It happened this week

This is the week that was in matters musical …

1957, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” hits the C&W charts for Jerry Lee Lewis … the recording will ease on over to the pop charts within a week …

1958, Jerry Lee Lewis’ producer, Sam Phillips, forces Lewis to sign an apologetic letter he then posts as a full-page ad in Billboard … the letter is a futile attempt to bolster Lewis’ plummeting reputation in the fallout from his divorce and subsequent marriage to 14-year-old second-cousin Myra … though marriage to a second cousin of that age isn’t such a big deal in the ’50s southern U.S., the sanctimonious British press has turned it into a huge scandal for the Killer …

1964, The Rolling Stones know they have arrived when they get the chance to hang out with two of their idols, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, while recording at Chicago’s Chess studios … the band’s name is derived from a tune by Muddy …

1965, it is announced that The Beatles will receive MBE awards from Queen Elizabeth in October … in the controversy that ensues, some previous recipients return their medals … John Lennon returns his medal in 1969 signifying his displeasure with Britain’s support for U.S. involvement in Vietnam …

1966, The Beatles record “Rain,” which employs a reversed-tape effect for the first time in one of their songs … it’s the same technique that later results in the “Paul-is-dead” rumors … John Lennon claims to have discovered the coolness of backwards tape when he accidentally put a working tape on his tape machine backwards while under the influence of illegal green stuff … also this week, rumors of Roger Daltrey’s death are greatly exaggerated as European radios spew misinformation after Pete Townshend is injured in a car accident …

1969, Blind Faith makes its live debut at a free concert in London’s Hyde Park … an estimated 150,000 people attend the show … the group, consisting of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech, will disband the following October after a U.S. tour that Winwood describes as “vulgar, crude, disgusting (and) lacking in integrity” … this same week multi-instrumentalist-turned-junkie and founder of The Rolling Stones Brian Jones announces he’s leaving the band … within three weeks Jones will be found dead on the bottom of his pool …

1971, police panic when people start climbing over the fence at a Jethro Tull concert in Red Rocks Amphitheater outside Denver … they drop tear gas from helicopters resulting in a general riot with lots of injuries … averting disaster, Jethro Tull comes onstage in the middle of the ruckus-after the opening act flees-and plays their entire show while choking from tear gas fumes … Red Rocks says no more rock concerts will be held there … but the management will eventually relent …

1974, king of the big keyboard sound, Rick Wakeman, parts ways with Yes to pursue a solo career … he will rejoin the band for 1977’s Going for the One, setting the pattern for decades of on-again-off-again relations … also this week, The Who sells out a four-night gig at Madison Square Garden in three days, two months before the show … in the innocent world of 1974, that’s a big deal …

1979, Rolling Stone magazine reports in that Little Feat has broken up after 10 years of musical matrimony … Little Feat frontman, leader, and former Zappa sideman Lowell George won’t live to see July …

1989, Jerry Lee Lewis, still going strong, gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame …

1991, Bruce Springsteen weds singer-songwriter Patti Scialfa, who has been singing backup vocals with the Boss’s E-Street Band for the past four years …

1992, a judge in L.A. dismisses a $25 million palimony suit brought by model Kelly Emberg against Rod Stewart … she charges that they lived together in a marital-like state between 1985 and 1990 and had a child together … despite their current contretemps, sources close to Emberg report that she still thinks Rod is sexy …

1994, Atlanta Falcon’s wide receiver Andre Rison’s Atlanta mansion burns to the ground … it’s determined that in a fit of pique his girlfriend Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of the hip-hop girl group TLC committed the arson …

1995, 90 minutes before he’s to perform at a Texas police convention, country star Ty Herndon is busted by an undercover cop for drug possession … he pleads guilty …

1998, a judge in the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court hears opening arguments in a suit brought by the Ronettes against their former producer, Phil Spector, charging him with breaching their 34-year-old contract by failing to pay royalties … in 2002 the reclusive studio guru is finally ordered to pay the girls $2.9 million plus interest …

2000, Sinead O’Connor outs herself in an article that appears in Curve magazine …

2004, after complaining about what he believes to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, David Bowie receives an emergency angioplasty to deal with a severely blocked artery …

2005, after deliberating for 32 hours, a California jury finds Michael Jackson not guilty of child molestation charges … halfway around the world on the same day, Roger Waters agrees to rejoin Pink Floyd after 24 years of bitterness and disputes with the band he cofounded … the reunion will take place for Bob Geldof’s Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, London, on July 2 … long thought to be an impossibility among Floyd fans, it will be the first time the band performs with Waters since 1981 … guitarist David Gilmour states, “Like most people I want to do everything I can to persuade the G8 leaders to make huge commitments to the relief of poverty and increased aid to the third world. Any squabbles Roger and the band have had in the past are so petty in this context, and if reforming for this concert will help focus attention then it’s got to be worthwhile.” …

2006, Mike Skinner-the Brit DJ otherwise known as The Streets-announces he will run in the New York Marathon this year … he posts a comment on a website saying, ” … if people do it dressed as milk cartons, it can’t be that hard, right?” …

And that was the week that was.

Arrivals:

June 7: Tom Jones (1940), Steve Torbert of New Riders of the Purple Sage (1948), Prince born Prince Roger Nelson (1958), Ecstacy of Whodini (1964), Eric Kretz of Stone Temple Pilots (1966)

June 8: Nancy “Boots” Sinatra (1940), Sherman Garnes of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers (1940), Jesse Bolian of the Artistics (1941), Three Dog Night’s Chuck Negron (1942), Boz Scaggs (1944), Uriah Heep’s Mick Box (1947), Bonnie Tyler aka Gaynor Hoskins (1953), Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall (1960), Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes (1962), Alex Band of The Calling (1981)

June 9: Cole Porter (1891), Les Paul born Lester Polfus (1915), R&B singer and Russian roulette-ist Johnny Ace born John Marshall Alexander Jr. (1929), Jackie Wilson (1934), Wild Jimmy Spruill (1934), Deep Purple’s Jon Lord (1941), (Everett) Dean Felber of Hootie & The Blowfish (1967), Dean Dinning of Toad the Wet Sprocket (1967)

June 10: Chester Burnett aka Howlin’ Wolf (1910), Judy Garland (1922), The Shirelle’s Shirley Alston (1941), The Move’s Rick Price (1944), Will Shatter of Flipper (1956), Jimmy Chamberlin of Smashing Pumpkins (1964), Darren Robinson of The Fat Boys (1967), Joel “Jo-Jo” Hailey of K-Ci & Jo-Jo (1971), Faith Evans (1973), Lemisha Grinsted of 702 (1973)

June 11: boogie-woogie pianist Clarence “Pine Top” Smith (1904), Jud Strunk (1936), The Pretty Things’ Skip Allen (1948), Frank Beard of ZZ Top (1949), Donnie Van Zant of .38 Special (1952), Kim and Kelley Deal of The Breeders (1961), Joey Santiago of The Pixies (1965), Dan Lavery of Tonic (1969)

June 12: bandleader Archie Bleyer (1909), pioneer rockabilly Charlie Feathers (1932), Chick Corea (1941), Reg Presley of The Troggs (1943), Brad Delp of Boston (1951), Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick (1951), John Linnell of They Might Be Giants (1959), Michael Hausman of ’til tuesday (1960), Grandmaster Dee of Whodini (1962), Bobby Sheehan of Blues Traveler (1968), Bardi Martin of Candlebox (1969), Kenny Wayne Shepherd (1977), Robyn (1979)

June 13: Bobby Freeman of “Do You Wanna Dance” fame (1940), Arlester “Dyke” Christian of Dyke and the Blazers (1943), John Kahn of the Jerry Garcia Band (1947), Nick Drake (1948), Dennis Locorriere of Dr. Hook (1949), Howard Leese of Heart (1951), James Smith of The Stylistics (1951), Bo Donaldson (1954), Godsmack’s Robbie Merrill (1963), Paul DeLisle of Smash Mouth (1963), Soren Rasted of Aqua (1969), Rivers Cuomo of Wheezer (1970), Raz B of B2K (1985)

Departures

June 7: Tommy Perkins of Bob Wills Texas Playboys (2003), James Eugene “Rosy” McHargue, singer and reed man for the Benny Goodman orchestra (1999), Schwann Recording Catalog editor William Schwann (1998), producer-songwriter Jerry Capehart (1998)

June 8: punker Root Boy Slim (1993), session drummer Yogi Horton (1987), blues shouter Jimmy “Mr. Five-By-Five” Rushing (1972)

June 9: folk singer Walter Pardon (1996), ’60s R&B singer Arthur Alexander (1993), jazz and blues singer Clarence “Big” Miller (1992)

June 10: Ray Charles (2004), Steve Sanders of The Oak Ridge Boys (1998), Alan Blakely of the Tremoloes (1996), Jimmy Weston of the Danleers (1993), The Shirelles’ Addie “Mickey” Harris (1982), organist Earl Grant (1970)

June 11: A.R.E. Weapons guitarist Ryan Noel (2004)

June 12: Matthew Fletcher of Heavenly (1996), the “Vee” in Vee-Jay Records, Vivian Carter (1989), Jimmy Dorsey (1957)

June 13: Southern blues guitarist John Campbell (1993), Benny Goodman (1986), reedman Charles Miller of War (1980), Clyde McPhatter (1972)