Yearly Archive: 2016

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.
~Charlie Parker

1930 – The late Johnny Grande (piano with Bill Haley and His Comets – ‘Rock Around The Clock’) was born.

1948 – The late Tim Harris (drummer with The Foundations – ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’) was born.

1955 – Alan Freed’s first New York stage show (at Harlem’s Saint Nicholas Arena) included The Clovers, The Drifters and Fats Domino.

1963 – Charlie Watts made his debut as the official drummer for The Rolling Stones at the Flamingo Jazz Club in Soho, outside of London.

1965 – Bob Dylan recorded ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’, ‘Outlaw Blues’, ‘She Belongs To Me’, and ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’

1966 – Singer David Jones changed his stage name from Davie Jones to David Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees.

1966 – Chris Farlowe released the Jagger-Richards written ”Think’.

1967 – In an interview with NME, British pop legend Cliff Richard announced he was retiring from show business to teach religious education in schools. (He never did).

1967 – Twenty thousand attended the ‘Human Be-In’ at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California.

1969 – The Monterey Pop film opened in Los Angeles.

1969 – Dave Grohl (drummer with Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and guitarist/lead singer with The Foo Fighters – ‘Learn To Fly’) was born. He’s 47 today.

1969 – The Beatles, still minus George Harrison, rehearsed (and recorded) two songs they would never release; ‘Madman’ and ‘Watching Rainbows’ (which featured John Lennon, in an eerily prophetic moment, murmuring “shoot me” several times throughout the song).

1969 – The curtain closed for good on Diana Ross & The Supremes at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.
Rock Factoid: The farewell concert was the final act in a drawn-out breakup that didn’t become official until November 1969, but became inevitable in July 1967, when Motown Records chief Berry Gordy gave Diana Ross top billing over the Supremes.

1969 – John Lennon’s erotic ‘Bag One’ lithographs went on display in London.

1971 – The Temptations released ‘Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)’.
Rock Factoid: It was the final Temptations single to feature founding members Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams. During the process of recording and releasing the single, Kendricks left the group to begin a solo career, while the ailing Williams was forced to retire from the act for health reasons.

1973 – Elvis Presley drew the largest audience for a single TV show to that time – an estimated one billion viewers in 40 countries.
Rock Factoid: Elvis – Aloha From Hawaii was beamed live via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, and was seen on a delayed basis in approximately 30 European countries. The first American airing was April 4th on NBC. The show was also released as a two-record album, and became one of Presley’s top-selling albums.

1984 – Paul McCartney reached #1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Pipes Of Peace’.
Rock Factoid: It made McCartney the first artist to reach the top of the charts as a member of a quartet (Beatles), a trio (with Wings), a duo (with Stevie Wonder), and as a solo artist.

1992 –Jerry Nolan (drummer with The New York Dolls – ‘Personality Crisis’) died at the age of 45. While being treated for bacterial meningitis and bacterial pneumonia, he suffered a stroke and went into a coma from which he never recovered).

2000 –Melissa Etheridge revealed to Rolling Stone magazine that David Crosby was the surrogate father of her two children with partner Julie Cypher.

2010 –Bobby Charles (songwriter – ‘Walking To New Orleans’ (Fats Domino), ‘See You Later Alligator’ (Bill Haley and His Comets) and ‘ (I Don’t Know Why) But I Do’ (Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry) died of cancer at the age of 71.

2011 –Trish Keenan (member of Broadcast – ‘Before We Begin’) died from pneumonia shortly after she contracted swine flu while touring in Australia. She was 42.

2012 –Robbie France (drummer with UFO – ‘Dream The Dream’ and Wishbone Ash – ‘Standing In The Rain’) died of a ruptured aorta. He was 52.

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2016 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.