Calendar Search Results: i he w
May 26, 1956 Liberace, at the peak of his powers, plays to a crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden in a three-hour solo set that draws mostly ladies.
May 16, 1956 Doris Day introduces her signature song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)," in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much.More
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 27, 1956 Capitol Records signs Gene Vincent, intending to market him as the next Elvis.
April 23, 1956 Elvis Presley plays Vegas for the first time with a two-week residency at the New Frontier hotel. He returns to the city in 1969 to launch his comeback.
April 12, 1956 German musician Herbert Grönemeyer, who also starred in the 1981 war film Das Boot, is born in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany.
April 11, 1956 Elvis Presley's tour plane develops engine trouble while flying the singer from Amarillo, Texas, to Nashville, forcing an emergency landing in Arkansas. When he calls his mother, Gladys, to tell her, she begs him to never fly again, instilling a fear of flying in Elvis which will take him years to get over.
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.
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.
April 3, 1956 Elvis Presley performs "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Blue Suede Shoes" onboard the aircraft carrier USS Hancock in San Diego. It's broadcast live on The Milton Berle Show.
April 2, 1956 Johnny Cash records "I Walk The Line" at Sun Studio in Memphis. His label boss, Sam Phillips, has him speed up the tempo, which is a good call: The song becomes Cash's first #1 Country hit.
March 31, 1956 Brenda Lee makes her US television debut, singing an unrehearsed version of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya (On The Bayou)" on ABC's Ozark Jubilee.
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."
March 21, 1956 The movie Rock Around The Clock, about a concert promoter (played by DJ Alan Freed) who brings Rock and Roll to the masses, opens in theaters. The film stars Bill Haley and His Comets and is named after their hit song. It is one of the first movies based on rock music and aimed at teenagers.
March 12, 1956 Steve Harris is born in London, England. After giving up dreams of playing pro soccer, he forms Iron Maiden, becoming the group's bass player and a primary songwriter.
March 10, 1956 Bobby Darin makes his first television appearance, singing "Rock Island Line" on the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show. The budding entertainer is clearly nervous - he keeps glancing at his palms where he's written the song's lyrics.
March 2, 1956 John Cowsill (of The Cowsills) is born in Newport, Rhode Island.
February 19, 1956 The Five Satins record "In The Still Of The Nite" in the basement of Saint Bernadette Church in New Haven, Connecticut.More
February 18, 1956 Kay Starr's "Rock and Roll Waltz" hits #1 for the first of six weeks.
February 8, 1956 Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers' "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" enters the R&B charts.
February 4, 1956 Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" reaches its US chart peak of #17, giving him his first hit. Pat Boone's version of the song outcharts him, making #12 two weeks later.
January 31, 1956 John Lydon is born in London. As Johnny Rotten, he fronts The Sex Pistols, a band that helps define British punk. When they break up in 1978 he forms Public Image Ltd., known for their songs "Rise" and "This Is Not a Love Song."
January 31, 1956 Elvis Presley signs with the William Morris Agency in order to make himself available to film studios.
January 28, 1956 Elvis Presley makes his TV debut on the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show, where he sings "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Heartbreak Hotel."
January 27, 1956 21-year-old Elvis Presley releases "Heartbreak Hotel," which becomes his first #1 hit in America.
January 11, 1956 Robert Earl Keen, an Americana singer-songwriter known for story songs like "The Road Goes on Forever" and "Gringo Honeymoon," is born in Houston, Texas.
January 10, 1956 Folk singer Shawn Colvin is born in South Dakota. Her song "Sunny Came Home" (about a woman who burns her house down) wins the Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1998.
January 7, 1956 Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This" hits #1 in America for the first of six weeks, proving there's still room for crooners in the rock era.
January 3, 1956 Elvis Presley plays a show at the Von Theater in Booneville, Mississippi, where he is advertised as "The Folk Music Fireball."
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