Today in 1964, EMI Records rejected a group called the Hi-Numbers after its audition. Who? That’s the group’s current name:
Category: Music
Presty the DJ for Oct. 21
The number one song today in 1957 …
… came from a just-opened movie:
The number one song today in 1967:
Presty the DJ for Oct. 20
Today in 1960, Roy Orbison had his first number one single:
Today in 1962, the number one single in the U.S. was a song banned by the BBC:
The number one single today in 1973 …
… which bumped off this classic …
… which made an eight-year-old TV viewer’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.
Today in 1977, four members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and two others were killed when their plane crashed near McComb, Miss.:
Presty the DJ for Oct. 19
We begin with one of the stranger episodes of live radio, Arthur Godfrey’s on-air firing of one of his singers today in 1953:
The number 28 song today in 1959 was customized for sales in 28 markets, including Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh and San Francisco:
That was 27 positions lower than number one:
The number one British album today in 1967 was not the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”; it was the soundtrack to “The Sound of Music,” two years after the movie was released, on the soundtracks’ 137th week on the charts:
Presty the DJ for Oct. 18
The number one song today in 1969:
Britain’s number one single today in 1979 probably would have gotten no American notice had it not been for the beginning of MTV a year later:
The number one album today in 1986 was Huey Lewis and the News’ “Fore”:
The City of Los Angeles declared today in 1990 “Rocky Horror Picture Show Day” in honor of the movie’s 15th anniversary, so …
Presty the DJ for Oct. 17
The number one song today in 1960:
The number one song today in 1964:
The number one song today in 1970:
Presty the DJ for Oct. 16
Presty the DJ for Oct. 15
What an appropriate number one single today in 1964:
The number one single today in 1966:
Today in 1971, Rick Nelson was booed at Madison Square Garden in New York when he dared to sing new material at a concert. The reaction to his not singing what the crowd wanted to hear prompted him to write …
If I told you the number one British album today in 1983 was “Genesis,” I would have given you the artist and the title:
Presty the DJ for Oct. 14
The number one song today in 1957 was the Everly Brothers’ first number one:
The number one British single today in 1960 was a song originally written in German sung by an American:
The number one album today in 1967 is about an event that supposedly took place on my birthday:
Presty the DJ for Oct. 13
The number one British album today in 1973 was the Rolling Stones’ “Goats Head Soup,” despite (or perhaps because of) the BBC’s ban of one of its songs, “Star Star”:
Who shares a birthday with my brother (who celebrated his sixth birthday, on a Friday the 13th, by getting chicken pox from me)? Start with Paul Simon:
Robert Lamm plays keyboards — or more accurately, the keytar — for Chicago:
Sammy Hagar:
Craig McGregor of Foghat:
John Ford Coley, formerly a duet with England Dan Seals:
Rob Marche played guitar for the Jo Boxers, who …
One death of note: Ed Sullivan, whose Sunday night CBS-TV show showed off rock and roll (plus Topo Gigio and Senor Wences) to millions, died today in 1974:
