This is the week that was in matters musical …
1952, “Stormy Weather” by The Five Sharps is issued this week … it has become known as the rarest of all R&B records and only three 78rpm and no 45rpm copies are known to exist … at auction the record is worth an estimated $20,000 …
1957, Al Priddy, a disc jockey at station KEX in Portland, Oregon, is fired for playing Elvis Presley’s version of “White Christmas” … the station instituted a ban of the song due to a behind-the-scenes deal with original song composer Irving Berlin, who detested The King’s version of his tune … KEX management releases a statement which states the song is “not in the spirit we associate with Christmas” … whatever that means … Jerry Lee Lewis weds Myra Gale Brown … she is his third wife, his third cousin, and 13 years old …
1961, The Beatles sign with manager Brian Epstein …
1964, Sam Cooke is shot and beaten to death by a motel manager in Los Angeles … Cooke was apparently running amok wearing only a sport coat and shoes … he was chasing a young woman who had fled his room with his clothes after he had assaulted her … in pursuit Cooke broke open the door to the manager’s office, resulting in her shooting him three times and then beating the singer for good measure … he is dead when police arrive … John Coltrane records “A Love Supreme” with his quartet … original blue-eyed soul singers The Righteous Brothers release the Phil Spector-produced mega-hit “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”… besides being deliriously catchy with an instantly memorable melody, the song records several firsts … it is the first four-minute single to hit number one in the U.S. and the first tune produced by Spector to top the charts in England … Spector refused to cut the song to the under three-minute time required for radio … instead the last two digits of the running time were reversed to appear as 3:05 … it takes programming directors weeks to discover why shows were suddenly running long … the trick works, though, as “Lovin’ Feelin'” is already a hit and in demand …
1965, Bill Graham promotes his first concert at the Fillmore Auditorium as a benefit for the San Francisco Mime Troupe … performers include a very early Jefferson Airplane, and The Great Society with vocalist Grace Slick … Graham rents the venue from leaseholder Charles Sullivan, an African-American man who, during the 1950s and 1960s, is the largest promoter of black music west of the Mississippi … Graham will later take over all shows at the venue and the Fillmore will become a Mecca for psychedelic bands and their patchouli-scented fans … Ray Charles charts his 44th song this week when “Crying Time” enters the Hot 100 …
1966, “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” by the Electric Prunes is released …
1967, Jim Morrison, who is famous for legal troubles over dropped trousers, is arrested for breach of peace … Morrison, hacked at getting maced earlier for mouthing off to a policeman, goes into a rant about the incident in the middle of “Back Door Man” … the cops grab him right off the stage … Byrds drummer Michael Clarke quits within a month of Byrds’ leader Jim McGuinn firing David Crosby … this happens about two years after another Clark, that is Gene Clark, quits the band on account of his aversion to flying … a big liability for a Byrd … Cream’s Disraeli Gears enters the U.S. album charts … Otis Redding finishes recording “Dock of the Bay” … three days later he is killed when his tour plane crashes into Lake Monona near Madison, Wisconsin … the “Love Man” is 26 … killed with Redding are the pilot and four members of his backup group, the Bar-Kays … the scheduled opening band for Redding’s show that evening is a group called The Grim Reaper …
1968, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is filmed in front of a live audience in London … the music performers include The Stones, The Who, Marianne Faithful, Jethro Tull, and temporary rock supergroup Dirty Mac, consisting of John Lennon, Mitch Mitchell, Eric Clapton, and Keith Richards … Yoko Ono makes an appearance on one Dirty Mac tune … the rock-concert extravaganza is intended for broadcast as a television special, but never made it … the film would not see release until 1996 … Graham Nash quits The Hollies and says he’s going to form a group with David Crosby and Stephen Stills …
1969, Jimi Hendrix takes the stand in the Toronto Supreme Court at his trial for possession of hashish and heroin … Hendrix testifies that he has smoked pot four times and hashish five times, taken LSD five times, and sniffed cocaine twice but says he has “outgrown” drugs … the jury finds him not guilty after eight hours of deliberation …
1970, Pink Floyd are touring the U.K. in support of their latest album Atom Heart Mother …
1971, Frank Zappa is pushed off the stage at the Rainbow Theatre in London … he gets the shove from the jealous boyfriend of an ardent young fan … Frank suffers a broken leg, broken ankle, fractured skull, and crushed larynx, but it’s the damage to his spine that keeps him in a wheelchair for most of the year …
1972, Frank Zappa advertises in Variety, offering instruction in how to win at craps, roulette, and blackjack using mathematics … the Zappa placing the ad is Frank Zappa’s father, Frank (but not Senior, dad was named Francesco, his son was named Frank) …
1974, John Lennon and Ronald Reagan are the celebrity guests on ABC’s Monday Night Football … off-camera the former California governor and future president schools the former Beatle on the finer points of the game …
1976, KISS guitarist Ace Frehley is electrocuted onstage during a concert in Florida when he touches a light fixture that has shorted … he has to be carried from the stage but collects himself and returns to finish the performance …
1977, Saturday Night Fever premieres in New York … the movie will spread the disco craze across the country and the soundtrack album will become one of the biggest sellers of all time …
1978, The Blues Brothers release their version of Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man” …
1979, The Clash release what many feel is their best album London Calling, a two-record set that could be called their version of The Beatles so-called “White Album” in the way it embraces so many musical genres … on the initial release, the track “Train In Vain” is not listed, an Easter egg … it would then be released as a single becoming a #4 hit in England and #23 in the States …
1980, John Lennon is shot to death in New York City on the street outside his apartment … he Clash release the sprawling three-record set Sandinista … The Minutemen live up to their name with a seven-song EP, five of them clocking in at under a minute …
1982, actress-choreographer-one-hit-wonder Toni Basil hits number one on the BillBoard pop chart with “Mickey” …
1984, various popular artists, who are part of Bob Geldof’s Band-Aid rock charity, release the well-intentioned, but campy, single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” … performers include Phil Collins, Simon Le Bon, Bono, Paul Weller, Mark Knopfler, George Michael, and Sting … David Bowie and Paul McCartney were not at the recording session but mailed in their vocal contributions …
1991, Rita Marley is finally awarded Bob Marley’s contested estate after years of legal wrangling … as a result of the verdict famous Marley son Ziggy names his daughter Justice …
1995, the surviving members of The Grateful Dead disband in the wake of Jerry Garcia’s death in August …
1998, Frank Sinatra’s FBI file is released to the public by the bureau … it contains 2,403 pages documenting assorted sordid Sinatra facts like his close connections with organized crime and well-hidden arrest records … Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs is injured in a brawl outside the Liberty Lunch nightclub … the band has just finished a show inside the Austin, Texas, club when the singer gets into a fight with one of the club’s security guards … Dulli ends up in the hospital for a few days with a fractured skull …
1999, rapper Notorious B.I.G.’s second posthumous album, <em>Born Again</em>, sells nearly a half million copies in its first week … it bumps Celine Dion out of the top spot with national retailers …
2000, Metallica sues Neiman-Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and Guerlain, Inc. for trademark infringement … the three companies are producing and selling a perfume branded Metallica …
2003, Ozzy Osbourne is crushed under the all-terrain vehicle he is riding at his country estate in Buckinghamshire, England … the accident puts him in the hospital for nearly a month recovering from injuries that include a fractured left collarbone, eight fractured ribs, and crushed neck vertebrae … he awakes from a coma-like condition with no sense of smell or taste, convinced he has been in a bomb blast in Wales while touring with his band …
2004, Damageplan and ex-Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell is shot to death at a Columbus, Ohio, nightclub … Damageplan had just started their show when a crazed fan runs onstage and shoots Dimebag … the shooter then kills a band roadie and two fans … a hostage situation is ended when a local police officer enters the backstage area and shoots the assailant, killing him … in the weeks leading up to the holidays, new releases by such luminaries as Britney Spears, U2, Eminem, and Destiny’s Child are leaked to the internet … record labels attribute the illicit releases to thefts from studios and distributors … Def Jam Recordings announces that Jay-Z will assume duties as the president of the record label on January 3, 2005 … the announcement coincides with his Linkin Park collaboration Collision Course arriving at #1 on the Billboard chart … James Brown announces that he will be operated on for prostate cancer … Tupac Shakur’s eighth posthumous album Loyal to the Game is released … at the time of his death in 1995 the rapper had sold a total of 5.9 million records; by 2004 that number has grown to over 35 million units … his estate has also spun off a line of urban apparel, a biography, a poetry collection, two authorized documentaries on DVDs … and at the end of 2004 a VH1 biographical documentary and a Broadway musical are also in the works …
2006, daredevil Evel Knievel files suit against Kanye West charging trademark infringement over the rapper’s “Touch the Sky” video in which West, using the alter-ego “Evel Kanyevel” attempts to jump a canyon on a motorcycle … apparently not a West fan, Knievel terms the video, “… the most worthless piece of crap I’ve ever seen in my life.” …
2007, Led Zeppelin reunites for a one-off show at London’s O2 arena as a part of a tribute to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun who died a year earlier … the two-hour set includes many of the band’s biggest hits and represented Zep’s first full-length show since drummer John Bonham died in 1980 … filling in on drums is John’s son, Jason, who acquitted himself well … rumors swirl about a reunion tour … in the wake of his departure from Interscope, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor launches the website remix.nin.com where fans can mash up songs from the NIN catalog and post their creations online … a half dozen tracks posted online by garage rockers Foxboro Hot Tubs get heightened attention when word leaks that the songs are actually the work of pop punksters Green Day … a full-length album, Stop Drop and Roll containing the singles, will be released the following April …
2008, Coldplay’s Chris Martin says “Viva La Vida” is not copied from Joe Satriani’s “If I Could Fly” … Sir Elton John loses libel case … according to the U.K.’s Guardian, a high court judge rules the singer’s sense of humor failure over a satirical piece by a Guardian columnist is a tantrum too far, that “irony” and “teasing” do not amount to defamation …
2009, just before boarding a plane at LAX headed for the first of Guns N’ Roses’ Asian tour dates, frontman Axl Rose Rose is captured on video punching a photographer …
… and that was the week that was in matters musical.
Arrivals:
December 8: Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865), Sammy Davis Jr. (1925), master of the B3 Jimmy Smith (1925), soul singer Jerry Butler (1939), flutist James Galway (1939), The Hollies’ Bobby Elliot (1942), Jim Morrison (1943), Gregg Allman (1947), Warren Cuccurullo of Duran Duran (1956), Phil Collen of Def Leppard (1957), Paul Rutherford of Frankie Goes to Hollywood (1959), Marty Friedman of Megadeth (1962), Sinead O’Connor (1966), Bushwick Bill of The Geto Boys (1966), Ryan Newell of Sister Hazel (1972)
December 9: blues singer-harpist Junior Wells (1934), Rick Danko of The Band (1943), Shirley Brickley of The Orlons (1944), Neil Innes of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (1944), The Commodores’ Walter Orange (1946), Candy Givens of Zephyr (1946), Joan Armatrading (1950), Randy Murray of BTO (1955), Donny Osmond (1957), Crowded House’s Nick Seymour (1958), Wallflowers’ Jakob Dylan (1970), Geoff Barrow of Portishead (1971), Green Day’s Tre Cool (1972), rapper Canibus (1974)
December 10: jazz bandleader Jerry Blaine (1910), Guitar Slim, born Eddie Jones (1926), Ralph Tavares of Tavares (1948), J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., born Joseph Donald Mascis (1965), Timothy Christian Riley of Tony! Toni! Tone! (1966), Scot Alexander of Dishwalla (1971), Meg White of The White Stripes (1974)
December 11: Yodeling Slim Clark (1917), Big Mama Thornton aka Willie Mae Thornton (1926), Buddy Ace aka the Root Doctor (1936), David Gates of Bread (1940), Booker T. Jones of Booker T and The MGs (1944), Brenda Lee (1944), Jermaine Jackson (1954), Mike Mesaros of The Smithereens (1958), Nikki Sixx (1958), Justin Curie of Del Amitri (1964)
December 12: Frank Sinatra (1915), big–band singer Joe Williams (1918), Sun Records founder Sam Phillips (1923), jazz guitarist Jim Hall (1930), Connie Francis (1938), Dionne Warwick (1941), Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers (1943), Motor City 5 singer Rob Tyner (1944), Clive Bunker of Jethro Tull (1946), Martin Stone of Savoy Brown (1946), George Brown of Kool & The Gang (1949), Chris Stein of Blondie (1950), Don Baird of The Georgia Satellites (1953), Cy Curnin of The Fixx (1957), Sheila E. (1959), Eric Schenkman of Spin Doctors (1963), Grant Young of Soul Asylum (1964), Kate Schellenbach of Luscious Jackson (1965), Nick Dimichino of Nine Days (1967), Danny Boy of House Of Pain (1968), Marilyn Manson (1969), Dino Meneghin of The Calling (1977)
December 13: one-man blues band Wayne “Duster” Bennett (1932), blues singer Robert Covington (1941), Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (1948), Ted Nugent (1948), Randy Owen of Alabama (1949), Television’s Tom Verlaine (1949), country star John Anderson (1954), Berton Averre of The Knack (1954), Tom DeLonge of blink–182 (1975)
December 14: Spike Jones (1911), country star Charlie Rich (1932), Warren Ryanes of The Monotones (1937), pop singer Don Addrisi (1938), surf music producer Gary Usher (1938), Joyce Vincent Wilson of Dawn (1946), Cliff Williams of AC/DC (1949), singer Tamara Daanz (1952), The Waterboys’ Mike Scott (1958), Peter Stacy of The Pogues (1958), Brian Dalyrimple of Soul for Real (1975)
Departures:
December 8: Dimebag Darrell Abbott (2004), Antonio Carlos Jobim (1994), jazz trumpeter Buck Clayton (1991), Herbert “Toubo” Rhoad of The Persuasions (1988), Howlin’ Wolf drummer Willie Williams (1988), blues guitarist Hollywood Fats born Michael Mann (1986), Marty Robbins (1982), harp maestro Walter “Shakey” Horton (1981), John Lennon (1980), Gary Thain of Uriah Heep (1975)
December 9: drummer Freddie Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers (2006), pop singer Georgia Gibbs (2006), Mike Botts of Bread (2005), Mary Hansen of Stereolab (2002), Waitresses singer Patti Donahue (1996), Orioles vocalist Sonny Til (1981)
December 10: fingerpickin’ Delta blues legend Jerry Ricks (2007), Rick Danko of The Band (1999), lyricist Buddy Feyne (1998), Jake Carey, bass singer with The Flamingos (1997), country singer Faron Young (1996), rapper Darren Robinson of The Fat Boys (1995), Willie Harris of the Clovers (1988), Otis Redding, Bar–Kays guitarist Jimmy King, Bar–Kays sax player Phalin Jones, Bar–Kays drummer Carl Cunningham, Bar–Kays organ player Ronnie Caldwell (all 1967)
December 11: Snot member Lynn Strait (1998), Sam Cooke (1964)
December 12: Elvis impersonator Orion (1998), king of zydeco accordion Clifton Chenier (1987), session pianist and founding member of The Rolling Stones Ian Stewart (1985)
December 13: Yvonne King Burch of the singing King Sisters (2009), slide guitarist “Homesick” James Williamson (2006), children’s composer Larry Troxel (1998)
December 14: legendary record label honcho Ahmet Ertegun (2006), Zal Yanovsky of the Lovin’ Spoonful (2002), jazz trumpeter Conte Condoli (2001), Kurt Winter of The Guess Who? (1997), Pattie Santos of It’s A Beautiful Day (1989), Dinah Washington (1963)
