This is the week that was in matters musical…
Anyone got a Mars Bar ?
1964, four lads from Liverpool known as The Beatles make their live American TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, reaching the eyes and ears of over 70 million viewers, the largest television audience ever recorded at the time … the show receives over 50,000 requests for tickets…
1967, working on a tip, British police raid a party at Redlands, the English estate of Keith Richards, searching for illegal drugs … police find amphetamine pills in singer Mick Jagger’s coat and charge him with possession … Richards is charged with allowing his home to be used for drug-taking, and a third guest is charged with heroin possession … Richards spends one night in jail, Jagger gets two … at trial four months later, both Stones are found guilty and given stiff sentences … the London Times gets behind the two rockers, questioning the severity of the sentences in a series of editorials … due to the media pressure, Richards’ conviction is quashed on appeal, and Jagger’s prison sentence is reduced to a conditional discharge … Aretha Franklin records her hit single “Respect” at New York’s Atlantic Studios … written by Otis Redding, the record will sell over a million copies and top the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks on its way to becoming both an American classic and Aretha’s biggest hit…
1972, former Beatle Paul McCartney’s new band Wings, featuring his wife Linda and former Moody Blues singer Denny Laine, among others, plays its first concert at Nottingham University in the UK … upon arriving in Singapore to kick off their first Pacific tour, the members of Led Zeppelin are denied entry into the country on account of their long hair … the hairstyles are viewed as a threat to the conservative goverment’s campaign to reduce the influence of Western culture on its citizens … the band is not permitted to exit the plane, and is forced to return to London immediately … the tour begins later in the week in Perth, Australia…
1975, Cher’s eponymous TV show debuts a year after her divorce from Sonny Bono … the premiere episode guest stars Elton John, Bette Midler, and comedian Flip Wilson … Cher’s exposed navel generates much press, as this is a first for American television … the show will last only one season…
1981, Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd’s eighth LP, becomes the longest-charting album ever at 402 consecutive weeks in the Top 200 Albums chart … the album will stay on the charts for another 189 weeks, for a total of nearly 11 consecutive years in the Top 200 … rumor has it that at one point one Capitol Records plant presses nothing but DSOTM discs … the album will enjoy a resurgence years later, when someone with too much time on his hands realizes that when the CD is synced to The Wizard of Oz, there are a number of musical and lyrical coincidences … the band denies that the album and film are connected in any way whatsoever, and since VCRs and CD players had yet to become readily available when the album was recorded in 1973, it appears to be no more than coincidence…
1982, the 300-pound marble slab that marks the grave of former Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant is stolen in Orange Park, Florida … it is recovered by police two weeks later in a dried-up river bed nearby…
1986, in an odd pop-culture pairing, Culture Club singer Boy George guest stars on an episode of the popular TV show The A-Team, which stars Mr. T, among others … in the episode, Boy is mistakenly booked as country singer Cowboy George at one of the toughest dance halls in the West … Culture Club performs…
1992, Vince Neil is fired as Motley Crue’s lead singer after recording sessions for a new album turn ugly … he is replaced by John Corabi, formerly of The Scream … the resulting album, Motley Crue, goes on to be a commercial disappointment for the band … Neil will reunite with the Crue in 1997…
1997, U2 announces its upcoming Popmart Tour from where else? K-Mart, of course … The band’s press conference, held in the lingerie department of a Manhattan K-Mart, is a raucous affair, including a performance of the B-side “Holy Joe,” as well as the lowdown on the high-tech tour, which will include a giant lemon mirrorball, a 12-foot stuffed olive on a 100-foot toothpick, a towering 100-foot golden arch, and the world’s largest-ever LED screen … guitarist The Edge tells reporters, “We believe in kitsch. That’s what we are up to at the moment” … the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson, and his wife Debbie Rowe welcome their first child at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles … the child is fittingly named Prince Michael Joseph Jackson II…
2000, during a performance by the Isley Brothers dubbed the Valentine’s Super Love Jam at the L.A. Sports Arena, an LAPD officer shoots and kills a 24-year-old man who has allegedly wounded three people near a concession stand … though the performers and audience have no idea what has transpired, the show is eventually canceled…
2004, Norah Jones’ sophomore album Feels Like Home moves over a million units in its first week, keeping the sultry singer’s mojo going on the charts … bassist Nick Oliveri is fired from Queens of the Stone Age … “He’s a tornado, and a tornado just destroys and goes on to the next city. I’m in the tornado cleanup crew, and all I ever see is his detritus and I’m sick of it,” says QOTSA front man Josh Homme…
2005, hard rock and heavy-metal originators Led Zeppelin receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 47th Grammy awards as do Janis Joplin and Jerry Lee Lewis … Courtney Love pleads no contest to charges of her alleged assault on musician Kristin King … she is ordered by a Los Angeles court to take anger-management classes, pay a $1,000 fine, and perform 100 hours of community service … Love then travels across town to a Beverly Hills court where a judge reduces her two felony charges of illegal possession of prescription drugs to one misdemeanor … she is ordered to continue a rehab program she is already enrolled in and avoid alcohol and drugs…
and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
February 9: Ernest Tubb (1914), Chicago soul singer Johnny Sayles (1937), Carole King born Carole Klein (1942), folkie Tom Jans (1949), Dennis Thomas of Kool & the Gang (1951), Travis Tritt (1963)
February 10: Jimmy Durante (1893), Zydeco squeeze-box man Rockin’ Dopsie (1932), Don Wilson of The Ventures (1937), Roberta Flack (1939), James Merchant of Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (1940), Elvis impersonator Ral Donner (1943), Donovan born Donovan Phillip Leitch (1946), Robbie Neville (1961), Cliff Burton (1962)
February 11: Tex Beneke (1914), Josh White (1915), Gene Vincent born Eugene Vincent Craddock (1935), songwriter Gerry Goffin (1939), Bobby “Boris” Pickett (1940), Sergio Mendes (1941), keyboard man Stan Szelest (1942), blues singer Little Johnny Taylor (1948), Sheryl Crow (1962), D’Angelo (1974), Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park (1977), “Brandy” Norwood (1979), Kelly Rowland of Destiny’s Child (1981)
February 12: jazz and rock record producer Bob Shad (1920), Gene McDaniels (1935), Ray Manzarek of The Doors (1935), Stan Knight of Black Oak Arkansas (1949), Steve Hackett of Genesis (1950), Chynna Phillips of Wilson-Phillips (1968), Barenaked Lady Jim Creeggan (1970)
February 13th: Tennessee Ernie Ford (1919), songwriter Boudleaux Bryant (1920), Gene Ames of The Ames Brothers (1925), Peter Tork of The Monkees (1942), Peter Gabriel (1950), New Order’s Peter Hook (1956), Henry Rollins (1961), The Cult’s Les Warner (1961)
February 14: Beatles-supporting DJ Murray The K (1922), keyboardist Merl Saunders (1934), Magic Sam born Sam Maghett (1937), Eric Anderson (1937), Vic Briggs of The Animals (1945), Tim Buckley (1947), Roger Fisher of Heart (1950), Ice-T (1959), Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas (1972)
February 15th: Brian Holland of Motown’s Holland, Dozier, Holland writing team (1941), Mick Avory of The Kinks (1944), John Helliwell of Supertramp (1945), David Brown of Santana (1947), Melissa Manchester (1951), reggae singer Al Campbell (1959), Mikey Craig of Culture Club (1960), Ali Campbell of UB40 (1969), Brandon Boyd of Incubus (1976)
Departures:
February 9: soul singer Tyrone Davis (2005), Outlaws guitarist Billy Jones (1995), Reverend James Cleveland (1991), Bill Haley (1981), jump blues bandleader Buddy Johnson (1977)
February 10: ’60s NY folkie and Dylan mentor Dave Van Ronk (2002), saxophonist Buddy Tate (2001), Brian Connolly of Sweet (1997), British promoter Tony Secunda (1995)
February 11: jazz pianist Jaki Byard (1999), New Orleans guitarist and composer Rene Hall (1988)
February 12: Gerald “Bounce” Gregory of the Spaniels (1999), pianist Eubie Blake (1983)
February 13: Waylon Jennings (2002)
February 14th: Doug Weston, operator of The Troubadour in L.A. (1999), Pioneer Son Roy Lanham (1991)
February 15th: Replacements guitarist Rob Stinson (1995), Love drummer George Suranovich (1990), Mississippi soul singer Jimmy Holiday (1987), Ethel Merman (1984), Mike Bloomfield (1981), Little Walter (1968), Nat King Cole (1965)
Heh heh… *snickers*…