10/16 Entertainment History

“I was alone when I made the arrangements, I was alone when I added background vocals, guitars and some other stuff. I was alone when I produced and mixed the albums. The other guys showed up only for rehearsals and the days we made the actual recordings. So finally the bomb exploded and we never worked together again.”
~John Fogerty
Discussing Creedence Clearwater Revival Split

ROCK & ROLL HISTORY

1951 – Johnnie Ray, with The Four Lads backing him, recorded Cry. The song would become a #1 hit on the Billboard charts.

1951 – Little Richard recorded for the first time, laying down tracks at Atlanta radio station WGST. Four singles from the session were released the next year and though none of them charted nationally, Every Hour was a regional hit in Georgia.

1961 – Decca records released Crazy by Patsy Cline. The single, composed by Willie Nelson, reached #2 on the Billboard Country chart and #9 on the Billboard hot 100.
Nelson originally wrote the song for country singer Billy Walker, but Walker turned it down because he thought it was “a girl’s song.”
Another Cline/Walker Connection: After performing at a charity concert in Kansas City, Kansas on March 3, 1963, Walker received a phone call to return to Nashville. Fellow performer Hawkshaw Hawkins gave Walker his commercial airline ticket and instead flew back to Tennessee on March 5 on a private plane which crashed, killing Cline, Cowboy Copas and pilot Randy Hughes.

1965 – The Beatles recorded Day Tripper with John Lennon playing lead guitar on the solo. The single peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1968 – Jay & The Americans recorded This Magic Moment at O.D.O. Recorders in New York City.
The Drifters had taken the song to #16 in 1961. Jay & The Americans’ version peaked at #6.

1968 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney worked out the running order of The Beatles (better known as the White Album.
Producer George Martin urged them to cut the material down to one album’s worth of songs, thinking that the project included tracks of “dubious quality,” but Lennon and McCartney – George and Ringo were both out of town – insisted on releasing 30 completed songs (after dropping Not Guilty and What’s The New Mary Jane).

1969 – Diana Ross & The Supremes released Someday We’ll Be Together. The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week in December.
Although it was released as the final Supremes song featuring Ross, Supremes members Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong did not sing on the recording. The backing vocals featured Merry Clayton, Patrice Holloway, Maxine Waters, and Julia Waters.

1972 – Creedence Clearwater Revival announced they were splitting up.
The band’s final album, Mardi Gras, released in April 1972, was a critical failure. Rolling Stone reviewer Jon Landau deemed it “the worst album I have ever heard from a major rock band.”
The deteriorating relationship between John Fogerty and the band’s other two members (Stu Cook and Doug Clifford … Tom Fogerty had left a year earlier) turned into one of the nastiest splits in rock history.

1986 – Chuck Berry’s 60th birthday bash (held two days before his actual birthday) took place at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis with a tribute concert featuring Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Robert Cray, Julian Lennon, Linda Ronstadt and Etta James.
Footage was shot for the 1987 documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll.

1992 – Two weeks after tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live (as shown above), a defiant Sinéad O’Connor was booed off the stage at a show honoring Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
She was initially greeted with a mixture of cheers and jeers, but when the jeers became louder, O’Connor dropped her scheduled performance of Dylan’s I Believe In You and then screamed an improvised, shouted rendition of War.

2014 – Tim Hauser, who led The Manhattan Transfer to four Billboard Top 40 hits, including Boy From New York City in 1981, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 72.

MOVIE/TV HISTORY

1923 – Walt and Roy Disney formed Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. Their first office was in the back of a real estate office (now a copy store) on Kingswell Avenue in Los Feliz, CA.
The company name was changed to the Walt Disney Studio in 1926 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929.

2007 – Actress Deborah Kerr died from the effects of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 86.
She was a six-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actress – including From Here To Eternity and The King And I – but never won.

2010 – Actress Barbara Billingsley, best-known for her role as June Cleaver in the television series Leave It To Beaver, died at the age of 94.

SPORTS HISTORY

1968 – During their medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two African-American athletes, each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.
While on the podium, Smith and Carlos, who had won gold and bronze medals respectively in the 200-meter running event, turned to face the American flag and kept their hands raised until the anthem had finished.

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