“The trees kept getting closer, they kept getting bigger. Then there was a sound like someone hitting the outside of the plane with hundreds of baseball bats.”
~Billy Powell
Lynyrd Skynyrd

ROCK & ROLL HISTORY

1955 – Harry Belafonte recorded Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) at The Grand Ballroom of Webster Hall in New York City.
The traditional Jamaican folk song, released in 1956 and originally titled Banana Boat (Day-O), reached #5 on the Billboard charts and became Belafonte’s signature song.

1963 – The Beach Boys recorded Little Saint Nick at Western Studio in Hollywood.
The song was released as a single on December 9 and peaked at #3 on Billboard’s special seasonal weekly Christmas Singles chart. The B-side, an a cappella version of The Lord’s Prayer was also recorded on this date.

1964 – Beatles manager Brian Epstein made his only venture into record production when he produced America for Rory Storm & The Hurricanes at IBC Studios.
Epstein and Ringo Starr – who left the Hurricanes in 1962 to join The Beatles – sang backing vocals on the single which failed to hit the UK charts.

1965 – The Beatles recorded We Can Work It Out at EMI’s Studio Two in London.
Released in December with Day Tripper on the flip side, We Can Work It Out reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1969 – The Rolling Stones recorded the vocals for Gimme Shelter at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles. The song would become the opening track on their Let It Bleed album.
“It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit,” Mick Jagger later recalled. “It was a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War, violence on the screens, pillage and burning.”
The recording featured guest vocals by Merry Clayton, recorded at a last-minute late-night recording session during the mixing phase. Her performance, one of the most famous in rock history, turned the recording into something Jagger described as “a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse.”
It is my favorite Rolling Stones song…

1969 – The Plastic Ono Band (John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann and Ringo Starr) released Cold Turkey in the U.S.
It was the first song Lennon wrote for which he took sole credit; his previous compositions were attributed to the Lennon/McCartney partnership.
Lennon had offered the song to The Beatles as a potential single but it was flatly rejected.
The single peaked at #30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #14 on the UK Singles Chart.

1977 – Following a performance in Greenville, SC, the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd boarded a chartered Convair CV-240 bound for Baton Rouge, LA.
After running out of fuel, the pilots attempted an emergency landing but crashed in a heavily forested area five miles northeast of Gillsburg, MS.
Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines, along with backup singer Cassie Gaines (Steve’s older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray were killed on impact.
Other band members, tour manager Ron Eckerman, and several road crew members suffered serious injuries.


2011 – Barry Feinstein died at the age of 80 following a short illness.
Feinstein shot the album cover photos for Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’, The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet, The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man, Janis Joplin’s Pearl, and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.

2015 – Cory Wells died at the age of 74 after a prolonged battle with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer.
One of the three lead vocalists with Three Dog Night, Wells sang lead on Eli’s Coming, Mama Told Me (Not To Come), Try A Little Tenderness, Shambala and Never Been To Spain.

MOVIE/TV HISTORY


1955 – No Time For Sergeants opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre.
The play starred Andy Griffith, Roddy McDowell, Myron McCormick and Don Knotts (making his Broadway debut). Griffith was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor. The play ran for a total of 796 performances.
The success of the play led to a 1958 film version which was a major hit and largely responsible for launching the careers of Griffith and Knotts.

1994 – Burt Lancaster died at the age of 80 after suffering a heart attack.
Nominated four times for Best Actor Academy Awards (winning for Elmer Gantry), Lancaster’s collection of film credits was amazing. Here are just a few…
From Here To Eternity, Judgment At Nuremberg, Birdman of Alcatraz, Gunfight at The O.K. Corral, The Rainmaker, Seven Days In May, Atlantic City and Field of Dreams, his final film role.


1998 – The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride had its world premiere at the Wadsworth Theater in Los Angeles, and then went direct-to-video a week later.
The sequel to 1994’s The Lion King, it remains one of the top-selling direct-to-video releases of all time, with $480 million worldwide in sales and rentals.


2006 – Actress Jane Wyatt died at the age of 96.
She appeared in over 50 films, including most notably Lost Horizon, but is best remembered for her role as Margaret Anderson on Father Knows Best, for which she earned three Emmy Awards as Best Actress in a Comedy Series.
Marriage Factoid: Wyatt was married to investment broker Edgar Bethune Ward from November 9, 1935, until his death on November 8, 2000, just one day short of the couple’s 65th wedding anniversary.

SPORTS HISTORY

2004 – The Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees 10-3 in Game 7 of the Major League Baseball’s American League Championship Series.
With the victory, the Red Sox became the first (and so far only) team in MLB history to come back from a three-game deficit to win a championship series.
The Red Sox gathered in Yankee Stadium’s visitors’ clubhouse prior to Game 7 to watch Miracle, the movie chronicling the 1980 U.S. men’s gold-medal hockey team.
The Yankees meanwhile, had Bucky Dent, the hero of the Yankees’ one-game playoff against Boston in 1978, throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
Boston went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, winning their first World Series championship in 86 years.

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2005-2020 RayLemire.com / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.