TODAY IN ROCK & ROLL HISTORY

Carrie Underwood (‘All-American Girl’) is 32

Edie Brickell (Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians – ‘What I Am’ and the wife of Paul Simon) is 49

Jeff Ament (bass guitar with Pearl Jam – ‘Jeremy’) is 52

Tom Scholz (guitarist with Boston – ‘More Than A Feeling’) is 68

Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean (‘Surf City’) is 75. Although they were unable to credit him officially (due to contractual constraints), the Beach Boys never denied that Torrence doubled the falsetto lead with Brian Wilson on ‘Barbara Ann’.

1959 – Elvis Presley released ‘I Need Your Love Tonight’ / ‘A Fool Such As I’ with advance orders of one million copies.

1960 – The first British album chart was published in ‘Record Retailer’ magazine. ‘The Explosive Freddy Cannon’ was the first #1.

1964 – The Beatles found it necessary to use another drummer on (a very tiny) part of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’.
“Because it had been spooled incorrectly, the tape had a ripple in it, resulting in the intermittent loss of treble on Ringo’s hi-hat cymbal, so (producer) George (Martin) and (engineer) Norman (Smith) took it upon themselves to make a little adjustment. Norman headed down into the studio to overdub a hastily set-up hi-hat onto a few bars of the song while I recorded him. Thanks to Norman’s considerable skills as a drummer, the repair was made quickly and seamlessly.” … Geoff Emerick, Engineer

1964 – Simon & Garfunkel recorded the acoustic version of ‘The Sounds Of Silence’.
The electric overdub – featuring four of New York’s most trusted session hands – bassist Joe Mack, guitarists Al Gorgoni and Vinnie Bell, and drummer Buddy Salzman – was added on June 15, 1965 by producer Tom Wilson who didn’t even bother telling the duo he was doing it.
By the end of the year, the revised song reached #1 on the U.S. charts. Simon and Garfunkel – who had split in late 1964 when the original version bombed – reunited as a musical act.

1964 – Filming for the Beatles’ first movie (A Hard Day’s Night) consisted of Ringo’s “solo” sequence at The Turks Head pub on Winchester Rd.,Twickenham, Middlesex. It involved Ringo visiting the pub, complaining about a sandwich, breaking a beer bottle, and nearly skewering a parrot perched in the vicinity of the pub’s dart board.

1966 – Bob Dylan recorded ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’, ‘I Want You’, ‘Obviously 5 Believers’ and ‘Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat’.

1966 – The Rolling Stones recorded ‘Lady Jane’, ‘Out Of Time and ‘High And Dry’.

1970 – Grand Funk Railroad recorded ‘Closer To Home’.

1975 – John Lennon released ‘Stand By Me’ / ‘Move Over, Ms. L’ in the U.S. The record was Lennon’s final single before his five-year retreat from the music industry.

1976 – Rush released the ‘2112’ album.

1977 – At an event staged outside Buckingham Palace, A&M Records signed The Sex Pistols to a recording contract. The relationship was not to be a lengthy one. Six days later, the label dropped the group.

1984 – Lead singer Ian Gillan announced he was leaving Black Sabbath.

1988 – Andy Gibb (‘Love Is Thicker Than Water’) died of Myocarditis – inflammation of the heart – at the age of 30.

1989 – Doc Green (The Drifters – ‘There Goes My Baby’) died of cancer at the age of 54.

1997 – LaVern Baker (born Delores Williams – ‘Jim Dandy’) died of heart failure. She was 67.
She was originally buried in an unmarked plot in Kew Gardens, NJ, but her grave received a headstone on May 4, 2008, after a fundraiser was held by local historians.

2003 – The Righteous Brothers, AC/DC, The Clash, The Police, Elvis Costello & The Attractions (and sidemen Benny Benjamin, Steve Douglas and Floyd Cramer) were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

2003 – During a London concert ten days before the invasion of Iraq, Natalie Maines – lead singer with the Dixie Chicks – said, “we don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”
The backlash was immediate and furious. A Colorado radio station suspended two of its disc jockeys for playing music by the band, and at one point, 76 percent of former fans said they would return the CD’s they had purchased if that option was available to them.
Although Maines did release an apology (which she later recanted), the group responded to the controversy in 2006 by releasing ‘Not Ready To Make Nice’ in which Maines addressed hate mail and death threats. The song won the 2007 Grammy Award for Song of The Year and Record of The Year.

2003 – Spanish hairdresser Rafael Pages paid over $1,400 for a lock of George Harrison’s hair which had been cut off in 1964. The purchased hair was then displayed in Pages’ hairdressing museum in Barcelona.

2005 – Michael Jackson arrived at his child molestation trial in Los Angeles an hour late and still wearing his pajamas. After being threatened with jail time for making the court wait, Jackson heard testimony from one of his former visitors at his Neverland Ranch; a teenager who said the singer tried to get him drunk on soda cans filled with red wine, which Jackson – according to the teenager – allegedly called “Jesus Juice”.

2005 – Danny Joe Brown (lead singer with Molly Hatchet – ‘Flirtin’ With Disaster’) died at the age of 53 of complications from diabetes.

2008 – Chuck Day (guitarist with Johnny Rivers’ band – he played the distinctive opening riff on Rivers’ ‘Secret Agent Man’) died at the age of 65 after a long illness.

2008 – The Dave Clark Five, The Ventures, Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, Madonna (and sideman Little Walter) were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

2010 – Micky Jones (guitarist/lead singer with Welsh band Man – ‘All Alone’) died at the age of 63 from complications related to a brain tumor.

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2015 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.
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