Calendar Search Results: on the mar
September 2, 1957 Pete Seeger plays "We Shall Overcome" at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee as part of its 25th anniversary celebration. On hand is Martin Luther King, Jr., who gives the closing speech at the celebration. The song becomes ingrained with the civil rights movement as King and Seeger fight for equality.
August 31, 1957 Gina Schock (drummer for The Go-Go's) is born Regina Ann Schock in Baltimore, Maryland.
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.
July 15, 1956 Marky Ramone (drummer for The Ramones) is born Marc Steven Bell in Brooklyn, New York.
June 5, 1956 Elvis Presley appears on The Milton Berle Show where the pair do a comedy bit performing Elvis' "Hound Dog" and "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You." It marks the first TV appearance of The Jordanaires backing up Elvis, and the last Milton Berle show for 10 years.
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 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 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.
March 15, 1956 The musical My Fair Lady opens on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre.
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.
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.
July 9, 1955 Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around The Clock" becomes the first Rock song to hit #1 on the Billboard Pop chart, where it stays for eight weeks. The song was originally released as a the B-side of "Thirteen Women," but became a massive hit after it appeared in the film Blackboard Jungle.More
January 17, 1955 Steve Earle is born on a military base in Hampton, Virginia, but he's raised in Texas. In 1975 he moves to Nashville, where he has a number of near-misses as a songwriter and artist before releasing his debut album, the Americana landmark Guitar Town, in 1986.
September 9, 1954 Rising young star Elvis Presley performs at the opening of Memphis' Lamar-Airways shopping mall, and, afterward, meets audience member Johnny Cash for the first time.
July 2, 1954 Pete Briquette (bassist for The Boomtown Rats) is born Patrick Martin Cusack in Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan, Ireland. His stage name is a nod to his homeland, where peat briquettes were burned for heat.
February 4, 1954 The Drifters record "Bells Of Saint Mary's," "White Christmas," "Honey Love," and "What'cha Gonna Do."
December 10, 1953 The first issue of Playboy magazine is published (Marilyn Monroe is on the cover). Over the next two decades, "playboy" shows up in several hit songs:
"Playboy" by Marvelettes (1962)
"He's Just A Playboy" by The Drifters (1964)
"Playboy" by Gene & Debbe (1968)
"International Playboy" by Wilson Pickett (1973)More
July 14, 1953 Bebe Buell is born in Portsmouth, Virginia. Though she later rejects the description, she becomes one of the most famous "groupies" of all time, hooking up with a host of stars including Todd Rundgren, to whom she is married from 1972 to 1979. Rundgren brings up her daughter Liv - later revealed to be the biological child of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler.
March 23, 1953 Chaka Khan (of Rufus) is born Yvette Marie Stevens in Chicago, Illinois.
March 4, 1953 Emilio Estefan is born in Cuba; he moves to Miami as a teenager. In 1977 Gloria Fajardo (also Cuban-born) joins his group Miami Sound Machine. A year later they get married, and after building a huge following in the South Florida Latin scene, they break through in 1985 with the hits "Conga" and "Words Get In The Way." Gloria Estfan goes solo in 1989 with Emilio her producer and manager.
January 19, 1953 Desi Arnaz Jr. is born to Hollywood powercouple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, stars of the wildly popular sitcom I Love Lucy. The birth is a pop culture milestone as the couple's fictional counterparts, Lucy and Ricky, welcome "Little Ricky" at the same time (a smart, but controversial, decision to write Ball's pregnancy into the show). Shortly after, Desi Jr. appears on the very first cover of TV Guide. He goes on to form a band with Dean Martin's son Dean Paul and schoolmate Billy Hinsche (Dino, Desi & Billy).
December 27, 1952 Guitarist David Knopfler is born in Glasgow, Scotland. Along with his older brother Mark, he forms Dire Straits in 1977, but leaves the band after their second album in 1980 to launch a solo career.
June 21, 1952 Marcy Levy is born in Detrot. She co-writes and sings on Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally," and using the name Marcella Detroit, forms the duo Shakespears Sister with Siobhan Fahey (ex-Bananarama). Levy's year of birth is often incorrectly listed as 1959.
May 18, 1952 George Strait is born in Poteet, Texas. The "King Of Country," he lands a record 44 #1 hits on the Country chart in a remarkable run from 1982-2008.
November 12, 1951 The musical Paint Your Wagon opens at the Shubert Theater, New York City. In 1969, it's turned into a movie musical starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin.
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
November 24, 1950 The musical comedy Guys and Dolls premieres on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre. Two years later, it spawns a film adaptation starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.
November 11, 1950 Jim Peterik is born in Berwyn, Illinois. He fronts The Ides of March and later joins Survivor, co-writing their hit "Eye of the Tiger."
June 11, 1950 Singer/guitarist Graham Russell is born Cyril Graham Russell in Nottingham, England. He moves to Australia in 1968 and forms Air Supply with Russell Hitchcock. Graham is the primary songwriter in the group, penning their hits "All Out Of Love" and "The One That You Love."
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