Calendar Search Results: i were to
February 2, 1974 Barbra Streisand scores her first #1 when "The Way We Were" hits the top spot.More
December 25, 1973 The Sting, a crime caper starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as con men in 1930s Chicago, debuts in theaters. With Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" as its theme, the film's soundtrack goes to #1 and revives the ragtime genre.More
December 20, 1973 Bobby Darin dies at age 37 after surgery to repair his ailing heart.More
September 29, 1973 Grand Funk Railroad hit #1 in America with "We're An American Band," a song about their adventures on tour, including encounters with "Sweet Connie" and "four young chiquitas in Omaha."
September 20, 1973 Jim Croce is killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, Louisiana, at age 30. More
July 28, 1973 The "Summer Jam" concert takes place at Watkins Glen racetrack in New York, outdrawing Woodstock with a crowd of over 600,000. The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band, and The Band play to the massive crowd that paid $10 a ticket - if they bought one.More
April 13, 1973 The Wailers, led by Bob Marley, release their fifth studio album, Catch a Fire. The first album on their new label, Island Records, it makes Marley and the Wailers international recording stars and brings reggae music to the forefront.More
March 8, 1973 Grateful Dead keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, a founding member of the band, dies at age 27.More
March 25, 1972 Deep Purple's album Machine Head is released in America. Most of it was recorded in their hotel after the Montreux Casino, where they planned to record it, burned down, a story told in the song "Smoke On The Water."More
February 14, 1972 Blaming burnout, Steppenwolf break up for the first time, saying, "We were locked into an image and style of music and there was nothing for us to look forward to." The group, which released six albums from 1968-1971, get back together in 1974.
February 1, 1972 Neil Young releases the album Harvest, with the hit "Heart of Gold."More
December 4, 1971 During a Frank Zappa concert, the Montreux Casino in Switzerland catches fire when someone fires a flare gun, inspiring Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water." Deep Purple are there to record their album Machine Head the following day, but end up using the Grand Hotel and including the song as a last-minute addition.More
October 15, 1971 Rick Nelson (formerly Ricky) plays the "Rock & Roll Spectacular" concert at Madison Square Garden. When he plays some newer songs, the hit-hungry audience boos. Nelson writes the song "Garden Party" about the experience, and it becomes a hit, reviving his career.More
October 2, 1971 Rod Stewart, still a member of the group Faces, goes to #1 in America with his mandolin-powered solo smash "Maggie May," inspired by the woman who took his virginity.
August 1, 1971 George Harrison hosts the Concert For Bangladesh, the first major charity concert and the precursor to Live Aid. Guests include Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr.More
May 22, 1971 The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album, with a working zipper on the cover, hits #1 in the US.More
February 10, 1971 Carole King releases Tapestry, a singer-songwriter landmark that becomes one of the most successful and influential albums ever made.More
January 19, 1971 Alan Passaro, a member of the Hells Angels biker gang who stabbed 18-year-old Meredith Hunter to death during a concert by The Rolling Stones at their Altamont Speedway concert in Livermore, California on December 6, 1969, is acquitted of murder after 17 days of testimony in which the jury sees footage of the documentary Gimme Shelter that shows the stabbing. The Hells Angels were hired as security at the concert, and when Hunter brandished a gun, Passaro killed him. The Stones kept playing, unaware that a fan had been killed.
December 21, 1970 Music and politics collide when Elvis Presley meets President Richard Nixon at the White House. A famous photo of the two shaking hands horrifies many Elvis fans.More
October 10, 1970 The head of the FCC issues a statement in rebuttal to Vice President Spiro Agnew's complaint that radio stations were playing too many songs about drugs. The statement reads: "If we really want to do something about drugs, let's do something about life... The song writers are trying to help us understand our plight and deal with it. It's about the only leadership we're getting. They're not really urging you to adopt a heroin distribution program, Mr. Vice President."
October 4, 1970 Janis Joplin is found dead at the Landmark Hotel in Los Angeles after a heroin overdose. She was just 27.More
June 14, 1970 Blood, Sweat & Tears begins a tour of Romania, Poland, and Yugoslavia on behalf of the US State Department. Working as government ambassadors under the Nixon administration puts the band in bad standing with the protest movement they were part of when they played Woodstock.
May 4, 1970 Later memorialized in the Neil Young song "Ohio," the Ohio National Guard fires on protesters at Kent State University, killing four students, two of whom weren't even protesting. This shameful event in American history leads to the formation of Devo, as Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale are both on campus and horrified by the events.More
October 17, 1969 The Kinks play their first US concert in four years when they open for Spirit at the Fillmore East in New York. They were kept out of the country by a musician's union ban incurred on their 1965 American tour.
September 20, 1969 John Lennon leaves The Beatles but agrees to not make an official announcement. The recording of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" marks the last time all four Beatles were together in the same studio.
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
September 4, 1969 The Youngbloods, a rare rock band scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, are scratched. Carson says it's because they were being disrespectful; the band says they were slated to play two songs: a new one and their hit "Get Together," but when the show went long, the producers nixed the new song, so they walked.
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.
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
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