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, Australia.

1975, Rush played at The Rafters, Battle Creek, Michigan.

1977, The manager of the Virgin record store in Nottingham, England was arrested for displaying a large poster advertising the new Sex Pistols album, Never Mind The Bollock’s, Here’s The Sex Pistols. London stores banned the album after police warned they could be fined under the 1898 indecent advertising act.

1978, Eric Clapton appears at Pabellon Deportivo Del Real Madrid, Madrid.

1979, Mick Jagger’s divorce from Bianca was finalized. The couple had married in St Tropez in 1971.

1979, Blue Oyster Cult played the first of four sold out nights at London”s Hammersmith Odeon.

1982, England’s Channel 4 TV’s The Tube had its first showing. Presented by Paula Yates and Jools Holland, the show featured The Jam and an interview with Mick Jagger. The first live act on the show was local band Toy Dolls. The show ran until 1987 and was named after the plexiglass tunnel which led down into Studio Five at Tyne Tees TV, the place where all the stars from the 80’s subsequently appeared.

1983, Billy Joel was at number one on the UK singles chart with “Uptown Girl,” which remained at the top of the chars for five weeks. The song was initially written about his relationship with his then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson, but it ended up also becoming about his soon-to-be wife Christie Brinkley, both women being among the most well-known supermodels of the 1980’s.

1986, Bobby Nunn of The Coasters died of heart failure in Los Angeles. He had the 1958 US number one single “Yakety Yak,” as well as the 1959 US number two and UK number six single “Charlie Brown.”

1988, “The Locomotion,” became the first song to reach the US Top five in three different versions, when Kylie Minogue’s reached number three on the US chart.  It was composed by songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and is notable for appearing in the American Top 5 three times, each  in a different decade. The first appearance was for Little Eva in 1962, followed by Grand Funk Railroad in 1974.

1994, Sheryl Crow scored her first UK Top ten single when “All I Wanna Do” entered the charts at number four. The US singer songwriter went on to become the first US female to score six UK hits off her debut album Tuesday Night Music Club.

1995, Producer Butch Vig’s new band Garbage made their US live debut when they played at The 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Vig produced Nirvana’s album Nevermind.

2000, U2 went to No.1 on the UK album chart with All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the Irish group’s 8th UK top album. Creed were at number one on the US singles chart with “With Arms Wide Open.”

2003, Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous Brothers was found dead in hotel room in Michigan, 30 minutes before he was due on stage, aged 63. The autopsy report from the Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner gave the opinion that Hatfield suffered a sudden, unexpected death due to acute cocaine toxicity. The Righteous Brothers had the 1965 UK and US number one single “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin,” and the 1990 UK number one single “Unchained Melody,” first released in 1965.

2005, Guitarist Link Wray died aged 76. Wray was credited with inventing “fuzz” guitar after punching a hole in a speaker giving him a distorted guitar sound. Famous for his 1958 US number 16 single “Rumble” which was banned on several radio stations, on the grounds that it glorified juvenile delinquency. A rare feat for a song with no lyrics.

2014, The funeral for Jack Bruce was held in London, attended by Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and noted musicians Phil Manzanera, Gary Brooker, Vernon Reid and Nitin Sawhney among others. Dozens assembled at the Golders Green Crematorium paying a last tribute singing “Morning Has Broken,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “Theme for an Imaginary Western.” The Scottish-born bass player and singer had died in October as a result of liver disease.

Born on November 6: Ike Turner (1931); Art Garfunkel (1941); Gram Parsons (1946); Peter Noone (1947); Peter Hammill, singer, guitar, keyboards, Van Der Graff Generator (1948); Bryan Adams (1959) and Jonny Greenwood, guitar, keyboards, Radiohead (1971); and Ryan Adams, singer, songwriter (1974)

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Today in Rock History – November 3

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1967, The filming for The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour was completed finishing with a sequence at Ringo’s country house in Weybridge, Surrey, BBC television bought the rights to broadcast the film twice, the first broadcast, in black-and-white was scheduled for December 26, 1967. The second showing, on the color channel BBC2, was not yet available to all Britons, was set for January 5, 1968.

1968, The Doors played at the Chicago Stadium, Chicago.

1969, King Crimson appeared at the Boston Tea Party, Boston.

1971, Pink Floyd appeared at the Central Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey.

1972, Carly Simon and James Taylor married in Manhattan. They had two children, and divorced in 1983.

1973, Neil Young supported by The Eagles appeared at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, England.

1973, Genesis performed at Massey Hall, Toronto, Ontario.

1973, David Bowie scored his second UK number one album when Pinups started a five-week run at the top of the charts. The set contained Bowie covering his favorite ’60s songs. His version of The Mersey’s “Sorrow” reached number three on the UK singles chart.

1974, KISS performed at the Duluth Arena, Duluth, Minnesota.

1975, The Who appeared at Messehalle, Stuttgart, Germany.

1977, During a concert at the Empire Pool, Wembley, London, Elton John announced his retirement from live performances.

1977, Robin Trower played at the Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland.

1978, Aerosmith appeared at the University Of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio.

1979, One hit wonder M went to number one on the US singles chart with “Pop Muzik.” M was Robin Scott who scored one other UK top 40 hit, “Pop Muzik’ made it to second on the UK singles charts.

1979, The Eagles started a nine-week run at number one on the album chart with The Long Run, the group’s fourth chart topping album.

1982, Devo bring their video-synchronized concert experience to Minneapolis. This involves the band performing in front of a giant screen on which are projected films and lyrics. The robotic band also interacts with the clips.

1983, RCA records signed Latin teen sensations Menudo for $30 million (£18.75 million). The line up of five young boys all had to sign a contract agreeing to leave the group when they reached 16, when too old for the group. Ricky Martin was once a member.

1984, The Grateful Dead played at the Berkeley Community Theater in Berkeley, California.

1984, Paul McCartney went to number one on the UK album chart with the film soundtrack to Give My Regards To Broad Street, featuring the UK number two single “No More Lonely Nights.”

1987, David Bowie played the first of eight sold out nights at The Entertainment Centre, Sydney, Australia. The shows were part of the Glass Spider world tour.

1990, 25 years after their version was recorded, The Righteous Brothers went to number one on the UK singles chart with “Unchained Melody.” The track had been featured in the Patrick Swayze film Ghost. The song was written by Alex North and Hy Zaret, and is one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, with over 500 versions in hundreds of different languages.

1990, “Ice Ice Baby,” by Vanilla Ice became the first rap record to top the US singles chart, and later it was also a UK chart topper. The track was initially released as the B-side to the rapper’s cover of “Play That Funky Music,” and became the A-side after US DJ’s started playing the track.

1991, A free concert was held in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to honor the memory of promoter Bill Graham, who was killed in a helicopter crash the week before. An estimated 300,000 people attended to view many of the entertainment acts Graham had supported including Santana, the Grateful Dead, John Fogerty, Robin Williams, Journey (reunited), and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (reunited).

1992, Bon Jovi released their fifth studio album, Keep The Faith, which spent a total of 49 weeks on the US chart. The album produced three Top Forty hits, “Keep The Faith,” “Bed of Roses,” and “In These Arms.”

1995, Hootie and the Blowfish reached an out of court settlement with Bob Dylan for the group’s unauthorized use of Dylan’s lyrics in their song “Only Want To Be With You.”

2002, Lonnie Donegan, died midway through a UK tour, and shortly before he was due to perform at a memorial concert for George Harrison with The Rolling Stones. He was aged 71. Donegan, who launched the skiffle craze in the UK had the 1959 hit “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour,” the 1960 UK number one single “My Old Man’s A Dustman,” “Rock Island Line,” plus over 30 other UK Top Forty singles.

Born on November 3: Brian Poole, vocals, The Tremeloes (1941); Nick Simper, Deep Purple (1946); Tommy Dee, John Fred and His Playboy Band (1946); Joe Lala, actor, drummer, Blues Image, Manassas (1947); Lulu (1948); Adam Ant (1954); Steven Wilson, singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, Porcupine Tree (1967); Mick Thomson, guitarist, Slipknot (1973)

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Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Little Latin Lupe Lu” by The Righteous Brothers

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Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield were best known for their smooth blue-eyed soulful sounds as The Righteous Brothers performing heartfelt ballads. But they could rock out too as evidenced by this Bill Medley original that was not only a hit for them (#47/1963) but also The Kingsmen (#49/1964) and Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels (#17/1966). It was also a regional hit for the Minneapolis garage group The Chancellors in 1964, who for my money had the best version of all. (http://youtu.be/zK57Dz4KsK0). And nothing could top a sweaty Bruce Springsteen fronting the E Street Band on the 1977 “Darkness” tour encoring with this song. (http://youtu.be/bmDqLjwrmZ8)