Today in Rock n' Roll History

1963 The Beatles second album 'With The Beatles' started a 21-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart. It replaced their first album 'Please Please me' which had been at the top of the charts since it's release 30 weeks previously. Also today, all four Beatles appeared on BBC TV's 'Juke Box Dury'. Some of the songs The Beatles judged were ‘Kiss Me Quick’ by Elvis Presley, ‘The Hippy Hippy Shake’ by the Swinging Blue Jeans. ‘Did You Have a Happy Birthday’ by Paul Anka and ‘Where Have You Been All My Life’ by Gene Vincent.

1967 Otis Redding went into the studio to record '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay'. The song went on to be his biggest hit. Redding didn't see its release; he was killed three days later in a plane crash.

1971 Genesis supported by Roxy Music appeared at The Hobbits Garden, Wimbledon, England.

1974 Genesis hits #10 in the UK with 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'.

1984 A benefit concert for Ethiopia was held at The Royal Albert Hall, London, featuring, Nick Heyward, Feargal Sharkey, Julian Lennon, Mike Rutherford and others.

1991 George Michael and Elton John were at No.1 in the UK with a live version of 'Don't Let The Sun Go down On Me', (a hit for Elton in 1974). All proceeds from the hit went to aids charities.

1994 Billy Joel is given Billboard's Century Award.

2005 The MBE medal that John Lennon returned to the Queen was found in a royal vault at St James' Palace. Lennon returned his medal in November, 1969 with a letter accompanying saying, "Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With Love, John Lennon." Historians were calling for the medal to be put on public display.

1943 Jim Morrison was born.

1963 Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped at gunpoint from a hotel in Lake Tahoe. He was released two days later after his father paid out the $240,000 ransom demanded by the kidnappers, who were later captured, and sentenced to long prison terms. In order to communicate with the kidnappers via a payphone the senior Sinatra carried a roll of dimes with him throughout this ordeal, which became a lifetime habit, he is said to have been buried with a roll of dimes.

1968 Singer and guitarist Graham Nash left The Hollies and started work with David Crosby and Stephen Stills who went on to form Crosby Stills and Nash.

1973 Elton John hits #2 with "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," the title track from a double album that would itself reach #1 and remain on the album charts for two years.

1979 Styx went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Babe', the group's only US No.1, a No.6 hit in the UK.

1980 John Lennon was shot five times by 25 year old Mark Chapman outside the Dakota building in New York City where John and Yoko lived. Chapman had been stalking Lennon for days outside the Dakota apartments and asked for an autograph as Lennon walked through the courtyard. As he signed a piece of paper Chapman fired. Lennon was pronounced dead from a massive loss of blood at 11.30pm.

1984 Frankie Goes To Hollywood were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'The Power Of Love'. The group's third No.1 of the year and final UK No.1. This made them the first group since Gerry And The Pacemakers to have a UK No.1 with their first three singles.

2000 A plaque to commemorate the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's death was unveiled outside his childhood home in Liverpool.

I was looking thru my Facebook posts for today and came across this one. I love getting the updates and feeds that Jack posts!

https://www.facebook.com/jacktempchin

For those of you who don't subscribe to Facebook, when the link opens just click on the "Wall" option on the left. Great video that Jack just put up the link for about 40 minutes ago.

Happy Anniversary, HOTEL CALIFORNIA.

1961 The Beatles played at the Palais Ballroom in Aldershot to a crowd of just 18 people. The date had not been advertised, owing to the local newspaper's refusal to accept the promoter's cheque. After the show The Beatles became rowdy, getting themselves ordered out of town by the local police.

1967 Cream's second album, 'Disraeli Gears', enters the U.S. charts.

1978 Emerson, Lake & Palmer hit #55 with 'Love Beach', their final studio album.

1988 According to a poll released in the US, the music of Neil Diamond was favoured as the best background music for sex, Beethoven was the second choice and Luther Vandross was voted third.

1989 Billy Joel started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'We Didn't Start The Fire', a No.7 hit in the UK.

1995 The first volume of the Beatles' 'Anthology' series, produced by George Martin, enters the U.S. album chart at #1.

1995 Michael Jackson scored his 6th solo UK No.1 single when 'Earth Song' started a 6-week run at the top of the charts. It gave Jackson the UK Christmas No.1 of 1995 and his best-selling UK single ever. The song kept the first single released by The Beatles in 25 years, 'Free as a Bird', off the No.1 position.

2010 Eric Clapton announced he was to sell off part of his extensive guitar collection to raise money for his Crossroads rehab Centre in Antigua. Highlights of the sale would include a guitar Clapton played at the Cream reunion shows in 2005, estimated to sell for more than £13,000. The sale to be held by Bonhams in New York would also feature a vast collection of amps and speakers, including a pair of Marshall speaker cabinets.

1963 The Beatles were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', the group's third No.1 (and first Amercan No.1) and this year's UK Christmas No.1.

1970 The Doors played what would be their last ever live show with Jim Morrison when they played at the Warehouse in New Orleans.

1981 The Human League had their only UK No.1 single with 'Don't You Want Me.' The Christmas hit of 81, the biggest seller of 1981 and Virgin Records first No.1 UK single. The group's singer Phil Oakey disliked the song so much that it was relegated to the last track on their latest album' Dare'.

2007 A copy of John Lennon's book, A Spaniard in the Works, which contained a lock of Lennon's hair, sold at Gorringes Auction House for £24,000, ($48,000). Lennon gave the book and the hair to Betty Glasgow, the Fab Four's hairdresser during their heyday. He wrote in the book, "To Betty, Lots of Love and Hair, John Lennon xx." The strands of hair and book had been expected to sell for between £2,000 and £4,000.

2008 The town where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards grew up announced it was to name streets in a new estate after Rolling Stones hits. The 13 streets in Dartford, Kent, were to be given names such as Angie Mews, Babylon Close, Sympathy Street, Little Red Walk and Satisfaction Street. Leader of the council, Jeremy Kite, said he thought Ruby Tuesday Drive sounded a "fantastic" place to live, but police were concerned the street signs might be stolen by fans.

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Originally Posted by Koala

2010 Eric Clapton announced he was to sell off part of his extensive guitar collection to raise money for his Crossroads rehab Centre in Antigua. Highlights of the sale would include a guitar Clapton played at the Cream reunion shows in 2005, estimated to sell for more than £13,000. The sale to be held by Bonhams in New York would also feature a vast collection of amps and speakers, including a pair of Marshall speaker cabinets.

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I remember that sale... He sold Blackie! :shock: That guitar was THE guitar of Clapton's solo career. In Cream and the Bluesbreakers he always played either a Les Paul, a 335, or an SG. In the Blind Faith and Yardbirds days he played a Tele. And then in Derek and the Dominoes and solo he always played a Strat. He used Brownie on the Layla album but Blackie was the signature Clapton model. It was a mutt guitar made of several different parts. He took several Strats and found the best parts out of each to make the best Strat frankenstein he could. Then he gave the rest of them to his friends like George Harrison, Steve Winwood, and a few others I can't think of right now. He bought them in Nashville at Sho-Bud on a clearance rack IIRC.

1955 Dickie Valentine was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Christmas Alphabet', the first Christmas song to reach the No.1 position.

1962 Elvis Presley was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Return To Sender', his 13th UK No.1.

1975 Chicago started a five-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with 'Chicago IX-Chicago's Greatest Hits', the group's fifth No.1 album.

1978 The Jackson's release 'Destiny', their first entirely self-produced and almost entirely group-written album. It reaches #11 and sells more than a million copies, vindicating their belief in their own creative powers.

2000 Sir Paul McCartney held his first-ever London book signing at Waterstone's in Piccadilly. Sir Paul was in the store to sign copies of his new book, Paul McCartney Paintings.

2002 Canadian guitarist and singer Zal Yanovsky of The Lovin Spoonful died of a heart attack. Was a member of The Mugwumps with Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot. Formed Lovin Spoonful with John Sebastian in 1964, they scored the 1966 US No.1 & UK No.8 single 'Summer In The City'.
2005 A cheque
signed by John Lennon made out to the Inland Revenue sold for £2,000 at a UK auction. It was sold by former madam Lindi St Clair, (formerly known as Miss Whiplash), after she decided she had no use for it. Clair who now runs a duck farm in Herefordshire had bought the cheque for £4,000 in 1988. It was signed by Lennon on 23rd January 1968 on a District Bank Limited form and made out for £6,946.

1959 The Kingston Trio started an eight-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with 'Here We Go Again!'

1962 Bill Wyman made his live debut with The Rollin' Stones at the Ricky Tick Club, Star and Garter Hotel in Windsor, England. The group were know as The Rollin' Stones during this period.

1969 The Jackson Five made their first network television appearance in the US when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1972 Born To Boogie' the Ringo Starr directed movie featuring T Rex premiered in London.

1980 Yoko Ono called on fans to observe ten minutes of silence in memory of John Lennon. 30,000 gathered outside St George's Hall in Liverpool, while nearly 100,000 attend a memorial in New York's Central Park.

1985 Peter Gabriel participate in Artists Against Apartheid.

2003 Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Changes' a remake of a track first sung by Ozzy on the Black Sabbath album Volume IV in 1972. It was the first father and daughter chart topper since Frank & Nancy Sinatra in 1967.

1969 John Lennon played what would be his final ever gig in the UK when he appeared at The Lyceum Ballroom, London, with the Plastic Ono Band in a UNICEF 'Peace For Christmas' benefit. George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Delaney and Bonnie, Billy Preston and The Who's drummer, Keith Moon also took part.

1974 Cat's In the Cradle (Harry Chapin) was a hit.

1979 Pink Floyd releases their double-album epic, 'The Wall.' It stays at #1 for 15 weeks and has to date been certified 23 times platinum (signifying one million copies) in the US, making it the third best-selling album of all time.

1984 'Do They Know It's Christmas' by Band Aid entered the UK chart at No.1 and stayed at the top for five weeks. It became the biggest selling UK single of all time with sales over 3 and a half million. Band Aid was masterminded by former Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof, who had been moved by a TV news story of famine in Ethiopia. Geldof had the idea of raising funds with a one-off charity single featuring the cream of the current pop world. Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Paul Young, Culture Club, George Michael, Sting, Bono, Phil Collins, Paul Weller, Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt of Status Quo and Bananarama all appeared on the recording.

2001 Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh was given an honorary Doctorate of Music from Kent State University in Ohio.

2010 Various Pink Floyd items were sold at an Entertainment Memorabilia auction by Bonhams in Knightsbridge London. A demo pressing of the single 'Point Me To The Sky'/'Careful With That Axe Eugene' sold for £720. Pink Floyd signatures, in various blue marker pens on four separate pieces of paper mounted and framed together with a copy of 'Dark Side Of The Moon' sold for £624.00 and a demo pressing of the single by Syd Barrett, 'Octopus' / 'Golden Hair' from 1969, misspelt 'Barratt' corrected in ink on A-side, sold for £300.

1946 Benny Anderson, ABBA is born.

1966 The first Jimi Hendrix Experience single 'Hey Joe', was released in the UK on Polydor records, the track had been rejected by the Decca label. It went on to be a No.6 hit in the UK, but failed to chart in America.

1967 The Rolling Stones announced that Marianne Faithfull was the first signing to their 'Mother Earth' label.

1970 Five singles and five albums by Credence Clearwater Revival were certified gold in the US. The singles were: ‘Down on the Corner’, ‘Lookin out My Back Door’, ‘Travelin' Band’, ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and ‘Up around the Bend’. The LPs were ‘Cosmo's Factory’, ‘Willy and the Poor Boys’, ‘Green River’, ‘Bayou Country’ and ‘Credence Clearwater Revival’.

1989 Billy Joel went to No.1 on the US album chart with 'Storm Front'
1993 MTV aired Nirvana's 'Unplugged' session for the first time. The album featured an acoustic performance taped at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993.

1999 A 28 year-old man died after falling more than 80ft at Earls Court, London, while dismantling the set at a Spice Girls concert.

2001 Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman started a three-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with their version of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra 1967 No.1 hit 'Somethin' Stupid'. The Christmas No.1 for this year. From William's album Swing When You're Winning.

2006 Sir Paul McCartney said he left EMI, his record label of 45 years, as it had become "boring" and he had "dreaded going to see" its executives. McCartney told The Times that the company's handling of his music had become "symbolic of the treadmill". The ex-Beatle went on to sign a deal with Starbucks' label, Hear Music.