Rock History March 21
1965, The Who appeared at the Trade Union Hall, Watford, England.
1965, After “I Want To Hold Your Hand” had held the number one position on the US singles chart for seven weeks, The Beatles started a two-week run at the top of the charts with “She Loves You.”
1967, Jimi Hendrix performed at Speakeasy in London.
1970, Pink Floyd played the last date of their March European Tour at the Tivolis Koncertsal in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1970, The Beatles “Let It Be” debuts at number six on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest ever new entry. In the UK, the Beatles’ “Let It Be” is kept from the top position by “Wand’rin’ Star,” the only single ever to feature the vocals of actor Lee Marvin.
1971, Led Zeppelin appeared at the Boat Club, Nottingham, England on their Back To The Clubs tour. This was the first tour which saw Zeppelin performing “Stairway To Heaven,” “Black Dog,” and “Going To California.” Zeppelin opened the set with “Immigrant Song” and “Heartbreaker.” This small club on the banks of the River Trent had also seen performances by Elton John, Black Sabbath, Sex Pistols and Rod Stewart.
1972, The Grateful Dead played the first of seven nights at the Academy of Music in New York City, New York.
1973, The BBC banned all teenybopper acts appearing on UK TV show, Top Of The Pops after a riot following a David Cassidy performance.
1974, Yes appeared at the Sports Arena, San Diego, California.
1975, Led Zeppelin played at the Seattle Center Coliseum in Seattle, Washington. Two people were arrested for scalping the $7.50 face value tickets for as much as $20.
1976, Iggy Pop and David Bowie were involved in a drug bust at their hotel room in Rochester, New York.
1977, The Eagles performed at the Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland.
1978, Dire Straits played at The Marquee Club in London, England. Tickets priced at 70p.
1980, Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers was sent to Pentonville Prison after losing his appeal against a drug conviction.
1981, REO Speedwagon went to number one on the US singles chart with “Keep On Loving You.” It was the group’s first top forty hit and first chart topper. In the UK, it climbed to the seventh spot in the charts.
1983, Pink Floyd release The Final Cut in the UK, their last album with Roger Waters. The US release is slated for April 2nd.
1984, Strawberry Fields, an area in Central Park bought by Yoko Ono in memory of her late husband was opened.
1985, Bruce Springsteen kicked off the second leg of his Born in the USA world tour at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, Sydney, Australia.
1987, U2 scored their third UK number one album with The Joshua Tree, featuring the singles “Where The Streets Have No Name,” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” The album became the fastest selling in UK history and the first album to sell over a million CDs, spending a total of 156 weeks on the UK chart. Also a US number one.
2006, Three South African women whose father, Solomon Linda, wrote “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in 1939, won a six-year court battle that gave them 25 per cent of all past and future royalties from the song. Linda who was a cleaner at a Johannesburg record company when he wrote the song, received virtually nothing for his work and died in 1962 with $25 in his bank account. The song had been recorded by Pete Seeger (as “Wimoweh,”) The Kingston Trio, The Tokens, Karl Denver and R.E.M. and was featured in the Disney film The Lion King. It was estimated that the song had earned $15 million for its use in The Lion King alone.
Born on March 21: Viv Stanshall, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (1943); Rosemary Stone, Sly & the Family Stone (1945); Roger Hodgson, Supertramp (1950); and Conrad Lozano, Los Lobos; Russell Thompkins Jr, vocals, The Stylistics (1951); Sean Dickson, The Soup Dragons (1967)
Link to Today in Rock History main page.
Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Dire Straits, Iggy Pop, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, REO Speedwagon, The Beatles, The Eagles, The Grateful Dead, The Stranglers, The Who, Yes, Yoko Ono.
