10/23 Entertainment History

“I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about American music, but I’d missed out on an entire area. I now know that American music is a total panorama.”
~Robert Plant
Discussing ‘Raising Sand’ album

ROCK & ROLL HISTORY

1954 – Elvis Presley’s second Sun single, Blue Moon Of Kentucky, charted in Nashville and New Orleans, becoming his first chart hit outside of his native Memphis.

1966 – The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded Hey Joe at the De Lane Lea Studios in London.
Released in England in December 1966, Hendrix’s version peaked at #6. The single was released in the United States on May 1, 1967, but failed to chart.
Although the song has been recorded by hundreds of bands, The Leaves’ 1966 version peaked at #31 and is notable for being the only recording of the song to reach the Top 40 of the Billboard chart.

1966 – Glen Campbell released By The Time I Get To Phoenix.
The song which was written by Jimmy Webb was originally recorded by Johnny Rivers for his Changes album in 1965.
Campbell’s version reached #2 on the Billboard Hot Country charts and #26 on the Hot 100 pop charts.

1980 – The day before John Lennon’s (Just Like) Starting Over was released, his future killer quit his job as a security guard and maintenance worker at a Waikiki condominium.
When he signed out, instead of the usual “Chappy,” he wrote “John Lennon” … and then crossed the name out.

1995 – Former Selena fan club president Yolanda Saldivar was convicted of murdering the Tejano star outside a Texas motel on March 31, 1995. The jury deliberated only 2 1/2 hours before handing down their guilty verdict.
Saldívar is serving a life sentence at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, TX. She will become eligible for parole on March 30, 2025

1999 – Thirty years after making his initial U.S. chart appearance with a song called Jingo, Carlos Santana had his first #1 hit with Smooth.
The song, which featured the vocals of Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty, stayed at the top for twelve weeks and remained in the Top Ten for a record setting 30 weeks.

1998 – Britney Spears released her debut single, Baby One More Time.
It became an international hit, topping the charts in 22 countries, including the U.S., England, Canada and Australia.
The video for Baby One More Time was voted by Billboard magazine to be the best music video of the 1990s, and in 2020, Rolling Stone magazine named the song as the greatest debut single of all time.
I respectfully disagree…

2007 – Raising Sand, a collaborative album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss was released.
It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart and #2 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.
It won six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year (Please Read The Letter).

MOVIE/TV HISTORY

1930 – The Mickey Mouse film The Picnic premiered in U.S. theaters.
The cartoon is notable as the first appearance of a pet dog called “Rover”, an early version of a character that was renamed “Pluto” six months later, in the April 1931 cartoon The Moose Hunt.

1941 – RKO Radio Pictures released Disney’s animated feature film Dumbo to theaters.
It cost $812,000 to produce and earned $1.4 million at the box office.

1942 – All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner were killed when it was struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, CA.
The casualties included Academy Award-winning Hollywood composer Ralph Rainger, who had co-written a number of hit songs including I Wished On The Moon, Blue Hawaii, Love In Bloom (Jack Benny’s theme song), and Thanks for the Memory (an Academy Award winner in 1938 for Best Original Song and Bob Hope’s signature song).

1950 – Entertainer Al Jolson, 64, died of a massive heart attack just weeks after returning from an exhausting 16-day, 42 performance tour entertaining GIs on active service in the Korean War.
He is best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer in 1927.

1994 – Bohemian Rhapsody, directed by Bryan Singer and starring Rami Malek in the role of Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury, premiered at Wembley Arena in London.
Filmed on a budget of $55 million, the film earned over $905 million at the box office and won four Academy Awards, including the Best Actor award for Malek.

SPORTS HISTORY

1964 – Future undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier dominated German Hans Huber for an easy points win and the Olympic heavyweight gold medal in Tokyo.
Frazier had broken his left thumb in his semi-final match against Soviet boxer Vadim Yemelyanov but told no one because he feared having to forfeit the final.

1993 – Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Joe Carter ended the World Series with a home run in an 8-6 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 6.
With the Blue Jays trailing 6-5, Carter came to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning with two on and one out. On a 2–2 count, Carter hit a three-run walk-off home run off Phillies pitcher Mitch Williams.
It was only the second time a Series has ended with a home run (the other being in 1960, when Bill Mazeroski did it for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the New York Yankees).

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