Pick a Day

Music History Events: Debut Albums

January 16, 1968 Blue Cheer release their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum. Considered a high-water mark of psychedelic music, it's also a formative influence on the heavy metal genre.

August 7, 1967 Following two albums recorded as member of the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa releases his debut solo album, Lumpy Gravy, in which he conducts an orchestra but doesn't actually play any instruments himself in order to get around some contractual issues with Verve and MGM Records. MGM promptly sues him, anyway.

July 6, 1967 Pink Floyd appear on the British TV show Top Of The Pops for the first time, performing "See Emily Play."

November 25, 1966 The Jimi Hendrix Experience plays their first UK show at the Bag O'Nails in London.

June 27, 1966 Led by Frank Zappa, the Mothers of Invention release their debut album Freak Out! Critics and music fans alike are baffled by what they hear.

October 10, 1964 The Olympic Games open in Tokyo, inspiring the song "Tokyo Melody."

November 3, 1956 The Wizard of Oz airs on television for the first time when it is broadcast by CBS.

April 6, 1956 The Capitol Tower, new home of Capitol Records, opens on the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles. The 13-story building, which resembles a stack of records, houses three new recording studios where Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Linda Ronstadt, and many other stars will lay down tracks. The building becomes an LA landmark, with the red light at the top flashing "HOLLYWOOD" in Morse Code.

November 12, 1951 The musical Paint Your Wagon opens at the Shubert Theater, New York City. In 1969, it's turned into a movie musical starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin.

December 15, 1949 The Birdland jazz club, named after Charlie Parker, opens in New York City. It quickly becomes a hotspot, with Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and many other luminaries performing there until it closes in 1965.

March 4, 1946 Frank Sinatra releases his solo debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, through Columbia Records.

June 5, 1942 Capitol Records' first recording session takes place when "The General Jumped at Dawn" by Paul Whiteman's New Yorker Hotel Orchestra is recorded at Radio Recorders Studio in Los Angeles. The record flops, but Capitol soon becomes the most successful record company of the era.

June 5, 1942 The musical film Yankee Doodle Dandy is released. Starring James Cagney, the film features the song "The Yankee Doodle Boy," based upon "Yankee Doodle," a long-time standard American anthem.

June 1, 1931 Noël Coward's classic "Mad Dogs And Englishmen" is performed for the first time in public by Beatrice Lillie in The Third Little Show at the Music Box Theatre, New York.

November 22, 1928 Maurice Ravel's one-movement rhythmic orchestral work Boléro premieres at the Paris Opera.

April 30, 1925 The musical On With The Dance opens at the London Pavilion.

October 15, 1905 Claude Debussy's symphonic suite "La Mer" is premiered by the Lamoureux Orchestra under the baton of Camille Chevillard in Paris. The piece was initially not well received, but soon became one of the French composer's most admired and frequently performed orchestral works.

November 24, 1898 The first Maple Leaf Ball is held in Sedalia, Missouri.

June 26, 1870 At the National Theatre in Munich, Wagner's opera Die Walküre is performed for the first time, introducing the famous piece "The Ride Of The Valkyries."

April 3, 1869 Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor is premiered at Copenhagen's Casino Theater.

April 10, 1868 Johannes Brahms' German Requiem is premiered in Bremen Cathedral as part of the Good Friday remembrance.

November 21, 1846 The literary character Sweeney Todd makes his first ever appearance, in a short story The String of Pearls: A Romance. The story later becomes a musical, complete with the song "The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd."

May 14, 1832 German composer Felix Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides Overture" also known as "Fingal's Cave" is premiered in London.

May 7, 1824 Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is premiered in Vienna, Austria. Its final movement incorporates Friedrich Schiller "Ode to Joy" poem sung by four vocal soloists and a chorus. It represents the first time a major composer has used voices in a symphony.

February 20, 1816 Gioachino Rossini's opera "The Barber of Seville" premiers in Rome with disastrous results. A guitar string snaps, a cat walks on stage and there are protestations by rival composer Giovanni Paisiello. The audience hiss and jeer throughout the performance.

April 7, 1805 Beethoven's 3rd Symphony (Eroica) is premiered in Vienna's Theater-an-der-Wien. Innovative in length and size of orchestra, many criticize the first movement for its dissonant chords.

April 29, 1798 Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation is first performed in Vienna in a concert for the city's aristocrats. The oratorio depicts and celebrates the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis and Paradise Lost.

May 16, 1767 A piano is played for the first time in public in the UK. In a playbill for a performance of The Beggar's Opera at Covent Garden Theatre, London, it is announced a Miss Brickler sings "accompanied by Mr. Dibdin on a new instrument called piano-forte."

March 23, 1743 George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" has its London premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre. It is not well received as the press feels that the work's subject matter is too exalted to be performed in a theatre, particularly by secular singer-actresses such as Susanna Cibber and Kitty Clive.

April 13, 1742 George Frederic Handel's Messiah is premiered at Fishamble Street, Dublin. It is part of a charity series of concerts that the composer had been invited to give by the Lord Lieutenant.