This is the week that was in matters musical …
1957, in Sydney, Australia, Little Richard announces his intention to give up rock-and-roll and “live for the Lord” … demonstrating his sincerity he tosses four diamond rings into a river … Richard flies to Los Angeles the following day and is baptized as a Seventh Day Adventist … five years later he resumes his music career …
1962, just after his return to show biz, Little Richard headlines a concert in Liverpool … The Beatles are the warm-up act … it is reported they all hit it off splendidly … also this week, “Monster Mash” by Bobby Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers is the No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit … cannily released to coincide with Halloween, the novelty tune with a Boris Karloff-like spoken vocal reappears on the charts in 1970 and 1973 …
1966, Grace Slick replaces expectant mother Signe Anderson in The Jefferson Airplane … she leaves her current band The Great Society bringing along two songs that will be at the forefront of the San Francisco music scene: “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” … across the bay, Joan Baez is arrested along with 124 others at an anti-draft demonstration outside a military induction center in Oakland …
1968, The New Yardbirds, a band later renamed Led Zeppelin, plays its first British show at Surrey University …
1969, blues giant Muddy Waters is severely injured in a car crash in which three others are killed …
1971, Creedence Clearwater Revival is sued by a music publisher claiming that John Fogerty’s song “Travelin’ Band” is a ripoff of “Good Golly, Miss Molly” … the suit is later dropped …
1972, in the wake of weak sales of their latest album Mardi Gras, and dissension by band members over John Fogerty’s lock on writing and publishing of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s music, the band calls it quits … leader Fogerty goes on to a robust solo career while the rest of the Revivalists descend into relative obscurity … this same week, Chuck Berry scores his first and last #1 Pop Chart hit with “My Ding-a-Ling,” a slightly salacious bit of silliness …
1973, The Stones’ “Angie” is the No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit … supposedly a paean to David Bowie’s missus, the song is covered by Tori Amos in the ’90s …
1986, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards rock out at an affair honoring Chuck Berry on his 60th birthday …
1988, UB40’s “Red Red Wine” is the Billboard No. 1 Pop Hit … the British group originally released the Neil Diamond-penned song in 1984 when it rose to No. 34 …
1991, John Mellencamp is hospitalized in Seattle after suffering a dizzy spell during a Seattle radio appearance … a doctor later attributes his malady to “too much coffee, stress, and not enough breakfast” …
1992, Sinead O’Connor is booed off the stage at Madison Square Garden at a concert honoring Bob Dylan … the hostile crowd is reacting to the singer’s appearance two weeks earlier on Saturday Night Live when she tore up a picture of the Pope …
1993, Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” video is ranked No. 1 in video history by Rolling Stone magazine … it also racks up a record-setting nine MTV awards …
1995, Sting’s former financial adviser is sentenced to six years in the cooler for bilking the performer out of $9.4 million …
1995, Rhino Home Video releases a 21-cassette collection encompassing all 58 episodes of The Monkees TV show … it’s the biggest boxed video set ever …
1996, singer-songwriter John Denver dies when his experimental aircraft goes down in California’s Monterey Bay …
1997, Patricia Richardson, a Virginia concert promoter, brings a suit against Snoop Doggy Dog and his manager, charging that they duped her into bringing packages with seven pounds of pot to a venue where Snoop was performing, leading to her arrest …
1998, the Crossroads Centre of Antigua opens … the treatment facility for drug addicts is bankrolled by Eric Clapton …
1999, Carlos Santana’s Supernatural is the Billboard best-selling album … it’s the first No. 1 release for a Santana-led record in 28 years …
2000, Santana is presented with a key to the city of Tijuana where he grew up …
2004, Eminem’s hit video “Just Lose It” shows the rapper impersonating Michael Jackson … he’s seen on a bed with young boys, with his hair ablaze, searching for his lost nose, and being vomited on … a Jackson spokesman complains, “It’s one thing to be spoofed, but Michael felt Eminem crossed the line” … after an appeal from Jackson, BET agrees to stop airing the vid but MTV keeps it in heavy rotation …
2005, Tommy Lee of Motley Crue is treated in Casper, Wyoming, for second-degree burns after sparks from a pyrotechnic display during a show burn his arms and face … also this week, observing what would have been John Lennon’s 65th birthday, Yoko Ono plants a tree at England’s Coventry Cathederal … school children sing “Imagine” during the ceremony …
2006, after a protracted battle with its landlord, New York punk Mecca CBGB closes its doors forever … on hand to close the joint is Patti Smith who performs most of the songs from her 1975 Horses album … club owner Hilly Kristal, who founded CBGB as a country venue in 1973, is offered a new location by the city of New York but passes on it saying renovation costs are too steep … talk persists about the club moving to Vegas together with many of its storied decorations as well as its legendarily filthy basement toilets …
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
October 11: Art Blakey (1919), Little Willie Littlefield (1931), jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie (1941), Gary Mallaber of The Steve Miller Band (1946), Daryl Hall (1949), Andrew Woolfolk of Earth, Wind & Fire (1950), Scott Johnson of The Gin Blossoms (1962), MC Lyte (1971)
October 12: composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872), Guitar Gabriel aka Robert Lewis Jones (1925), Sam Moore of Sam and Dave (1935), Luciano Pavarotti (1935), Melvin Franklin of The Temptations (1942), Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens (1955), Bob Mould (1960), Garfield Bright of Shai (1969), Martie Seidel of The Dixie Chicks (1969), Ashanti (1980)
October 13: Paul Simon (1941), Robert Lamm of Chicago (1944), Sammy Hagar (1947), Simon Nicol of Fairport Convention (1950), Marie Osmond (1959)
October 14: Jimmy Liggins (1922), monster picker Mickey “Guitar” Baker of Mickey & Sylvia (1925), Bill Justis (1926), Robert “Barefootin” Parker (1930), Barry McGuire of The New Christy Minstrels (1935), Marv Johnson (1938), Cliff Richard (1940), Colin Hodgkinson of Whitesnake (1945), Moody Blues vocalist Justin Hayward (1946), Danish pop king Tommy Seebach (1949), Thomas Dolby (1958), A.J. Pero of Twisted Sister (1959), Karyn White (1965), Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks (1974), Shaznay Lewis of All Saints (1975), Usher (1978)
October 15: singer Victoria Spivey (1906), Bobby Gimby (1918), Barry Sadler (1939), Richard Carpenter of The Carpenters (1946), Chris DeBurgh of “Lady in Red” fame (1948), Tito Jackson (1953), Ginuwine (1970)
October 16: Big Joe Williams (1899), Nico of the Velvet Underground (1938), Fred Turner of BTO (1943), Bob Weir (1947), Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet (1959), Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers (1962), Wendy Wilson of Wilson Phillips (1969), John Mayer (1977)
October 17: jazz drummer Cozy Cole (1909), recording expert John Mosley (1914), British record executive Louis Benjamin (1922), trombonist Rico Rodriguez of The Specials (1934), Jim Seals of Seals and Crofts (1941), Gary Puckett (1942), James Tucker of The Turtles (1946), Mike Hossack of the Doobie Bros. (1948), Allen Jackson (1958), Rene Dif of Aqua (1967), Ziggy Marley (1968), Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC (1971), Eminem (1972), Wyclef Jean (1972)
Departures:
October 11: Edith Piaf (1963)
October 12: bluesman Frank Frost (1999), John Denver (1997), Ricky Wilson of the B-52’s (1985), Gene Vincent (1971), songwriter Baker Knight (2005)
October 13: Ralph “Pee Wee” Middlebrooks of The Ohio Players (1996), Shirley Brickley of The Orlons (1977), Ed Sullivan (1974)
October 14: Leonard Bernstein (1990), Bing Crosby (1977)
October 15: songwriter Terry Gilkyson (1999), Tasha Thomas (1984), Jud Strunk (1981), Bobby Lester of The Moonglows (1980), Cole Porter (1974)
October 16: jazz vocalist Etta Jones (2001), singer Ella Mae Morse of “Cow Cow Boogie” fame (1999), Richard Kermode (1996), Art Blakey (1990), Gene Krupa (1973), Leonard Chess, co-founder of Chess Records (1969)
October 17: composer Berthold Goldschmidt (1996), Chris Acland of Lush (1996), Criss Oliva of Savatage (1993), Tennessee Ernie Ford (1991), Alberta Hunter (1984), Edgar V. Blanchard (1972)