Today in 1971, Rick Nelson was booed at Madison Square Garden in New York when he dared to sing new material at a concert. That 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:
The number one album today in 1994 was REM’s “Monster”:
Who shares a birthday with my wife? One-hit-wonder Barry McGuire:
Richard Carpenter, the surviving half of the Carpenters:
Chris DeBurgh:
Since it’s my wife’s birthday, here are her two favorite rock songs:
On a non-sports note, because she was in Guatemala with the Peace Corps, she missed this:
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:
We begin with an entry from the It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Dept.: Today in 1956, Chrysler Corp. launched its 1957 car lineup with a new option: a record player. The record player didn’t play albums or 45s, however; it played only seven-inch discs at 16⅔ rpm. Chrysler sold them until 1961.
Today in 1957, Little Richard was on an Australian tour when he publicly renounced rock and roll and embraced religion and announced he was going to record Gospel music from now on. The conversion was the result of his praying during a flight when one of the plane’s engines caught fire.
Little Richard returned to rock and roll five years later.
The number one song today in 1963:
The number one album today in 1968 was Big Brother and the Holding Company’s “Cheap Thrills”:
The short list of birthdays starts with a British composer familiar to high school band members everywhere: Ralph Vaughan Williams:
Sam Moore, half of Sam and Dave:
The deep-voiced Melvin Franklin was one of the original Temptations:
Pat Dinizio sang for the Smithereens:
Two deaths of note: Gene Vincent died of a perforated ulcer at 36 today in 1971:
Ricky Wilson, who played guitar for the B-52s, died of AIDS today in 1985:
Proving that there is no accounting for taste, I present the number one song today in 1960:
The number two single today in 1970 was originally written for a bank commercial:
Britain’s number one album today in 1970 was Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”:
The number one album today in 1981 was The Police’s “Ghost in the Machine”:
The number one single today in 1987:
The number one British album today in 1992 was REM’s “Automatic for the People”:
Today in 2007, Blender magazine released a list of what it deemed the worst lyricists in rock music. Sting topped the list for name-dropping Russian author Vladimir Nobokov in “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and for quoting a Volvo bumper sticker in “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”:
Birthdays start with Alan Cartwright, who played bass for Procol Harum:
My favorite Ray Charles song was number one today in 1961:
Today in 1969, the BBC’s “Top of the Pops” refused for the first time to play that week’s number one song because of what singers Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin were supposedly doing while recording “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus”:
According to a classmate of mine, Madison radio stations play Britain’s number one single today in 1971 too often:
The number one single today in 1976, which makes wonder if, to paraphrase Chuck Berry, Beethoven would have been rolling over at this:
Birthdays begin with John Lennon:
John Entwistle of the Who:
Jackson Browne:
Terry Balsamo played guitar for Limp Bizkit and Evanescence:
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