This is the week that was in matters musical …
1954, Elvis is back in Sun Studios (formerly the Memphis Recording Service) to record his first commercially available single, “That’s Alright Mama” … the song, with a hopped-up beat, is a cover of a tune originally cut by bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup … this same week, Presley turns up at the grand opening of a Memphis drugstore where he performs on the back of a flatbed truck …
1958, following a backstage fight between a member of The Drifters and the manager of New York’s Apollo Theater, the group’s manager, George Treadwell, fires the entire lineup then recruits the members of the opening act, The Five Crowns, to become a new incarnation of The Drifters with Ben E. King handling lead vocals … this is one more chapter in a bewildering band history during which rival groups billed as The Drifters will tour simultaneously and band rosters will change dozens of times …
1960, Duane Eddy appears on Dick Clark’s prime time TV show and performs a work in progress, “Ramrod” … the appearance spurs orders for 150,000 copies, but there’s no way to fill them since the record hasn’t been finished … producer Lee Hazelwood hits the studio adding sax and vocal overdubs so the single can be rushed to the pressing plant … it later turns out that the remix probably doesn’t include Eddy on guitar … the twangalicious axe work having been performed by studio vet Al Casey …
1965, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” is released … it turns out to be his biggest hit ever, climbing to number two on the U.S. pop chart, this despite its running time of more than six minutes-twice the length preferred by Top 40 radio stations … later it will be anointed as the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone … the magazine declares, “No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time” … this same week the crowd at the Newport Folk Festival turns surly when Dylan, backed by a pickup band composed of Paul Butterfield Blues Band personnel, delivers an abbreviated electrified set that starts with “Maggie’s Farm,” includes “Like a Rolling Stone,” and ends with “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry” … the set is met with a mixture of applause and booing … Dylan promptly leaves the stage only to be coaxed back to perform a couple of acoustic tunes accompanied with just his harp and guitar … the cause of the audience’s hostility is the subject of dispute … some maintain that folk purists in the crowd were put off by Dylan’s conversion to rock while others maintain that a crappy, highly distorted PA was to blame … Pete Seeger recalls how he went to the sound booth and told the technicians, “Get that distortion out of his voice … it’s terrible. If I had an axe, I’d chop the microphone cable right now” … Seeger later clarifies that he wanted the audience to hear Dylan’s lyrics clearly …
1968, Iron Butterfly’s album In-a-Gadda-da-Vida debuts on the U.S. charts … the title track, clocking in at a whopping 17 minutes, features one of the longest drum solos in rock history … according to producer Jim Hilton, the song’s title results from singer Doug Ingle’s slurred pronunciation of “In Our Garden of Eden” when he was asked for the name of a new song the band was rehearsing … the producer jotted the title down phonetically … Hilton recollects “I felt it was more interesting and a lot more mystical than the straight title … the band thought I had lost my mind, but it was too late to change it, I had already given my OK on the cover for printing” …
1972, Boston mayor Kevin White helps get Mick Jagger and Keith Richards out of jail in Warwick, RI, following their arrest for roughing up a photographer … White wants to ensure the Stones make their gig at the Boston Garden …
1977, Judas Priest begins its first U.S. tour in Oakland, CA, as the opening act for Led Zeppelin …
1980, Back In Black, the new album from AC/DC is released … it is the band’s first album with new singer Brian Johnson … Johnson joined the band after the untimely, alcohol-driven death of singer Bon Scott, and the album is a Scott tribute of sorts … released just five months after the singer’s death, the disc explodes up the charts … by 1997 it has sold 16 million copies in the U.S. alone …
1985, Piano Red, born William Lee Perryman dies of cancer in Atlanta … an albino blues pianist, his lengthy career from the 1920s through the 1980s included work with early blues figures such as Barbecue Bob and Blind Willie McTell … in the 1950s he notched several R&B hits on the RCA label … in 1962, working as Dr. Feelgood & The Interns, he enjoyed a hit with his Caribbean-inflected song “Mr. Moonlight,” later covered by The Beatles …
1987, Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, Appetite For Destruction, is released … while it is considered a landmark album now, it won’t start moving significant units or receiving much airplay until MTV puts the video for “Sweet Child o’ Mine” into heavy rotation nearly a year later … after the ballad shoots to the top of the charts, the original lead single from the album, “Welcome to the Jungle,” is re-released and hits the top ten … the top-ten hit, “Paradise City,” soon follows, as do sold-out arena tours, classic rock star excess, and intra-band conflict …
1991, former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler files suit against the band claiming his bandmates peer-pressured him into heroin addiction, then ousted him from the group when he entered a rehab program … eventually Adler will accept an out-of-court settlement to the tune of 2.5 million bucks
1992, Bruce Springsteen opens his first U.S. tour since 1988 in New Jersey (natch) at The Meadowlands entertainment complex … he and the E-Street boys will play 11 sold-out shows in the 21,000-seat Brendan Byrne arena, with some of the shows going until one in the morning … it’s good to be the Boss …
1993, a bullet grazes singer Eric Tallman’s head as he performs with his band Erotic Exotic at New York nightclub Danceteria … no motive or suspect is found …
1996, Kim Thayil of Soundgarden is arrested for assault and released the same day in North Carolina … the band had just wrapped up their day as main-stage headliners on the Lollapalooza festival stop at Rockingham Dragway … from his own mouth: “It wasn’t even a fan and it wasn’t even at our show. It was in the lobby of our hotel in North Carolina. These people heard that we were staying in the hotel so they’re sneaking out to look and they had been drinking so they were a little bit verbally abusive. I told one of them to go away with a twist of the wrist and that was it, just once. It wouldn’t have been a big deal had I not been who I am-a guy in a rock band.” … thanks for the clarification, Kim …
1997, Elvis Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker dies of a stroke in Las Vegas … born in the Netherlands as Andreas Cornelius Van Kuijk, he was an illegal alien who jumped ship in New York and joined the U.S. Army … after discharge he promoted carnivals and even became a dog catcher for a while before becoming a C&W music promoter who for a time managed Eddie Arnold until an acrimonious split … Presley later became his only client, with Parker notoriously micro-managing his career …
1998, this is a tough week for touring rock acts … Iron Maiden announces it will cancel the remainder of its U.S. tour because vocalist Blaze Bayley is suffering from shredded vocal chords and has been advised by a doctor to keep his mouth shut for a month … Aerosmith cancels the first 13 dates of its U.S. tour after drummer Joey Kramer suffers second-degree burns in a freak gas-station fire … this is the second crimp in the band’s tour plans … in April, dates had to be scrapped on account of Stephen Tyler’s knee injury and subsequent surgery …
1999, all hell breaks loose at Woodstock 99, the ill-fated revival of the ’60s rock festival … during a set by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, bonfires fueled by paper plates and pizza boxes ignite a remote sound tower … ironically, many of the fires are touched off by candles distributed by a peace advocacy group … sexual assaults, looting, water shortages, and overflowing portable toilets contribute to a fun-filled rock ‘n’ roll weekend …
2000, the Aiken County, South Carolina, sheriff’s office finally catches up with James Brown, who’s been touring overseas … utility worker Russell Eubanks has filed a complaint that Brown threatened him by brandishing a steak knife when Eubanks came to Brown’s home to respond to a power outage report … after two hours of questioning, the sheriff’s office reports that Brown was “very cooperative” and was not arrested … police records will reveal that Brown apparently thought Eubanks was an intruder and that racial slurs were exchanged …
2005, in a settlement over payola charges brought by crusading New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Sony BMG Music Entertainment coughs up $10 million in fines … Spitzer’s investigation reveals that the label had plied major stations with cash and gifts in return for airplay of its releases … the AG presented evidence in the form of dozens of emails in which the record company solicited airplay in return for payola … one particularly damning message from an Epic record plugger inquired of a Clear Channel radio programmer, “What do I have to do to get Audioslave on WKSS this week?!!?. Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen!!!” …
2006, Los Lonely Boys bassist Joey “JoJo” Garza is busted for assault and pot possession when cops are called to his Austin, Texas, hotel room on a noise complaint … after they find Carina Lyn, Garza’s fiancée, scratched on her arm and shoulder, they lodge charges though the woman denies there was an assault … meanwhile in Rome, the Vatican, upset by aspects of Madonna’s Confession Tour stage show, calls for the singer’s excommunication …
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
July 19: ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax (1902), singer-guitarist Buster Benton (1932), Bo Diddley’s fellow guitarist-vocalist Lady Bo born Peggy Jones (1940), pop singer Vikki Carr (1941), Clarence White of The Byrds (1944), Average White Band’s Alan Gorrie (1946), Bobby Neal of the Stone Canyon Band (1947), Brian May (1947), The Eagles’ Bernie Leadon (1947), Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux (1948), Allen Collins of Lynyrd Skynyrd (1952), Kevin Haskins of Love & Rockets (1960)
July 20: Buddy Knox (1933), Kim Carnes (1945), The Moody Blues’ John Lodge (1945), Carlos Santana (1947), Twisted Sister’s Jay Jay French (1954), Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols (1956), Simple Minds’ Mick McNeil (1958), Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave (1964), Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam (1966), Vitamin C (1972)
July 21: Floyd McDaniel (1915), Kay Starr (1922), R&B saxophonist Plas Johnson (1931), offbeat pop producer, artist, and impresario Kim Fowley (1939), Cat Stevens AKA Yusuf Islam (1947), Al Di Meola (1954), Emerson Hart of Tonic (1969)
July 22: 1940s-50s pop singer Margaret Whiting (1924), jazz bassist Keter Betts (1928), George Clinton (1940), Thomas Wayne (1940), teen idol Bobby Sherman (1944), Supertramp’s Rick Davies (1944), Estelle Bennett of The Ronettes (1944), Don Henley of The Eagles (1947), Indigo Girl Emily Saliers (1963), Pat Badger of Extreme (1967), Rufus Wainwright (1973), Daniel Jones of Savage Garden (1973)
July 23: Cleve Duncan of The Penguins (1935), Joe Santollo of The Duprees (1943), Tony Joe White (1943), Dino Danelli of The Young Rascals (1945), Andy Mackay of Roxy Music (1946), David Essex (1947), Keith Ferguson of The Fabulous Thunderbirds (1947), Blair Thornton of BTO (1950), Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore (1961), Tim Kellett of Simply Red (1964), Slash (1965), Sam Watters of Color Me Badd (1970), Alison Krauss (1971), Chad Gracey of Live (1973), Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child (1980)
July 24: Rudy Collins of The Dizzy Gillespie Quintet (1934), Barbara Love of The Friends of Distinction (1944), Pam Tillis (1957), Paul Geary of Extreme (1961), Jennifer Lopez (1970), Mecca of Digable Planets (1973)
July 25: Rudy West of The Five Keys (1932), Jim McCarty of The Yardbirds (1943), Steve Goodman (1948), Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire (1951), Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (1958)
Departures
July 19: highlife bandleader Emmanual Tettey “E.T.” Mensah (1996), R&B sax man Red Prysock (1993)
July 20: musician, music executive, and manager Jim Tyrrell (1998), recording engineer Gary Kellgren (1977), Roy Hamilton (1969)
July 21: English bluesman Long John Baldry (2005), gospel singer O’Landa Draper (1998), Colonel Tom Parker (1997), Frankie “Cannibal” Garcia, founder of Cannibal and The Headhunters (1996), arranger-songwriter Bert Keyes (1980)
July 22: tenor sax man Illinois Jacquet (2004), singer Tamara Danz (1996), keyboardist Rob Collins of The Charlatans (1996), Chords singer Jimmy Keyes (1995), doo-wop, jazz, and R&B performer Floyd McDaniel (1995), country-pop singer Larry Finnegan (1973)
July 23: Otis “Big Smokey” Smothers (1993), actor-singer Bert Summer (1990), Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux (1980)
July 24: British rocker Jerry Lordan who wrote “Apache” (1995), R&B singer Priscilla Bowman (1988), Bobby Ramirez, drummer in Edgar Winter’s White Trash band (1972)
July 25: jazz guitarist Tal Farlow (1998), Charlie Rich (1995), producer Alex Sadkin (1987), Piano Red (1985), Big Mama Thornton (1984)