Calendar Search Results: i was at
October 18, 1969 Promoter Richard Nader puts on the first "Rock and Roll Revival" concerts, with performances by Chuck Berry, The Coasters, The Shirelles, Sha Na Na and Bill Haley. Held at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum, the two shows sell out, leading to a series of similar concerts and the emergence of the "oldies" format.More
September 13, 1969 At the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival, host Kim Fowley starts a rock tradition when he asks the crowd to hold up lighters for Eric Clapton and John Lennon.More
August 18, 1969 Jimi Hendrix closes out Woodstock with an early morning performance of "Hey Joe." The festival headliner, he was supposed to play the previous night, but when it ran long, he ended up taking the stage on a Monday morning. His set includes a scorching rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner."More
August 15, 1969 It's Day 1 of the Woodstock festival on Max Yasgur's 60-acre farm in Bethel, New York (the festival was originally going to be in Woodstock, New York, so they kept the name). Day 1 doesn't have the biggest names, but massive crowds make it clear that something's happening here. Artists to appear this day include Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Tim Hardin and Arlo Guthrie.
August 8, 1969 The Beatles shoot the photo for their Abbey Road album cover at the crosswalk outside Abbey Road studios, where they are recording. Fans find many nested clues in the shot of the four band members walking in stride across the street, fuelling rumors that Paul McCartney is dead.More
August 1, 1969 Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys is indicted in Los Angeles for failing to perform his required community service hours, which were imposed upon him after he refused to be drafted as a conscientious objector; rather than the janitorial duty he was sentenced to at LA County Hospital, Wilson taught music classes there instead.
July 28, 1969 Eight days after the moon landing, "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival reaches its chart peak of #2. The song was inspired by a 1941 movie called The Devil And Daniel Webster, about a hurricane that blows through a town.
July 26, 1969 Brian Jones, who was a founding member of The Rolling Stones, appears on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine following his death on July 3rd.
July 21, 1969 Emerson Hart (lead singer of Tonic) is born in Washington, Pennsylvania, but will grow up in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.
July 19, 1969 Jimmy Buffett marries beauty queen Margie Washichek, who was crowned Miss USS Alabama of 1967. They divorce two years later.
July 10, 1969 The funeral is held for The Rolling Stones founding member Brian Jones, who was found dead in his swimming pool on July 3rd. His bandmates Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman attend, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards do not.
June 24, 1969 Written and produced by Sonny Bono, the romantic drama Chastity casts Cher, in her first solo film role, as a hippie runaway who tries to overcome her troubled past. The movie bombs and turns Cher off from acting in films for the next decade.More
June 16, 1969 Experimental avant-garde/free-jazz artist Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, releases Trout Mask Replica, a polyrhythmic, polytonal collection of noise that is either an unlistenable mess or a work of genius.More
June 1, 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono record "Give Peace A Chance" to close out their "bed-in" in Montreal.More
May 29, 1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash release their self-titled debut album, lighting a path for '70s bands like America and the Eagles with rich harmonies and mysterious lyrics.More
May 20, 1969 Chicago singer Peter Cetera is attacked at a Dodgers-Cubs game at Dodger Stadium. Explaining the incident, Cetera says: "Four marines didn't like a long-haired rock 'n' roller in a baseball park, and of course I was a Cubs fan, and I was in Dodger Stadium, and that didn't do so well. I got in a fight and got a broken jaw in three places, and I was in intensive care for a couple of days. With my jaw wired together, I actually went on the road, and I was actually singing through my clenched jaw, which, to this day, is still the way I sing."
May 6, 1969 Jamaican ska trombonist Don Drummond (The Skatalites) dies at age 37 at Bellevue Asylum in Kingston, Jamaica, where he was institutionalized after murdering his girlfriend in 1965. The official cause of death is "natural causes," but plenty of theories arise suggesting he was murdered either by gangsters or a music-hating government.
April 26, 1969 "Oh Happy Day" by The Edwin Hawkins Singers enters the Hot 100 at #72, becoming the first pure gospel song to make that chart. More
April 16, 1969 Elektra Records drop the MC5 from their roster after the group takes out an ad in an underground newspaper castigating the department store chain Hudson's for not stocking their debut album, Kick Out The Jams. Hudson's didn't want it on their shelves because of a line in the title track: "Kick out the jams, motherf--ker!"More
April 10, 1969 Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's steamy duet "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus" hits #1 in the UK, where it's banned by the BBC.More
March 23, 1969 Countering the counter-culture, about 30,000 people attend the "Rally For Decency" in Miami after Jim Morrison was charged with indecent exposure in the city. Celebrities at the event included Kate Smith, Jackie Gleason, The Lettermen and Anita Bryant.
January 30, 1969 The Beatles stage their famous rooftop concert on the roof of Apple Records in London. After performing a few songs, including "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down," the police shut them down as a large crowd gathers. It is The Beatles' last public performance.More
December 26, 1968 Led Zeppelin's first US tour begins in Denver. They're the opening act for Vanilla Fudge.More
December 14, 1968 Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" hits #1 in the US, where it stays for seven weeks. The song was recorded by a few different Motown acts before a version by Gladys Knight & the Pips was finally released, reaching #2 in 1967. Gaye's version, released about a year later, became an even bigger hit and the definitive rendition.
December 1, 1968 Promises, Promises, a musical adapted from the Billy Wilder film The Apartment, debuts at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway. The first and only Broadway production with music from Burt Bacharach and Hal David, it yields hits for Dionne Warwick and Bobbie Gentry.More
November 22, 1968 In Ireland, singer Marianne Faithfull, heavily addicted to cocaine, miscarries what was to be her second child, fathered by boyfriend Mick Jagger.
November 11, 1968 John Lennon and Yoko Ono release the album Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins with a cover photo of the pair naked. Many record stores stock it in a brown paper wrapper.More
September 28, 1968 Dewey Phillips, the Memphis DJ who was the first to play an Elvis Presley record on the radio, dies of heart failure at age 42.
September 25, 1968 No more whistling "Dixie" for University of Miami students as the school becomes the first university to ban the controversial Confederate anthem from being played at public events.More
September 14, 1968 Roy Orbison loses two of his three sons - Roy Jr. (age 10) and Tony (age 6) - when his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, burns down. Orbison was on tour in Europe at the time.
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