Rock History August 3
1966, The Rolling Stones spend nine days recording for their next album at Los Angeles, RCA Studios, Hollywood, USA. Tracks recorded included: “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?” “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” “My Obsession,” “Yesterday’s Papers,” and “Back Street Girl.”
1967, The Jimi Hendrix Experience played the first of five nights at the Salvation Club in New York City.
1967, To promote Ravi Shankar’s Hollywood Bowl concert on August 4, George Harrison joins the sitar player at his news conference.
1967, The Who appeared at Dane County Memorial Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin.
1968, The Doors started a two-week run at number one on the US singles chart with “Hello I Love You.” The song replaced “Grazing in the Grass”by Hugh Masakela at the top spot. The Doors had eight top 40 hits from 1967-71.
1968, The two day Newport Pop Festival took place in Costa Mesa, California with Alice Cooper, Canned Heat, Chambers Brothers, Charles Lloyd Quartet, Country Joe and the Fish, Electric Flag, James Cotton Blues Band, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sonny & Cher, Steppenwolf, and Tiny Tim. Over 100,000 fans attended the festival.
1969, Janis Joplin sings with Little Richard at the Atlantic City Pop Festival.
1969, The Beach Boys’ Carl Wilson is busted. He had agreed to serve civilian duty instead of being drafted into the Army, but when he arrived at Los Angeles County Hospital to do his bit, he taught music classes instead of acting as an institutional helper.
1971, Paul McCartney announced the formation of his new group Wings, with his wife Linda and former Moody Blues guitarist and singer Denny Laine.
1971, The Who play The Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1973, Stevie Wonder released his sixteenth studio album Innervisions. Wonder played all or virtually all instruments on six of the album’s nine tracks.
1973, ABC’s In Concert, broadcast an Eagles show from UCLA.
1974, Anne Murray appeared at The Schaefer Festival in New York as the headlining act. The opening act was Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
1974, Bad Company went to number one on the US album chart with their self-titled debut album. The supergroup was formed in Westminster, London in 1973 by two former members of Free, singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirk, as well as Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell.
1974, KISS performed at the Convention Center, Indianapolis, Indiana.
1975, Black Sabbath appeared at the Providence Civic Center, Providence, Rhode Island.
1976, Eric Clapton played at the ABC Theatre, Plymouth, England.
1977, The Steve Miller Band headlined at the Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland.
1978, Aerosmith appeared at Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, Wisconsin.
1979, The Knack album Get the Knack and the single “My Sharona” both go to number one.
1980, The Allman Brothers Band played at the Starlight Bowl, San Diego, California.
1985, Madonna scored her first UK number one single with “Into The Groove.” The track was taken from the movie Desperately Seeking Susan which featured Madonna and Rosanna Arquette.
1985, Tears For Fears started a three week run at number one on the US singles chart with “Shout,” the duo’s second US chart topper.
1987, Def Leppard released their fourth studio album Hysteria which became their best selling album to date, selling over 20 million copies worldwide. The album is the follow-up to the band’s 1983 breakthrough Pyromania. Hysteria’s creation took over three years and was plagued by delays, including the aftermath of the December 1984 car accident that cost drummer Rick Allen his left arm.
1996, Los Del Rio started a fourteen-week run at number one on the US singles chart with “Macarena.” The song which has sold 11 million copies world-wide was ranked the top Greatest One Hit Wonder of all Time by VH1 in 2002.
2001, Co-founder of the American group 5th Dimension, Ron Townson died of kidney failure aged 68.
2006, Arthur Lee, singer and guitarist of the influential 1960’s band Love died in Memphis at the age of 61 following a battle with acute myeloid leukemia. He called himself the “first black hippie” and formed Love in Los Angeles in 1965.
2007, Queen guitarist Brian May handed in his astronomy PhD thesis, 36 years after abandoning it to join the band. May had recently carried out observational work in Tenerife, where he studied the formation of “zodiacal dust clouds.”
2008, Kid Rock was at number one on the UK singles chart with “All Summer Long.” The song is based on Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” It reached number 23 in the Billboard Hot 100.
Born on August 3: Tony Bennett (1926); Beverly Lee, The Shirelles (1941); John York, bass player, songwriter, and producer, The Byrds, Sir Douglas Quintet (1943); B. B. Dickerson, bass, War (1949); John Graham, Earth Wind & Fire (1951); Ian Bairnson, sax, keyboards, The Alan Parsons Project, Pilot (1953); James Hetfield, guitar, vocals, Metallica (1963); Ed Roland, singer, guitarist, Collective Soul (1963)
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Alice Cooper, Athur Lee, Bad Company, Canned Heat, Def Leppard, George Harrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Madonna, Paul McCartney, The Beach Boys, The Doors, The Knack, The Rolling Stones.
