Calendar Search Results: fe in it
July 9, 1957 Marc Almond is born Peter Mark Sinclair Almond in Southport, Lancashire, England. In 1979 he teams with Dave Ball to form Soft Cell, a boundary-pushing electronic duo that have a global hit in 1981 with their cover of "Tainted Love." In 1989, Almond lands a #1 UK hit with "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart," a duet with Gene Pitney.
May 4, 1957 Alan Freed's Rock and Roll Revue debuts on ABC; the show is an attempt to replicate the success of their own hit American Bandstand. The first show features performances from The Clovers, The Del-Vikings, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Sal Mineo, and Guy Mitchell.
December 1, 1956 One of the first rock movies, The Girl Can't Help It, opens in America. Featuring performances by Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, The Platters and Fats Domino, the film stars Jayne Mansfield as an aspiring singer.
September 17, 1956 The BBC bans Bill Haley's new single "Rockin' Through The Rye," based on the 17th-century Scottish tune "Comin' Through The Rye," to avoid offending its Scots listeners.
September 9, 1956 Elvis Presley makes the first of three contracted appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan had previously announced he would never have such an act on, but ratings prevailed and Sullivan offered Elvis a record $50,000 for the three shows. Charles Laughton hosts, filling in for an ailing Sullivan as Elvis performs "Don't Be Cruel," "Love Me Tender," "Ready Teddy" and "Hound Dog" but is shot from the waist up only to avoid scandal. The show draws a staggering 54 million viewers.
May 28, 1956 Woody Guthrie, homeless and suffering from Huntington's disease, is arrested for vagrancy in Morristown, New Jersey. He is sent to nearby Greystone Park Psychiatric hospital and spends the rest of his life in care facilities, passing away in 1967 at 55.
May 1, 1956 Johnny Cash releases "I Walk The Line," a pledge of fidelity to his first wife. When the song becomes a hit, Cash finds it much harder to be true and strikes up an affair with June Carter, whom he later marries.
April 10, 1956 Performing to an all-white audience at a segregated show in Birmingham, Alabama, Nat King Cole is attacked by four members of the Ku Klux Klan who rush the stage to assault him. Cole suffers a back injury and is treated at the hospital, but returns that night to play his second show, this time to an all-black audience. The attackers receive the maximum sentence of 180 days in jail.
March 24, 1956 Billboard makes their periodic albums chart a weekly feature, with Belafonte by Harry Belafonte. at #1 The chart lists anywhere from 15-30 spots, but is gradually expanded, and in 1967 it grows to 200. The chart goes through several name changes before settling on The Billboard 200 in 1992.
March 23, 1956 Fats Domino headlines the first day of a 3-day concert organized by the DJ Alan Freed in Hartford, Connecticut. Over the course of the shows, 11 fans are arrested by over-zealous police. It's a litmus test for rock concerts and their effect on young people, as psychiatrist Francis Braceland testifies afterwards that rock music is "a communicable disease with music appealing to adolescent insecurity and driving teenagers to do outlandish things. It is cannibalistic and tribalistic."
December 31, 1955 The first version of "Unchained Melody," recorded by Les Baxter, his Chorus and Orchestra, is named the top-selling single of 1955 by Billboard. Baxter's version was featured in the movie Unchained; The Righteous Brothers have a huge hit with the song in 1965.
September 30, 1955 James Dean is killed in a car accident at age 24. Dean dies around the same time rock and roll comes alive (the #1 song the day he dies: Pat Boone's cover of "Ain't That A Shame" - clearly America is at a crossroads).More
September 28, 1955 Louis Armstrong records "Mack the Knife," a song from the play The Threepenny Opera. Armstrong is the first to chart with a vocal version of the song; in 1959, Bobby Darin takes it to #1.
September 8, 1955 In an attempt to hide the wrinkles in his suit, Chuck Berry does the duck walk for the first time.More
May 28, 1955 "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" has four different versions on the charts, including a #1 hit for Bill Hayes. The other three are by Fess Parker, Walter Schumann and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
March 15, 1955 Dee Snider (lead singer of Twisted Sister) is born in Astoria, Queens, New York.More
January 12, 1954 Felipe Rose (The Indian from The Village People) is born in New York City. An original member, he's with the group until 2017, when Victor Willis (the cop) assumes control and brings in a new lineup.
August 27, 1953 Alex Lifeson (guitarist for Rush) is born Aleksandar Zivojinovic in Fernie, British Columbia, Canada, to Serbian immigrant parents. He is raised in Toronto, Ontario.
February 26, 1953 Michael Bolton is born Michael Bolotin in New Haven, Connecticut. Before reaching soft-rock stardom, he fronts a hard-rock band called Blackjack.More
October 3, 1952 The radio hit The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet, now featuring the couple's 12-year-old son Rick Nelson, debuts on CBS, where it runs for another 14 years.
April 11, 1952 Singin' In The Rain, starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and newcomer Debbie Reynolds, is released in the US, but barely makes a splash.More
November 7, 1951 Frank Sinatra marries his second wife, actress Ava Gardner. The marriage, her third, lasts six years and is credited for moving Sinatra into his "mature" phase as a singer, with Nelson Riddle stating: "It was Ava who did that, who taught him how to sing a torch song. That's how he learned. She was the greatest love of his life and he lost her."
October 7, 1951 John Mellencamp is born in Seymour, Indiana. He has Spina bifida, but survives thanks to an experimental surgery performed at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.More
October 2, 1951 Sting is born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner in Wallsend, Northumberland, England. He earns his nickname when a fellow musician says he looks like a bee in his yellow-and-black striped sweater. He is working as a schoolteacher when his band The Police hit the big time.More
February 20, 1951 Randy California of the band Spirit is born in Los Angeles. Born Randy Craig Wolfe, he writes and performs the guitar instrumental "Taurus," which becomes the subject of a lawsuit claiming Led Zeppelin incorporated it into the intro of "Stairway To Heaven."
September 17, 1950 Fee Waybill (lead singer/songwriter for The Tubes) is born John Waldo Waybill in Omaha, Nebraska.
July 10, 1950 The Victor Talking Machine Company trademarks the phrase "His Master's Voice," which refers to the dog in their logo (Nipper) listening to a record player because he thinks it is his owner. The company later becomes the record label RCA Victor.
May 13, 1950 Stevie Wonder is born Stevland Morris in Saginaw, Michigan.More
March 11, 1950 Jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin, known for his #1 a cappella hit "Don't Worry Be Happy," is born in Manhattan.
November 28, 1949 Paul Shaffer is born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. The multi-instrumentalist finds fame as a bandleader on the Late Show with David Letterman.
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