Rock History November 25
1966, Jimi Hendrix is introduced to the British press when The Experience play London’s Bag O’Nails club.
1967, The Who play the first of two nights at The Village Theatre in New York City. The Vagrants, with guitarist Leslie West, and The Rich Kids open for them.
1967, Spirit, Country Joe & the Fish, and Moby Grape perform at the Terrace Ballroom in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1968, Yes plays at the Revolution Club, London.
1969, The Rolling Stones appeared at The Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1969, John Lennon returned his MBE to The Queen on the grounds of the UK’s involvement in the Nigeria Biafra war, America in Vietnam, and against his latest single “Cold Turkey” slipping down the charts.
1970, The Allman Brothers Band appears at the National Guard Armory, Birmingham, Alabama.
1970, Pink Floyd performed at Friedrich Ebert Halle, Ludwigshafen, Germany.
1971, The Doors announce they will carry on, even without Jim Morrison, who died earlier in the year.
1972, Chuck Berry was at number one on the UK singles chart with “My Ding a-Ling,” his only UK chart topper.
1972, London’s Rainbow Theater cancels the premiere of Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii after the theater owner and the promoter could not come to terms.
1973, The Grateful Dead perform at Feyline Field in Tempe, Arizona.
1974, UK singer, songwriter Nick Drake died in his sleep aged 26 of an overdose of tryptasol, an anti-depressant drug. Drake signed to Island Records when he was twenty years old, recorded the classic 1972 album Pink Moon. In 2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television advertisement, and within a month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous thirty years.
1974, Genesis played at Allen Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio.
1975, The Who perform at the Murphy Centre, on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
1976, The Band made their final performance as The Last Waltz. The show also featured Joni Mitchell, Dr John, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton and others. Martin Scorsese filmed the event.
1977, Aerosmith played at the Aladdin Theatre in Las Vegas.
1978, The Police appeared at The Electric Ballroom in London, England.
1978, Eric Clapton played at City Hall, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England.
1979, Fleetwood Mac performs at the Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland.
1979, ZZ Top appeared at Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee.
1980, Black Sabbath plays at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney, Australia.
1981, The Allman Brothers Band appeared at the Jefferson Coliseum, Birmingham, Alabama.
1984, The cream of the British pop world gathered at S.A.R.M. Studios, London to record the historic “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The single, which was written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, featured Paul Young, Bono, Boy George, Sting and George Michael. It went on to sell over three million copies in the UK, becoming the bestselling record ever, and raised over £8 million ($13.6 million) worldwide.
1992, The Bodyguard, opened nation-wide featuring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. The film which was Houston’s acting debut was written by Lawrence Kasdan in the 1970s, originally as a vehicle for Steve McQueen and Diana Ross. It became the second-highest-grossing film worldwide in 1992 with the soundtrack becoming the best-selling soundtrack of all time, selling more than 42 million copies.
1993, Pete’s Townshend’s musical version of Hughes’ children’s’ story The Iron Man opens in London for a short run. David Thacker is the Production Director, while Anthony Castro serves as the Music Director.
1996, A statue in Montreux, Switzerland by sculptor Irena Sedlecka was erected as a tribute to Freddie Mercury. It was unveiled by Freddie’s father and Montserrat Caballé, with bandmates Brian May and Roger Taylor also in attendance. The statue stands almost 10 feet (3m) high overlooking Lake Geneva.
2001, American country music artist Garth Brooks went to number one on the US album chart with his ninth studio album Scarecrow, the last album by Brooks before his ten-year hiatus.
2007, Kevin Dubrow, the frontman with metal band Quiet Riot, was found dead in his Las Vegas home at the age of 52. Their 1983 release Metal Health was the first metal album to top the US charts. The band’s biggest hit was “Cum on Feel the Noize,” a cover of the Slade song which they are said to have grudgingly recorded in just one take.
2011, Don DeVito, a longtime Columbia Records executive who produced the key Bob Dylan albums Blood on the Tracks and Desire, died aged 72 after a sixteen-year battle with prostate cancer. DeVito had also worked with artists including Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Aerosmith. DeVito started off as a guitarist touring for Al Kooper, and had his own band, The Sabres, which later broke up mid-tour. According to Columbia, DeVito was stranded in Fort Smith, Arkansas, when he happened to meet Johnny Cash and developed what would become a lifelong friendship. Cash would later introduce DeVito to Dylan.
2012, Earl “Speedo” Carroll, lead vocalist for the doo-wop group The Cadillacs, died in a nursing home in New York at the age of 75, following a stroke.. The group’s biggest hit was “Speedoo,” Carroll’s subsequent nickname. It was released in 1955. Carroll also had diabetes.
Born on November 25: Percy Sledge (1940); Bev Bevan, drummer The Move, Electric Light Orchestra (1950); Steve Rothery, guitar, Marillion (1959); Amy Grant (1960); Mark Lanegan, Screaming Trees, The Gutter Twins (1964); Rodney Sheppard, guitar, Sugar Ray (1967)
Link to Today in Rock History archive.
Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Bob Geldof, Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Moby Grape, Nick Drake, Spirit, The Allman Brothers Band, The Band, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, The Police, The Who, Whitney Houston, Yes, ZZ Top.
