It happened this week

This is the week that was in matters musical…

1955, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker succumbs to a heart attack … the 34-year-old alto saxophonist was the progenitor of bebop, playing with a fluidity that is yet to be equaled…

1958, Billie Holiday is sentenced to a year’s probation after pleading guilty to narcotics posession…

1958, Perry Como’s Catch a Falling Star becomes the first certified Gold Record…

1963, Gerry Marsden of the Merseybeat group Gerry & The Pacemakers is fined £50 for trying to slip a German guitar past British customs … imported instruments are subject to high duties…

1965, The Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” rides the top of the Billboard Pop Chart … oddly the song fails to chart in England … Eric Clapton splits from The Yardbirds … The Beatles have a lock on the Top Ten with their ownership of the top four positions on the chart … in order they are: “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Please Please Me,” and “Twist and Shout” … meanwhile, their LP Meet The Beatles has moved over three-and-a-half million platters making it at the time the biggest-selling album ever … Billboard reports that the lads from Liverpool account for 60 percent of the singles market in the U.S….

1969, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour TV show is cancelled by CBS … during its run the show had featured many rock acts including The Beatles, The Doors, and The Who … the cancellation is seen as the result of the brothers refusing to censor comments made by guest Joan Baez about her husband David Harris who was facing prison as a war resister…

1974, John Lennon and his drinking buddy Harry Nilsson are booted out of West L.A.’s Troubador Club after razzing comic Tom Smothers…

1979, Soul Brother (and Good Old Boy) Number One James Brown gets funky at the Grand Ole Opry…

1991, Janet Jackson reveals that she is moving from A&M Records to Virgin in a deal worth about $40 million…

1992, 40,000 people show up for Farm Aid in Irving, Texas … the star-studded show is organized by Willie Nelson to help failing family farms…

1997, Her Majesty proves she’s a pretty nice girl by knighting Paul McCartney…

1998, Alan Reed, an American dancer, sues Japanese pop star Seiko Matsuda for 48 million yen charging that she pressured Reed, a member of her stage show, into having sex with her … his case is a loser … Cathay Pacific Airways announces that Oasis singer Liam Gallagher has been banned from flying with the airline following a flight during which he is reported to have screamed obscenities and smoked in the cabin … lawyers representing Korn serve Assistant Principal Gretchen Plewes of Zeeland High School in Michigan with court papers demanding she stop making “defamatory comments about Korn and its products” … the action stems from the suspension of a student who wore a Korn T-shirt to school … Ray Charles appears on QVC’s shopping channel to sell his book/CD set titled Ray Charles – My Early Years 1930-1960 … 56,000 country music fans turn up in Phoenix for what must be the longest-winded name ever for a music event: Nokia Presents The George Strait Chevy Truck Country Music Festival Brought To You By Wrangler … phew…

2000, in the middle of a Fargo, North Dakota, show, Korn drummer David Silveria suddenly loses use of one of his wrists … Mike Bordin of Faith No More subs for the rest of the tour while Silveria heals … Chrissie Hynde is busted in New York for slashing leather goods at a Gap store … she’s part of a PETA action … blink-182 is forced to cut short its European tour when singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker are both felled by strep throats…

2003, the Chinese government orders the Rolling Stones to axe four songs from the set lists of their Shanghai and Beijing shows … the banned tunes are “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Beast of Burden,” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”…

2004, Jack White of the White Stripes pleads guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery on singer Jason Stollsteimer of The Von Bondies … despite the serious beating he administered, White gets off with a $750 fine … a restraining order sought by Axl Rose that would prevent Universal Music Group from releasing a Guns N’ Roses greatest hits album is denied by a federal judge … the label argues that it has every right to release the record since Rose has failed to deliver on his contract to produce the long-threatened Chinese Democracy album…

and that was the week that was.

Arrivals
March 9: composer Samuel Barber (1910), N’awlins R&B stalwart Lloyd Price (1933), Mickey Gilley (1936), Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders (1942), John Cale (1942), Robin Trower (1945), Jimmie Fadden of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (1948), Jeffrey Osborne (1948), The Move’s Trevor Burton (1949), Robert Sledge of Ben Folds Five (1968), Lil’ Bow Wow (1987)

March 10: Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke (1903), Tex-Mex legend Huey Meaux (1929), swamp rocker Johnny Allen (1938), Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean (1940), Eddie Guzman of Rare Earth (1944), Tom Scholz of Boston (1947), Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam (1963), Neneh Cherry (1964), Edie Brickell (1966), Sims Ellison of Pariah (1967)

March 11: bandleader Lawrence “champagne music” Welk (1903), Mike Hugg of Manfred Mann (1940), Mark Stein of Vanilla Fudge (1947), Golden Earring’s George Kooymans (1948), singer Bobby McFerrin (1950), singer Nina Hagen (1955), Bruce Watson of Big Country (1961), Lisa Loeb (1968), Joel and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte (1979)

March 12: Leonard Chess (1917), Al Jarreau (1940), Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane (1942), Liza Minnelli (1946), James Taylor (1948), Bill Payne of Little Feat (1949), Mike Gibbons of Bad Finger (1949), Marlon Jackson of The Jackson 5 (1957), Steve Harris of Iron Maiden (1957), Graham Coxon of Blur (1969)

March 13: musician Helen Sinclair Glatz (1908), songwriter Mike Stoller (1933), Neil Sedaka (1939), U2’s Adam Clayton (1960)

March 14: Georg Philipp Telemann (1681), Johann I. Strauss (1804), bandleader Les Brown (1912), Phil Phillips (1931), Quincy Jones (1933), Loretta Lynn (1940), Jim Pons of The Turtles (1943), Chicago’s Walt Parazaider (1945), Boon Gould of Level 42 (1955)

March 15: Lightnin’ Hopkins (1912), Phil Lesh (1940), Beach Boy Mike Love (1944), Sly Stone aka Sylvester Stewart (1944), War’s Howard Scott (1946), Ry Cooder (1947), Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider (1955), Terence Trent D’Arby (1962), Brett Michaels of Poison (1963), Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray (1970), Mark Hoppus of blink-182 (1972), Joseph Hahn of Linkin Park (1977)

Departures
March 9: Rust Epique of Pre)Thing (2004), Notorious B.I.G. (1997)

March 10: Dave Blood of Dead Milkmen (2004), Laverne Baker (1997), Doc Green of The Drifters (1989), Andy Gibb (1988)

March 11: Stacey Guess of Squirrel Nut Zippers (1997)

March 12: violinist and conductor Lord Yehudi Menuhin (1999)

March 13: reggae singer Judge Dread (1998), jazz bandleader Jerry Blaine (1973), alto sax maestro and bebop originator Charlie Parker (1955)

March 14: songwriter Jerome “Doc” Pomus (1991), soul singer Linda Jones (1972)

March 15: violinist Olga Rudge (1996), Lester “Pres” Young (1959)