Calendar Search Results: i he w
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.
December 23, 1955 Fats Domino records "My Blue Heaven" at J&M Studios in New Orleans.
December 9, 1955 Elvis Presley performs at the B&I Club in Swifton, Arkansas, and introduces his new song, "Heartbreak Hotel," by claiming "It's gonna be my first hit."
December 6, 1955 Rick Buckler (drummer for The Jam) is born in Woking, Surrey, England.
November 26, 1955 Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" hits #1 in America for the first of eight weeks.
November 24, 1955 Drummer Clement Burke (aka Elvis Ramone) (of the Ramones, Blondie) is born in Bayonne, New Jersey.
November 22, 1955 Elvis Presley sends a telegram to his new manager, Colonel Tom Parker, which reads: "Dear Colonel, Words can never tell you how my folks and I appreciate what you did for me. I've always known and now my folks are assured that you are the best, most wonderful person I could ever hope to work with. Believe me when I say I will stick with you through thick and thin and do everything I can to uphold your faith in me. Again, I say thanks and I love you like a father."
November 20, 1955 In the music equivalent to the Babe Ruth trade, Sun Records owner Sam Phillips sells Elvis Presley's contract to RCA for $35,000. It wasn't all bad for Phillips: Presley had just one year left on his contract, and Phillips invested the money in a local hotel chain called the Holiday Inn, which made him a bigger fortune than anything he did in music.
November 20, 1955 After agreeing to perform Tennessee Ernie Ford's hit "Sixteen Tons" on CBS-TV's Ed Sullivan Show, Bo Diddley instead plays the song he was actually there to promote, his own hit "Bo Diddley." A furious Sullivan blackballs Bo from ever appearing on the show again. The singer has claimed he was never paid for the performance.
November 12, 1955 Billboard begins its "Top 100" chart, with the first #1 listed as "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing" by the Four Aces. The magazine wouldn't combine all its pop charts into one until 1959.
November 10, 1955 In his Nashville hotel room, songwriter Mae Axton plays Elvis Presley a demo of a song she's co-written called "Heartbreak Hotel."
November 9, 1955 The Everly Brothers, recently signed to Columbia as a country act, cut their first tracks in a studio lodged in Nashville's Old Tulane Hotel. The four recordings, which take only 22 minutes to lay down, yield no hits, and the duo is soon dropped from the label.
October 12, 1955 Chrysler introduces the world's first in-car sound systems -- vinyl record players, complete with an assortment of classical records, mounted under the dashboard.
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 26, 1955 Pop singer Eddie Fisher weds actress/singer Debbie Reynolds. The marriage will last just four tumultuous years before Fisher leaves America's Sweetheart for Elizabeth Taylor. Fisher and Reynolds had one child together, actress Carrie Fisher.
September 24, 1955 Judy Garland makes her television debut on the CBS variety show Ford Star Jubilee.
September 18, 1955 CBS-TV's popular variety show Toast Of The Town is renamed what many people had been calling it all along, The Ed Sullivan Show.
September 17, 1955 The Perry Como Show moves to NBC-TV, expanding from three 15-minute programs per week to one hour-long variety show on Saturday night.
September 17, 1955 After DJs keep complaining that Les Paul's "Magic Melody" single ends abruptly, Capitol Records releases the shortest single of all time, Les Paul's "Magic Melody Part 2," which is merely the final two notes of the old "shave and a haircut" tag. Released only as a promo, it lasts exactly one second.
September 17, 1955 Pat Boone banks his first #1 on the US Pop charts when "Ain't That A Shame" hits the top spot. Some folks think it's a shame that his sterilized version is far more popular than Fats Domino's original, but Boone's cover draws lots of attention to Domino and earns the New Orleans singer substantial royalties.
September 14, 1955 Little Richard records "Tutti Frutti" in New Orleans for Specialty Records. Originally "Tutti Frutti, Good Booty," a female lyricist at the label rewrites it to take out the prurient references.
September 9, 1955 Seeburg introduces their latest jukebox, which not only holds a record 100 singles but is also capable of playing the same number of EPs.
September 8, 1955 In an attempt to hide the wrinkles in his suit, Chuck Berry does the duck walk for the first time.More
August 31, 1955 Folk rocker Anthony Thistlethwaite (of The Waterboys) is born in Lutterworth, England.
August 28, 1955 Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till is murdered by two white men in Money, Mississippi, for talking to a white woman. His story later inspires Bob Dylan's "The Death Of Emmett Till" and Emmylou Harris' "My Name Is Emmett Till."
August 27, 1955 Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame" hits #10 in the US, becoming the first R&B song to hit the Top 10 on the Pop chart. Three weeks later, Pat Boone's cover hits #1.
August 18, 1955 Pete Seeger testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he is asked if he has performed for communists. Seger replies: "I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody."
August 2, 1955 Butch Vig is born in Viroqua, Wisconsin. He produces Nirvana's 1991 album Nevermind and forms the band Garbage in 1993.
July 21, 1955 Howie Epstein, bassist for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers from 1982 to 2002, is born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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