This is the week that was in matters musical…
1934, Laurens Hammond patents the pipeless organ…
1956, Elvis Presley’s first gig in Las Vegas is a bust … the young rock ‘n’ roller is sent packing after the first week of what was to be a two-week engagement…
1957, RCA Records signs Harry Belafonte for the unprecedented sum of $1 million … dubbed the “King of Calypso,” the singer is from the Bronx…
1961, a raucous quartet of rockers makes its debut at Liverpool’s Cavern Club … it’ll be another three years before the Beatles become a household name … Bob Dylan earns $50 playing harmonica backup on a Harry Belafonte recording session…
1966, British proto-punks The Trogs release “Wild Thing” … the song is later covered to spectacular effect by Jimi Hendrix…
1967, Janis Ian’s single “Society’s Child” languishes because of its controversial lyrics about an interracial relationship … that changes when conductor Leonard Bernstein features the song on his CBS-TV special about pop music … the record then climbs to #14 on the pop chart…
1969, John Winston Lennon changes his middle name to Ono…
1972, Elvis Presley’s LP He Touched Me is released … it reaches #79 on the Top 100 album chart … no small feat for a gospel record…
1974, Pam Morrison, Jim Morrison’s widow, succumbs to a heroin overdose…
1975, leader and chief songwriter of Badfinger, Pete Ham, who had just quit the band a week earlier and is despondent over his career, hangs himself in the garage/recording studio of his London home…
1976, it’s been more than 10 years since Roy Orbison has had a hit when he plays before a crowd of less than 100 at the Van-a-Rama auto show in Cincinnati, Ohio … adding to his misery, it’s his birthday … his glory days with the Traveling Willburys lie far ahead…
1978, Sid Vicious records his rendition of the crooners’ staple “My Way” for the Sex Pistols’ movie The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle … there is no word from composer Paul Anka on the brutal treatment of his song…
1981, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis play a show in West Germany that’s later released on the LP The Survivors…
1984, Jerry Lee Lewis gets hitched for the sixth time to 22-year-old Kerrie McCarver…
1990, Roger Waters’ road crew discovers an unexploded WWII-era bomb while erecting the set for his Berlin “The Wall” concert…
1991, former Humble Pie and Faces guitarist Steve Marriott dies in his Essex, England, home from smoke inhalation caused by a fire touched off by an unattended cigarette…
1994, former Jefferson Airplane/Starship singer Grace Slick enters a guilty plea to the charge of menacing police officers with a shotgun … the singer explains that she was under stress due to the recent loss of her Mill Valley, California, home in a fire during which she alleges memorabilia was stolen by Corte Madera firefighters…
1998, Faith No More announces that it is no more…
1999, merengue star Elvis Crespo cleans up at the Latin Music Awards with four trophies, tying Selena’s record for the most wins at a single show … that same week in a murder-suicide, Larry Troutman shoots his brother Roger to death in the alley behind their family-owned Dayton, Ohio, studio and then turns the gun on himself … the two musicians along with brothers Lester and Terry had founded a funk band in the mid-1970s that evolved into Zapp … the band scored a series of 1980s dance hits … with their salad days far behind them, the brothers had argued about the direction of the family’s struggling business affairs leading up to the shootings … Irish singer and hellraiser Sinead O’Connor becomes the first female priest in the Latin Tridentine Church, a breakaway segment of the Roman Catholic church … her priestly name will be Mother Bernadette Mary…
2000, Eric Clapton reunites with keyboard player Bobby Whitlock of Derek and the Dominos for a BBC appearance … it’s the first time the two have worked together in 29 years…
2001, Peter Buck runs amuck on a Seattle-to-London flight … after quaffing 14 glasses of wine, the R.E.M guitarist overturns a food cart, mistakes a stranger for his wife, smashes crockery, and tussles with crew members … in the ensuing British trial, Buck testifies that he has no memory of the events saying, “All I know is, I woke up and I am covered in cream”…
2002, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, the flamboyant member of hip-hop act TLC, is killed in Honduras when the rented SUV she is riding in flips…
2004, Billy Joel plows into a Long Island house while on a pizza run … this is the third wreck in three years for the embarrassed piano man who sends the homeowner a note of apology and flowers…
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals
April 20: Johnny Tillotson (1939), Craig Frost of Grand Funk Railroad (1948), Luther Vandross (1951), Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater (1967)
April 21: Eric Maresca, writer of Dion’s hit “The Wanderer” (1939), Iggy Pop born James Jewel Osterburg (1947), Robert Smith of The Cure (1959), Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies (1959), Johnny McElhone of Texas (1963)
April 22: Yehudi Menuhin (1916), Bull Moose Jackson (1919), Charles Mingus (1922), Glen Campbell (1936), session drummer Howard Wyeth (1944), Frankie Garcia of Cannibal and the Headhunters (1946), Peter Frampton (1950), Paul Carrack of Mike & The Mechanics (1951), Silverchair’s Daniel Johns (1979)
April 23: Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873), Roy Orbison (1936), Ray Peterson (1939), fusion drummer Narada Michael Walden (1952), Steve Clark of Def Leppard (1960), Stan Frazier of Sugar Ray (1969)
April 24: Ed Roberts of Ruby and the Romantics (1936), Joe Henderson (1937), Barbra Streisand (1942), Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys (1943), CCR’s Doug Clifford (1945), Jethro Tull’s Glen Cornick (1947), Preston Ritter of The Electric Prunes (1949), David J. Haskins of Love and Rockets (1957), Boris Williams of The Cure (1958), Robert Gould of Faith No More (1963), Hole’s Patty Schemel (1967), Aaron Comess of Spin Doctors (1968), Kelly Clarkson (1982)
April 25: radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi (1874), R&B sax honker Earl Bostic (1913), Ella Fitzgerald (1918), Chess session drummer Earl Phillips (1920), Albert King (1923), Vassar Clements (1928), Willis “Gator” Jackson (1932), songwriter Jerry Leiber (1933), Stu Cook of CCR (1945), Bjorn Ulveas of ABBA (1945), Steve Ferrone of Average White Band (1950), Eric Avery of Jane’s Addiction (1965), Jacob Underwood of O-Town (1980)
April 26: Ma Rainey (1886), Johnny Shines (1915), twangmeister Duane Eddy (1938), Bobby Rydell (1942), Badfinger’s Pete Ham (1943), Gary Wright (1945), Duran Duran’s Roger Taylor (1960), Chris Mars of The Replacements (1961), T-Boz of TLC (1970), Jose Pasillas of Incubus (1976)
Departures
April 20: Giuseppi Sinopoli (2001), producer Jose Rodriguez (1996), Johnny Shines (1992), Steve Marriott (1991)
April 21: Nina Simone (2003) Sandy Denny (1978), ska trombonist Don Drummond (1971), slide guitarist Earl Hooker (1970)
April 22: songwriter Felice Bryant (2003), George Lanuid of The Crescendos (1996), Earl Hines (1983)
April 23: punk rock progenitor Johnny Thunders (1991), flamboyant R&B pianist Esquerita (1986), Peter Ham of Badfinger (1975), Motown drummer William “Benny” Benjamin (1969)
April 25: Roger Troutman and Larry Troutman (1999), Brian McLeod of Chilliwack (1992), Carolyn Franklin (1988), masterful blues pianist Otis Spann (1970)
April 26: Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes (2002), Ernest “Snuffy” Stewart of KC and the Sunshine Band (1997)