It happened this week

This is the week that was in matters musical …

1877, Ernst Siemens patents the first loudspeaker …

1955, Elvis Presley is named Most Promising Country & Western Artist in Billboard’s annual poll of disc jockeys … Chuck Berry is given the same title in the Rhythm and Blues category …

1957, Patsy Cline is named Most Promising Country & Western Artist in this year’s Billboard disc jockey poll …

1958, Lou Rawls and Sam Cooke are injured in an Arkanasas auto wreck that kills their chauffeur …

1960, The Shirelles release “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” with songwriter Carole King on drums … Greg Allman turns 13 and gets a guitar for his birthday … 14-year-old brother Duane eclipses him quickly on that instrument while Greg excels at organ and vocals … they’ll play together in the Kings, the Allman Joys, and Hourglass before they rule the Southern rock universe with the Allman Brothers Band, which they’ll form in 1969 …

1963, “Louie Louie” is released by the Kingsmen … one of the most covered songs of all time (everyone from The Mothers of Invention to sultry Julie London will take a shot at it), it is charged that the slurred lyrics are obscene … the song is banned on some radio stations, especially in Indiana, where Governor Matthew Welch determines that the ditty is definitely dirty … even the FBI gets caught up in the controversy, though the Bureau ultimately wraps up its 31-month investigation inconclusively stating that its audio technicians were “unable to interpret any of the wording in the record” … in 2003, 754 guitarists play a 10-minute rendition of the song at Tacoma, Washington’s, Cheney Stadium … the event is thought to be the world’s largest jam session …

1967, Rolling Stone magazine hits the newsstands for the first time …

1969, Janis Joplin is arrested in her dressing room at a concert in Tampa for cussing at the man … earlier, in the auditorium, a cop is screaming through a bullhorn at her fans to sit down and she tells him “Don’t @#&* with these people. Hey mister what are you so uptight about? Did you buy a five-dollar ticket?” … she is similarly foul-mouthed addressing police backstage when they insist that SHE tell the audience to sit down … Joplin gets out on a $50 bond and the charges of using vulgar and indecent language are eventually dropped … this same week another rocker feels the law’s wrath when Jim Morrison gets blotto on a plane trip from L.A. to Phoenix to see the Stones … he’s such a royal pain that he’s arrested on arrival and charged with interfering with the flight and public drunkenness … these charges are also eventually dropped … both offenders will soon be held accountable by a higher court …

1972, while riding his motorcycle in Macon, Georgia, Allman Brothers bass man Berry Oakley crashes into the side of a city bus only three blocks from where Duane met his demise in a motorcycle accident the previous year … Oakley refuses treatment at the scene and goes home only to die of a brain hemorrhage later that night in the hospital …

1973, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr., son of the Killer, meets his demise on a rural highway near Hernando, Mississippi … at 19, he’s developed some chops on the drums and has just played on TV’s Midnight Special with his dad’s band … it’s the second time Lewis has lost a son; 11 years earlier his only other son drowned in the family swimming pool …

1974, while Deep Purple’s Richie Blackmore plays a concert in San Francisco, someone impersonating the smokin’ guitar man smashes up a borrowed Porsche in Iowa City …

1978, Donna Summer’s cover of “MacArthur Park” becomes the #1 pop hit … a decade earlier actor Richard Harris took his bombastic reading of the Jimmy Webb tune noted for its incomprehensible lyrics to #2 …

1981, the U.S. pop chart experiences an Aussie invasion this week when Olivia Newton-John, Little River Band, Air Supply, and Rick Springfield all register hit singles …

1985, after flirting with the #1 pop chart spot for 18 years and undergoing several name changes, Starship finally scores with “We Built the City” … meanwhile the theme from the TV show Miami Vice rides the top of the Billboard album chart where it will reside for 11 weeks beating the former TV-theme record-holder, The Music from Peter Gunn …

1987, Sly Stone turns up an hour late for an L.A. comeback concert and is promptly arrested for failing to pay child support …

1988, Whitney Houston’s debut album goes multiplatinum with nine million copies sold … only Boston has ever matched this performance with a debut LP …

1995, rapper M.C. Hammer plays a Moscow benefit show for Soviet Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin’s political party proving once again that politics makes strange bedfellows…

1997, even though there are some empty seats for the Bee Gees’ show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, they still manage to rake in an impressive $1.7 million in gross box office receipts … tickets range between $50 and $300 …

1998, Ahmet Ertegun and Bobby “Blue” Bland are honored with lifetime achievement awards from the Blues Foundation … also this week, Rick James suffers a stroke while headbanging during a Denver performance … the doctor blames it on a blood clot in his neck caused by rock ‘n’ roll whiplash …

1999, as a follow-up to her tersely titled debut album, Tidal, Fiona Apple releases her sophomore effort, When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He’ll Win The Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters The Ring There’s Nobody To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You’ll Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right …yeah, right…whatever…

2000, Michael Abram, the man who a year earlier broke into George Harrison’s home and stabbed Harrison before being subdued by Harrison and his wife, is found guilty by reason of insanity and ordered confined to a mental hospital for an indefinite stay …

2004, Apple introduces a special black U2 version of the iPod with the band members’ names laser-etched on the case … the unit is launched with an ad featuring the band performing its new single “Vertigo” … it’s the first time in the band’s 25-year career that it has licensed music for commercial purposes … Bill Wyman, the 68-year-old former Rolling Stones bassman, announces he will retire from touring with the Rhythm Kings, his current band …

2005, keyboard legend Bill Preston is hospitalized in Arizona for pericarditis, an inflammation of the heart sac … seven months later he will die of kidney failure …

And that was the week that was.

Arrivals:
November 9: Tommy Dorsey (1905), Dave Guard of The Kingston Trio (1934), bass singer Leroy Fann of Ruby & The Romantics (1936), Tom Fogerty of CCR (1941), Phil May of The Pretty Things (1944), Alan Gratzer of REO Speedwagon (1948), Joe Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult (1948), Tommy Caldwell of The Marshall Tucker Band (1949), Pepa of Salt-N-Pepa born Sandra Denton (1961), Brad “Scarface” Jordan of the Geto Boys (1969), Diana King (1970), Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees (1973), Sisqo (1977)

November 10: Screaming Lord Sutch born David Sutch (1940), Dave Loggins (1947), Donna Fargo (1947), Greg Lake (1948), Ronnie Hammond of The Atlanta Rhythm Section (1950), Mario Cipollina of Huey Lewis and The News (1954), Frank Maudsley of A Flock of Seagulls (1959), Warren G (1970), Eve (1978)

November 11: Mose Allison (1927), LaVern Baker (1929), New Orleans session sax man David Lastie (1934), The Youngbloods’ Jesse Colin Young born Perry Young (1944), Chris Dreja of The Yardbirds (1945), Vince Martell of Vanilla Fudge (1945), Andy Partridge of XTC (1953), Marshall Crenshaw (1953), Ian Craig Marsh of Heaven 17 (1956), LeToya Luckett formerly of Destiny’s Child (1980)

November 12: Bukka White born Booker T. Washington White (1906), Jo Stafford (1920), Ruby Nash Curtis of Ruby & The Romantics (1939), Brian Hyland (1943), John Maus of The Walker Brothers (1943), Booker T. Jones of Booker T and The MGs (1944), Neil Young (1945), Arthur Tavares (1946), Donald Roeser of Blue Oyster Cult (1947), Errol Brown of Hot Chocolate (1948), Leslie McKeown of The Bay City Rollers (1955), David Ellefson of Megadeth (1964), Tevin Campbell (1976)

November 13: John Novarese owner of Hi Records (1923), R&B singer Justine “Baby” Washington (1940), Annette Kleinbard of The Teddy Bears (1941), Timmy Thomas (1944), Bill Gibson of Huey Lewis and the News (1951), Walter Kibby of Fishbone (1964)

November 14: Aaron Copland (1900), Sir Joseph Lockwood of EMI Records (1904), Johnny Desmond (1921), Cornell Gunter of The Coasters (1938), Freddie Garrity of Freddie and the Dreamers (1940), Buckwheat Zydeco (1947), James Young of Styx (1948), Stephen Bishop (1951), Frankie Banali of Quiet Riot (1953), Alec John Such of Bon Jovi (1956), Rapper Joe “Run” Simmons of Run-D.M.C. (1964), Brian Yale of matchbox twenty (1968), Travis Barker of blink-182 (1975), Adina Howard (1975)

November 15: elevator-music maestro Mantovani (1905), Ike Turner’s pianist Clayton Love (1927), Clyde McPhatter (1932), Petula Clark (1932), Little Willie John born William J. Woods (1937), Frida of ABBA (1945), Steve Fossen of Heart (1949), Michael Cooper of Con Funk Shun (1952), Alexander O’Neal (1953), Tony Thompson of Chic (1954), Kevin Eubanks (1957), Joe Leeway of Thompson Twins (1957), Ol’ Dirty Bastard AKA Russell Jones of Wu-Tang Clan (1968)

Departures:
November 9: jazz reedman Buddy Arnold

November 10: jazz pianist Kenny Kirkland (1998), session guitarist Tommy Tedesco (1997), Carmen McRae (1994)

November 11: Patrick “Paddy” Clancy of The Clancy Brothers (1998), Ronnie Dyson (1990), Berry Oakley (1972)

November 12: Chic drummer Tony Thompson (2003), blues fingerpicker and former Robert Plant cohort Rainer Ptacek (1997), Sean Rowley (1992)

November 13: rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard (2004), Donald Mills of The Mills Brothers (1999), R.J. Vealey of the Atlanta Rhythm Section (1999), pianist Kenny Kirkland (1998), Bill Doggett (1996), Ronnie Bond of The Troggs (1992), Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. (1973)

November 20: album cover artist Gene Greif (2004), Roland Alphonso of the Skatalites (1998), rock critic and blues producer Robert Palmer (1997), Chess and Vee-Jay Records session drummer Earl Phillips (1990)

November 14: John Cascella, keyboardist with John Mellencamp (1992), singer Dallas Taylor (1986), dub pioneer Keith Hudson (1984)

November 15: composer-arranger Saul Chaplin (1997), disco producer Jacques Morali (1991)

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