January 13th in Rock & Roll History
The late Robert ‘Squirrel’ Lester (The Moonglows – ‘Sincerely’) was born in 1930
Trace Adkins (‘Ladies Love Country Boys’) is 53
Jonn Savannah (born Don Snow – keyboards with Squeeze – ‘When The Hangover Strikes’) is 58
Trevor Rabin (guitarist with Yes – ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’) is 61
Carl Dobkins, Jr. (‘My Heart Is An Open Book’) is 74
Elvis Presley recorded ‘Peace In The Valley’, ‘That’s When Your Heartaches Begin’, ‘Mean Woman Blues’ and ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’—1957
Little Richard released ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’ / ‘Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey’—1958
Rock Factoid: Little Richard later admitted he took the music from Ike Turner’s piano intro to Jackie Brenston’s influential ‘Rocket 88’, and used it for ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’. “I always liked that record and I used to use the riff in my act, so when we were looking for a lead-in to ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’, I did that and it fit.”
Chubby Checker topped the U.S. singles charts with ‘The Twist’ – for a second time—1962
Rock Factoid: The song was written and originally released in 1959 by Hank Ballard (with his group, The Midnighters) as a B-side to ‘Teardrops on Your Letter’, but was a minor hit. Checker’s version first went to #1 on Sept. 19, 1960 and when it hit the top of the singles chart again on this date in 1962, it became the only record in American chart history to top the chart on two separate occasions.
Columbia Records released Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ album—1964
The Beach Boys recorded ‘Good To My Baby’, ‘In The Back Of My Mind’ and ‘Bull Session With The Big Daddy’—1965
The Rolling Stones released ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ / ‘Ruby Tuesday’—1967
Rock Factoid: The A-side peaked at #3 in the UK but stalled at #55 in the U.S. ‘Ruby Tuesday’ went to #1 in America.
Backed by opening acts The Statler Brothers and Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash – with June Carter and the Tennessee Three behind him – performed two shows at Folsom State Prison in California. The resulting album (‘At Folsom Prison’) consisted of fifteen tracks from the first show and two tracks from the second—1968
The Beatles released the soundtrack album for ‘Yellow Submarine’ in the U.S.—1969
Rock Factoid: The album included six songs by the group and seven orchestral pieces by George Martin. Originally, the four new Beatles songs on the album – ‘Only A Northern Song’, ‘All Together Now’, ‘Hey Bulldog’ and ‘It’s All Too Much’ – were to have been issued as an EP. This was deemed unsuitable for the U.S. market, however, so the full-length album was created.
The Police began recording their debut album, ‘Outlandos d’Amour’ at Surrey Sound Studios in London—1978
The YMCA organization sued the Village People for copyright infringement over their song of the same name. The suit was eventually dropped—1979
Donny Hathaway (‘Where Is The Love’ with Roberta Flack) fell to his death from the 15th floor of a New York hotel room (ruled a suicide, though evidence suggested it was accidental)—1979
The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, The Beach Boys, Santana and Joan Baez performed a benefit concert for the people of Kampuchea at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, CA—1980
Sex Pistols members John Lydon, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and the mother of late bassist Sid Vicious, filed a lawsuit against former manager Malcolm McLaren for $1.7 million. The suit would later be settled out of court—1986
A Manhattan grand jury indicted Sean “Puffy” Combs on charges of criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degree, for having two loaded 9- millimeter handguns in his possession. The charges stemmed from a Dec. 27, 1999, incident in which weapons were found in the rap mogul’s vehicle, following a shooting at a New York nightclub in which three were injured—2000
Suspecting he was in possession of child pornography, British police confiscated computers belonging to The Who’s Pete Townshend—2003
Rock Factoid: After a four-month forensic investigation confirmed no evidence of child abuse images, the police offered a “caution” rather than pressing charges.
The National Football League rejected Bono’s request to allow U2 to perform ‘An American Prayer’ during the Super Bowl halftime show as part of an effort to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic in Africa—2004
Doyle Holly (bass guitar with Buck Owens’ Buckaroos – ‘Act Naturally’) died (prostate cancer)—2007
Michael Brecker (acclaimed tenor saxophonist who won 11 Grammys over a career that spanned nearly four decades, including many years as a session man backing the likes of Frank Zappa, Simon & Garfunkel, John Lennon, Billy Joel and Elton John) died (leukemia)—2007
Teddy Pendergrass (lead singer with Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes – ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’) died (respiratory failure)—2010
Tommy Crain (guitarist with The Charlie Daniels Band – ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’) died (natural causes)—2011
Alex Kirst (drummer with Iggy Pop – ‘Whatever’ and later with The Nymphs – ‘Imitating Angels’) died (hit-and-run accident)—2011
Freddie ‘Fingers’ Lee (boogie-woogie pianist – ‘Break Up’ as a solo artist, and toured and/or recorded with Screaming Lord Sutch, Ritchie Blackmore, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Eden Kane, Jerry Lee Lewis, Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, The Crickets and Gene Vincent) died (pneumonia)—2014
Ronny Jordan (jazz guitarist – ‘The Jackal) died (cause unknown)—2014
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