Pick a Day

Music History Events: Recordings

December 6, 1971 Deep Purple record the track to "Smoke On The Water" at a Montreux nightclub called the Pavilion, where they've been relocated after the Montreux Casino, where they planned to record, burned down. They get kicked out the next day because of noise complaints and complete the Machine Head album at their hotel, using the Rolling Stones' mobile unit to record.

January 30, 1971 Neil Young performs "The Needle and the Damage Done" at UCLA's Royce Hall. The song is recorded and released on the Harvest album a year later.

November 17, 1970 Elton John plays live in a recording studio, accompanied by just two musicians: Dee Murray on bass and Nigel Olsson on drums. Broadcast on WABC-FM (which would later become WPLJ), it's the first live FM broadcast from a music studio. The recording is later released as 17-11-70, Elton's first live album.

September 10, 1970 B.B. King plays for inmates at Cook County Jail in Chicago. The show is released the following year as the album Live at Cook County Jail.

May 21, 1970 At the Record Plant in Los Angeles, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young record "Ohio," a song Neil Young wrote about the Kent State Shootings from two weeks earlier.

April 25, 1970 In Nashville, James Brown records "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine." It's the first recording with his new band, which he hired in March when his previous group complained about how they were treated. The bass player in this new band is Bootsy Collins.

March 7, 1970 Neil Young and Crazy Horse record "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" at the Fillmore East in New York City. Featuring Horse guitarist Danny Whitten on vocals, the song is later included on Tonight's the Night, the album inspired by his death.

December 2, 1969 On the way to their fateful Altamont concert of December 6, The Rolling Stones stop at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama, where they spend three days recording the songs "Wild Horses," "You Gotta Move" and "Brown Sugar."

August 11, 1969 Deep Purple record "Speed King" in Studio 2 at the Aeolin Hall. It is aired six days later on Symonds On Sunday.

January 18, 1969 Neil Young records "Cowgirl in the Sand."

January 14, 1969 Deep Purple record "Hey Bop A Re Bop" at the BBC; this alternative version of "The Painter" is not released until 2000 on the Remastered The Book Of Taliesyn.

November 10, 1968 Neil Young performs "Sugar Mountain" at the Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The recording of the song is used as the B-side for "The Loner" and is later included on the Decade compilation.

October 4, 1966 The Vince Guaraldi Trio records music for the Halloween special It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown at Desilu's Gower Street Studio in Hollywood. The session includes a new arrangement of the theme "Linus and Lucy," with distinctive flute touches by Ronald Lang.

May 27, 1966 Elvis Presley records the gospel tunes "So High," "Farther Along," "By And By," "In the Garden," "Beyond The Reef," "Somebody Bigger Than You And I," and "Without Him."

December 15, 1965 At a demo session for Elektra Records, Neil Young records "Sugar Mountain" for the first time. This version later appears on The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972.

February 1, 1965 James Brown records "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" at the Arthur Smith Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is Brown's first recording to feature Jimmy Nolen on guitar, who would become known for his distinctive "chicken scratch" lead guitar playing.

January 15, 1965 Bob Dylan records "Maggie's Farm" in Studio A at Columbia Recording Studios.

January 13, 1965 Bob Dylan records "Farewell, Angelina," a landmark song in the evolution of his surrealist songwriting process. The recording, however, doesn't see the light of day until it's released on The Bootleg Series Volume 1-3: Rare & Unreleased over 25 years later.

July 24, 1964 Marvin Gaye records "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You." Written by the Motown team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, the title comes from one of Jackie Gleason's catch phrases.

December 2, 1963 Connie Francis records "In The Summer Of His Years," which was inspired by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

March 30, 1963 Lesley Gore records "It's My Party" at Bell Studios in New York. That night, her producer Quincy Jones finds out that Phil Spector has recorded the song with his group The Crystals, so Jones rush-releases it to get Gore's version to radio stations first.

February 7, 1963 Weeks before her tragic death in a plane crash, Patsy Cline wraps up her final recording sessions, including a contemporary rendition of the 1925 pop ballad "Always" and a cover of country song "Sweet Dreams."

December 6, 1962 Bob Dylan records "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" in Studio A at Columbia Recording Studios.

July 9, 1962 Bob Dylan, not yet famous, records "Blowin' In The Wind" at Columbia Records' studios in New York City but doesn't release it until May 27, 1963, when it appears on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. It eventually becomes one of Dylan's most famous songs, but the first version most listeners hear is the hit cover by Peter, Paul and Mary, which goes to #2 in the US in August 1963.

January 8, 1960 Eddie Cochran records "Three Steps To Heaven," which turns out to be his final recording session and his only #1 hit single in the UK.

December 15, 1959 The Everly Brothers record "Let It Be Me" at Bell Studios in New York, their first session outside of Nashville.

July 15, 1959 Perry Como re-records his hit Christmas song "(There's No Place Like) Home For The Holidays" for his album Season's Greetings from Perry Como. This version features the Mitchell Ayres Orchestra and the Ray Charles Singers.

September 30, 1957 The Louis Armstrong album Louis Armstrong Plays King Oliver is recorded at Radio Recorders studio in Hollywood, marking the first stereo album recorded in America.

September 5, 1957 Elvis Presley records "Treat Me Nice" and "Blue Christmas."

April 21, 1957 At his first session with Atco Records, an offshoot of Atlantic Records, Bobby Darin records "Don't Call My Name," "Pretty Betty," and "So Mean."