This is the week that was in matters musical…
1942, Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” tops the Billboard pop chart … the song is re-released during ensuing holiday seasons and nails the top spot again in 1945 and 1947 ultimately becoming one of the biggest singles ever…
1954, R&B star Johnny Ace is backstage at a Houston concert playing Russian roulette … he first points and clicks the gun harmlessly at two others backstage … but when he points it at his own head the folly of this pastime is brought home instantly and irrevocably…
1959, Chuck Berry is arrested for transporting a minor across state lines for an immoral purpose … he has invited a young Native American woman he met in El Paso to come work as a hat check girl in his Club Bandstand in Missouri … the young woman is fired two weeks later and calls police for help getting back home … the call leads to Berry’s trial and a guilty verdict that is later overturned because the judge made racist remarks…
1960, Elvis Presley is inducted into the Los Angeles Indian Tribal Council … the ceremony coincides with the opening of his movie Flaming Star in which the rocker plays a character with Native American blood…
1962, British band The Tornadoes score a #1 Billboard hit with their instrumental “Telstar” named for the first communications satellite … they’ll go down in pop history as the first Brits to have a #1 hit in the U.S… .
1963, The Rolling Stones appear on the U.K. television show Ready, Steady, Go! performing “I Wanna Be Your Man” a song written expressly for them by Lennon and McCartney…
1964, showing a distinct lack of Christmas spirit, a hoard of female George Harrison fans beat up Patti Boyd, George’s girlfriend, for having what they all want … meanwhile on a flight from L.A. to Houston, Beach Boy Brian Wilson suffers a mental collapse and gives up touring … he is replaced onstage by studio musician and future pop and country star Glen Campbell…
1967, The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, which Tom Wolfe will later claim is inspired by the travels of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, premieres on BBC-TV … it creates plenty of mystery in its own right when audiences try to figure out what the Liverpudlian novice filmmakers could possibly have been thinking …
1969, Elton John and Bernie Taupin join up to form one of the most successful songwriting teams of the 20th century …
1972, local residents raise hell about all the noise coming from a Manfred Mann concert in Miami … authorities pull the plug mid concert and the crowd goes berserk … destruction ensues …
1973, just two weeks before his band’s release of What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, Tom Johnson of the Doobie Brothers goes down for reefer possession …
1974, John Lennon’s single “#9 Dream” hits the U.S. pop chart … it will coincidentally top out at the #9 position…
1975, Ike and Tina Turner are robbed of a suitcase filled with concert receipts … the amount lost is $86,000…
1977, Cat Stevens becomes a Muslim and changes his name to Yusef Islam…
1978, Rod Stewart releases “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” … apparently someone does because the song will hit # 1…
1985, Dennis Boon, the guitarist with punk rockers The Minutemen, dies when a tour van piloted by Boon’s girlfriend veers off the road in Arizona … the vehicle had previously been owned by the Meat Puppets…
1988, Cockney Rebel guitarist Paul Jeffries is among the victims when Pan Am Flight 103, the target of a terrorist bomb, blows up over Lockabie, Scotland…
1992, Parliament-Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel succumbs to stomach cancer … strongly influenced by Jimi Hendrix, his blazing 10-minute guitar solo on “Maggot Brain” in which his amp’s speaker can be heard disintegrating is revered by psychedelic guitarists …
1993, Walter Scott, the lead vocalist for Bob Kuban and the In Men whose big hit was “The Cheaters,” mysteriously disappears … his car is found abandoned at a local airport … four years later his remains are discovered in a neighbor’s cistern … an investigation reveals that Scott’s wife had been involved in an affair with a neighbor, Jim Williams, and that Williams had murdered Scott along with his own wife…
1996, just as he arrives at the White House for a holiday dinner with the Clintons, singer Tony Bennett suffers an erupted hernia and is rushed to a hospital for emergency surgery…
2004, Pollstar reports that Prince was the year’s top concert draw with $87.4 million in ticket sales … when John Mayer, a 1995 graduate, shows up at Fairfield Warde High School in Connecticut to take part in a ceremony recognizing famous alumni, school officials decide he can’t participate due to security concerns … Mayer reports he is first taken to the principal’s office and then escorted to his car…
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals
December 21: seminal bluesman Peetie Wheatstraw born William Bunch (1902), Frank Zappa (1940), Albert Lee (1943), Beach Boy Carl Wilson (1946), The Rumour’s Martin Belmont (1948), cleanup woman Betty Wright (1953), Gabriel Glaser of Luscious Jackson (1965), Brett Scallions of Fuel (1971)
December 22: Giacomo Puccini (1858), Austin bluesman T.D. Bell AKA Little T-Bone (1922), Alvin “Shine” Robinson (1937), Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew (1941), The Animals’ Barry Jenkins (1944), Maurice and Robin Gibb (1949), Cheap Trick’s Rick Neilsen (1954), John Patitucci (1959)
December 23: Harold Dorman (1926), Esther Phillips (1935), Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen (1940), Tim Hardin (1941), Harry Shearer AKA Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap (1943), Spooky Tooth’s Luther Grosvenor (1949), Adrian Belew (1949), Bruce Hornsby (1955), Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray (1958), Will Sin of The Shamen (1960), Slash (1965), Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam (1966)
December 24: New Orleans R&B titan Dave Bartholomew (1920), Lee Dorsey (1924), MGM Records president Mike Curb (1944), Lemmy AKA Ian Kilminster of Motorhead (1945), Jan Akkerman of Focus (1946), Human League’s Ian Burden (1955), Mary Ramsey of 10,000 Maniacs (1963), Ricky Martin (1971)
December 25: Tampa Red born Hudson Whittaker (1900), Cab Calloway (1907), R&B guitarist Oscar Moore (1912), Tony Martin (1913), Little Richard born Richard Penniman (1932), soul-gospel singer McKinley Mitchell (1934), O’Kelly Isley of The Isley Brothers (1937), Fairport Convention’s Trevor Lucas (1943), Canned Heat’s Henry Vestine (1944), Noel Redding of The Jimi Hendrix Experience (1945), Jimmy Buffett (1946), Barbara Mandrell (1948), UB40’s Robin Campbell (1954), Annie Lennox (1954), The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan (1957), Noel Hogan of The Cranberries (1971), Dido (1972)
December 26: Steve Allen (1921), Abdul “Duke” Fakir of The Four Tops (1935), Phil Spector (1940), Lars Ulrich of Metallica (1963), J. Yuenger of White Zombie (1967), Peter Klett of Candlebox (1969)
December 27: Marlene Dietrich (1901), Oscar Levant (1906), guitarist Scotty Moore (1931), Leslie McGuire of Gerry and the Pacemakers (1941), Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues (1941), The Animals’ Dave Rowberry (1943), Mick Jones of Foreigner (1944), Larry Byrom of Steppenwolf (1948), drummer Terry Bozzio (1950), David Knopfler of Dire Straits (1952), Karla Bonoff (1952)
Departures
December 21: Karl Denver (1998), trumpeter Johnny Coles (1997), Charlie Tumahai of Be-Bop Deluxe (1995), Albert King (1992), Paul Jeffries of Cockney Rebel (1988), original No Doubt vocalist John Spence (1987) Peetie Wheatstraw (1921)
December 22: Lawrence Berk, founder of Berklee College of Music (1995), Dennis Boon of The Minutemen (1985), classic blues diva Ma Rainey born Gertrude Melissa Nix Pridgett (1939)
December 23: Jackie Landry of The Chantels (1997), British jazz musician and club owner Ronnie Scott (1996), studio guitarist Dan Hamilton (1994), Eddie Hazel of Parliament-Funkadelic (1992)
December 24: Nick Massi of The Four Seasons (2000), Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (1999), Buddy Ace AKA The Root Doctor (1994), recording artist-songwriter Jimmy Silva (1994), Bobby LaKind of The Doobie Brothers (1992), Johnny Ace (1954)
December 25: Love’s Bryan MacLean (1998), jazz vocalist Damita Jo (1998), Intruders vocalist Eugene “Bird” Daughtry (1994), blues guitarist Eddie Taylor (1981), Clayton Perkins–Carl Perkins’ brother and bass player (1973), Johnny Ace (1954)
December 26: rock photographer Herb Ritz (2002), Curtis Mayfield (1999), Lowman Pauling of The “5” Royales (1973)
December 27: studio guitarist Hank Garland (2004), music mogul and founder of Chance Records, Ewart G. Abner (1997), Walter Scott (1993), Hoagy Carmichael (1981), rockabilly star Bob Luman (1978)