Rock History September 17
1967, The Doors were banned from The Ed Sullivan Show after Jim Morrison broke his agreement with the show’s producers. Morrison said before the performance that he wouldn’t sing the words, “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher,” from “Light My Fire” but did anyway. The Doors also performed their new single “People Are Strange.”
1967, Pink Floyd played at the Arcadia Ballroom in Cork, on the last night of an Irish tour.
1967, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Chicken Shack and Long John Baldry all appeared at the Saville Theatre in London, England.
1968, Jerry Lee Lewis performed at the Civic Center in Charleston, West Virginia.
1969, Media on both sides of the Atlantic were running stories that said Paul McCartney was dead. He was supposedly killed in a car accident in Scotland on November 9th, 1966 and that a double had been taking his place for public appearances. In fact, Paul and his girlfriend Jane Asher were on vacation in Kenya at the time.
1969, Pink Floyd played at the fabled Concertgebow in Amsterdam. This performance was part of “The Man and the Journey” tour. This was a concept piece comprised of early Floyd songs, as well as material that would be included in the upcoming releases More and Ummagumma. It also featured performance art, such as the band being served tea onstage during the performance. It is a widely available, and a popular bootleg. Also on the bill were Dream, and the Khapholous Light Show.
1970, The Who comes to the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. They gave a performance of Tommy plus some of their early hits, as encores.
1971, Led Zeppelin played the last of two nights at the Civic Center Auditorium in Honolulu, Hawaii, before heading off to Japan for five concert dates.
1971, The Allman Brothers Band performed at the Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee.
1972, Yes appears at Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Jacksonville, Florida.
1973, The Grateful Dead played at Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, New York.
1973, Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night continued it’s second run at number one, as part of a total of 29 weeks at the top.
1974, The Ramones played at CBGB in New York.
1975, Kraftwerk performs at The Dome, Brighton, England.
1976, The Sex Pistols played a gig for the inmates at Chelmsford Prison, Essex in England.
1977, Rush appeared at the Seattle Center Coliseum, Seattle, Washington.
1978, The video for Queen’s single “Bicycle Race” was filmed at Wimbledon Stadium, Wimbledon, UK. It featured 65 naked female professional models racing around the stadium’s track on bicycles, which had been hired for the day. The rental company was reported to have requested payment for all the saddles when they found out how their bikes had been used.
1978, AC/DC appear at Lehigh College, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
1979, The Who returned to Madison Square Garden in New York.
1979, Frank Zappa released Joe’s Garage, Act 1. It was the first of a three-part rock opera. Zappa described it as, “a stupid story about how the government is going to try to do away with music.”
1980, Black Sabbath performs at the Prairie Capital Convention Civic Center, Springfield, Illinois.
1981, Blue Oyster Cult appeared at the Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1982, The Grateful Dead played at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine.
1983, Paul Young scored his first number one album with his debut release No Parlez. The album returned to the top of the charts on four other occasions, spending a total of 119 weeks on the chart.
1983, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Eddie Money and Uriah Heep all appeared at Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, California.
1991, Rob Tyner, lead singer with the American hard rock band MC5, died after he suffered a heart attack in the seat of his parked car in his hometown of Berkley, Michigan. MC5, shortened from the Motor City Five, formed in Detroit, in 1965, they released their first album, Kick Out the Jams in 1969.
1991, Over four million copies of Guns N’ Roses albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II were simultaneously released for retail sale, making it the largest ship-out in pop history in the US.
2000, Paula Yates was found dead in bed from a suspected drug overdose. Yates had presented the UK music TV show The Tube during the 80’s, married Bob Geldof, and was the girlfriend of INXS singer Michael Hutchence.
2006, Justin Timberlake went to number one on the UK album chart with Futuresex / Lovesounds the singers second solo album and second chart topper.
2011, Adele went to number one on the US singles chart with “Someone Like You.” The track was also a chart topper in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom.
2011, The estate of Jimi Hendrix gave the go-ahead for another round of archival releases nearly 41 years to the day after the singer’s death. The four new products included an expanded version of his landmark Winterland concerts in 1968, a revamp of a 1972 live compilation, an upgraded DVD of his final UK festival gig, and a DVD reissue of some old talk-show appearances.
2024, American singer, songwriter, and actor JD Souther died at his home in New Mexico at age 78. He wrote and co-wrote songs recorded by Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. Souther was known for his songwriting abilities, especially in the field of country rock. He co-wrote some of the biggest hits for the Eagles, including “Best of My Love”, “Victim of Love”, “Heartache Tonight”, and “New Kid in Town”.
Born on this day: Hank Williams (1923); Bill Black, bass player, Elvis Presley (1926); Lamonte McLemore, The 5th Dimension (1939); Les Emmerson, singer-songwriter, guitarist Five Man Electrical Band (1944); Jim Hodder, drums, Steely Dan (1947); Fee Waybill, The Tubes (1950); John Penney, vocals, Neds Atomic Dustbin (1968); Jon Walker, singer-songwriter, guitarist Panic! at the Disco (1985)
Get more Today in Rock History
AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimi Hendrix, Kraftwerk, Led Zeppelin, Neil Diamond, Paul McCartney, Paul Young, Pink Floyd, Rush, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, The Sex Pistols, The Who, Yes.
