This is the week that was in matters musical…
1948, CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) demonstrates the long-playing microgroove recording, playing at 33-1/3 revolutions per minute, replacing albums consisting of several 10- or 12-inch 78rpms with a single record … in response, RCA Victor, who had experimented with 33-1/3 in 1931, comes out with its own innovation, the seven-inch 45rpm record that becomes the standard for single releases … 78rpms are gone by 1960 …
1955, Sun Records releases Johnny Cash’s first single, “Cry Cry Cry” … Johnny will be cashing in for quite some time to come, as it’s the first in a string of over 100 hit singles by the Man in Black …
1962, Hank Ballard and The Midnighters, who wrote and first recorded “The Twist,” are scheduled to perform the song on American Bandstand but have to cancel the date … in an odd twist, Chubby Checker is hired as a replacement to perform his version of the song, which will climb higher on the pop chart than Ballard’s original … twice … it will hit number one and then do it again a year later …
1963, on his way to becoming huge, Little Stevie Wonder’s “Fingertips Pt. 2” becomes the 13-year-old’s first of 61 records to hit the charts …
1964, in the midst of an American tour, The Rolling Stones spend $2,500 in airfares to get back to England in order to play a date at Oxford’s Magdalen College committed to a year earlier … the gig pays $170 …
1965, The Byrds’ folk-rock version of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” starts its week at the top of the charts …
1967, the Monterey Pop Festival in California debuts with a stellar lineup including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Otis Redding … the three-day event is a precursor to Woodstock and many more giant outdoor rock festivals … hippies gather in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district to celebrate the Summer of Love … as an ominous harbinger of more troubling times, dozens are carted off to psycho wards after ingesting STP, a newly-developed psychedelic that produces scary three-day trips … the following October, a mock funeral for the death of the hippie is held in “the Haight” … that, along with The Stones’ disastrous Altamont concert, signals that the honeymoon is over, and the Summer of Love will soon turn into the winter of our discontent …
1969, Mick Taylor makes his stage debut with The Rolling Stones at a concert in Rome … he replaces guitarist Brian Jones and will stay with the band until 1975, when he retires and is replaced by Ron Wood … Taylor holds the distinction of being the only Stones guitarist to quit the band and live … Jimi Hendrix earns the largest paycheck to date for a single show, receiving $125,000 for a single set at the Newport Jazz Festival … Also this week, the Hollies record “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” with Elton John playing piano … the song reaches No. 7 on Billboard’s singles chart …
1970, “Cinnamon Girl” by Neil Young goes gold, bringing Neil’s search for a heart of the same substance that much closer …
1973, The Rocky Horror Picture Show opens for the first time in London … after seeing audiences quivering with antici … pation, Tim Curry will reprise his role for the movie version two years later …
1975, Alice Cooper takes a tumble from a stage in Vancouver, British Columbia, resulting in six broken ribs … his makeup, however, emerges unscathed …
1980, Led Zeppelin begins a three-week tour with a concert in Dortmund, Germany … held at the Westfalenhalle, it is their first concert on the European continent since 1973 … however, due to John Bonham’s death in September, it will be the group’s last European tour … they open the show with “Train Kept A Rollin’,” a song they haven’t played since 1969 and which Page also performed with the original Yardbirds … the Tiny Bradshaw composition was popularized by Johnny Burnette and will later be covered by rockers ranging from Alex Chilton to Motorhead to, most famously, Aerosmith …
1981, Donald Fagan and Walter Becker announce the break-up of Steely Dan … Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to killing John Lennon …
1990, Little Richard hitting the big time is commemorated with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame …
1993, the U.S. Postal Service releases a set of stamps that feature iconic images of Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Clyde McPhatter, Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, Ritchie Valens, and Dinah Washington …
1994, Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff is found slumped over her bathtub, dead of a heroin overdose … next to her body is a cosmetic bag with more than just lipstick inside … tragically, this occurs just after Kristen had packed her bags to move back to Minneapolis to escape Seattle and its too-easy-to-cop drug scene … Pfaff dies just two months after Kurt Cobain ended his life … it’s been a swell couple of months for Courtney Love …
1996, the Furthur Festival kicks off in Atlanta, as the surviving members of The Grateful Dead perform together for the first time since the death of Jerry Garcia …
1998, Paul McCartney personally selects and arranges the flowers—45,000 of them—at Manhattan Riverside Church where friends and family gather to say farewell to his wife Linda …
1999, the band Pantera rides a float in the Dallas Stars Stanley Cup victory parade in downtown Dallas … the honor is bestowed upon the band because Pantera, in addition to being huge Stars fans, wrote the team’s theme song, which is played multiple times at every home game …
2000, exactly 30 years and two days after “Cinnamon Girl” went gold, Neil Young is honored in Toronto with a star on the Canada Walk Of Fame … the Toronto native joins prior honorees Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Gordon Lightfoot, Rush, Christopher Plummer, Jim Carey, and director Norman Jewison …
2003, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announces plans to fight Internet piracy by suing hundreds of individual computer users who illegally share music files online … many industry experts argue that suing one’s customers is not a formula for repeat business; however, the RIAA says it will start the following day … hey RIAA, what about selling a better product for less money? … that still works …
2004, Britney Spears announces her engagement to boyfriend, dancer Kevin Federline … the engagement comes about six months after the pop vixen dissolved her Las Vegas marriage to childhood “friend” Jason Allan Alexander, who hails from her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana … proving once again that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, the wedding was annulled after two days of intensive marital bliss … Spears’ lawyers contended before a Nevada court that she “lacked understanding of her actions.” … lucky for Kevin, Britney’s had a good six months to figure out the whole getting married thing … however, as time will show, she’ll never really quite get the hang of it, as Federline will be Fed-exed out of her existence …
2006, while traveling in the Middle East with his Dark Side of the Moon world tour, Roger Waters visits a concrete wall built by the Israeli government in the East Bank to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers … Waters scribbles sentiments on the structure such as, “Tear Down the Wall!” … the next day the Pink Floyd founder decides to play in a community called Neveh Shalom where Israelis and Arabs peacefully live together instead of Tel Aviv as originally planned … it’s reported that those opposed to the barrier have adopted Waters’ song “Another Brick in the Wall” as a rallying cry … in an ironic twist, the New Cars’ Road Rage tour has the brakes slammed on when the band’s tour bus suddenly swerves to avoid a head-on … guitarist Elliot Easton breaks a clavicle in the incident … rumors that the New Cars next tour will be sponsored by State Farm Insurance and called, “The $500 Deductible Tour,” with Mike And The Mechanics playing warm up, are sadly unfounded … Korn pulls the plug on its European tour when singer Jonathan Davis comes down with a blood disorder … Davis posts a note on the band’s website saying that head-banging with his condition could lead to instant death by brain hemorrhage … then again, so could standing in front of the PA speakers … just before The Stones embark on yet another tour, guitarist Ron Wood enters rehab, apparently he didn’t hab right the first time …
2007, New Order get their marching orders as bassist Peter Hook confirms the breakup of the band to BBC 6 Music … Hook seems upset as he explains the situation, “It has been very sad actually, and it has been very difficult to live with, but that is life, isn’t it? But you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you start all over again.” … pushed to give a reason for the split, he replied simply, “It’s personal.” …
2008, presidential contender Barack Obama continues to rack up support in the rock community with Michael Stipe, Pete Wentz, Billie Joe Armstrong, Bob Weir, Dave Matthews, Jeff Tweedy, and Conor Oberst all signing on to give his campaign support … commenting on the candidate, The Dead’s Weir says, “The contagion of hope is real” … subsequently, the CDC was able to stamp out the contagion in short order … or was that the GOP …
… and that was the week that was …
Arrivals:
June 16: lyricist Ben Raleigh (1913), honkin’ saxophonist Lucky Thompson (1924), jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd (1925), Motown songwriter-producer Lamont Dozier (1941), Eddie Levert of the O’Jays (1942), Pete Rivera of Rare Earth (1945), James Smith of the Stylistics (1950), pop singer Gino Vanelli (1952), Tupac Shakur (1971)
June 17: Igor Stravinsky (1882), guitarist Cliff Gallup of Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps (1930), Norman Kuhlke of The Swinging Blue Jeans (1942), Chris Spedding (1944), Barry Manilow born Barry Alan Pinkus (1946), Paul Young (1956), Kevin Thornton of Color Me Badd (1969)
June 18: Jeanette MacDonald (1907), lyricist Sammy Cahn (1913), Paul McCartney (1942), bassist Carl Radle (1942), pop singer Sandy Posey (1944), Jerome Smith of KC and The Sunshine Band (1953), Tom Bailey of The Thompson Twins (1957), West Arkeen (1960), Alison Moyet (1961), Guns N’ Roses keyboardist Dizzy Reed (1963), Nathan Morris of Boyz II Men (1971)
June 19: bandleader Guy Lombardo (1902), Tommy Devito of The Four Seasons (1936), rockabilly bad boy Robert Gordon (1945), singer-songwriter Nick Drake (1948), Ann Wilson of Heart (1950) Paula Abdul (1962), Brian Vander Ark of The Verve Pipe (1964), Brian Welch of Korn (1969)
June 20: producer Mickie Most (1938), Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys (1942), singer Anne Murray (1945), Lionel Richie (1949), Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony (1955), John Taylor of Duran Duran (1960), Murphy Karges of Sugar Ray (1968), Twiggy Ramirez of Marilyn Manson (1972)
June 21: Ray Davies of The Kinks (1944), Joey Molland of Badfinger (1948), Joey Kramer of Aerosmith (1950), Nils Lofgren (1951), Mark Brzezicki of Big Country (1957), country singer-songwriter Kathy Mattea (1959), Marcella Detroit of Shakespears Sister (1959), British singer and DJ Sonique, born Sonia Clarke (1968), Mike Einziger of Incubus (1976)
June 22: jazz guitarist Johnny Smith (1922), Kris Kristofferson (1936), Peter Asher of Peter & Gordon (1944), singer Howard Kaylan of The Turtles (1947), Todd Rundgren (1948), Alan Osmond of The Osmonds (1949), Cyndi Lauper (1953), Derek Forbes, bassist with Simple Minds (1956), bassist Garry Gary Beers of INXS (1957), Cowboy Junkies’ bassist Alan Anton (1959), singer Jimmy Somerville of Bronski Beat and The Communards (1961), Mike Edwards of Jesus Jones (1964), Tom Cunningham of Wet Wet Wet (1965), singer-guitarist-songwriter Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies (1970)
Departures:
June 16: Ben Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo (2004), The Savages singer Screaming Lord Sutch born David Edward Sutch (1999), Dr. Hook drummer John Wolters (1997), Kristen Pfaff of Hole (1994), John Jordan of The Four Vagabonds (1988), James Honeyman-Scott (1982), Warren Ryanes of The Monotones (1982), Don Robey, founder of Peacock Records (1975), pioneer electric guitarist Lonnie Johnson (1970), Jack McFadden, Nashville manager of Buck Owens (1968)
June 17: Karl Mueller of Soul Asylum (2005), jazz singer Jackie Paris (2004), songwriter Mark Cherron (1994)
June 18: Luther Tucker (1993), “Rock Around The Clock” guitar soloist Danny Cedrone (1954)
June 19: mariachi singer-actor Antonio Aguilar (2007), Bobby Helms of “Jingle Bell Rock” fame (1997), composer Vivian Ellis (1996), R&B artist Walter Jackson (1983)
June 20: Kool & The Gang co-founder and guitarist, Claydes Charles Smith (2006), Canadian one-hit-wonder, Bobby Gimby (1998), Lawrence Payton of The Four Tops (1997), Jim Ellison, lead singer and guitarist with Material Issue (1996)
June 21: Mississippi bluesman John Lee Hooker (2001), jazz and R&B crooner Arthur Prysock (1997), gospel singer Thomas Whitfield (1992), bandleader Bert Kaempfert (1980)
June 22: Kripp Johnson, born Corinthian Johnson, lead singer for The Del Vikings (1990), Jesse “Ed” Davis, session guitarist with Taj Mahal (1988), singer-radio personality Dennis Day (1988) Fred Astaire (1987), Warren Corbin, bass vocalist with the Cleftones (1978), Pere Ubu guitarist Peter Laughner (1977), composer Darius Milhaud (1974)