Calendar Search Results: this is it
December 22, 1958 The Chipmunks hit #1 on the Hot 100 with the squeaky-clean festive favorite "The Chipmunk Song." It's the last Christmas song to top the chart until "All I Want For Christmas Is You" 61 years later in 2019.More
October 6, 1958 Johnny Mathis releases his first of many holiday albums, Merry Christmas. The balladeer's smooth renderings of traditional Christmas tunes become a staple of the season for years to come.
July 30, 1958 Kate Bush is born in Bexleyheath, Kent, England. At 19, she releases her debut single, "Wuthering Heights," which goes to #1 in the UK.More
June 5, 1958 The first-ever greatest hits compilation, Johnny Mathis' Johnny's Greatest Hits goes #1 in America. It stays on the chart for nine years.
May 3, 1958 The popular disc jockey Alan Freed hosts a rock concert at the Boston Arena (a hockey rink) that does not go well. The city doesn't host another rock concert until 1964.More
March 17, 1958 The first "Greatest Hits" compilation is released, and it's by Johnny Mathis. It's a huge hit, and the format catches on quickly. The Mathis album stays in the Billboard 200 album chart for over nine years, a record not broken until Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon.More
October 3, 1957 ABC premieres The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom variety show, later featured in Michael Moore's documentary Roger and Me. The show features unobjectionable acts like The Four Lads, Ella Fitzgerald and Johnny Mathis; TV Guide says it's "about as exciting as a milkshake with two straws." It runs for three years and helps launch the career of Woody Allen, who is one of the writers.
August 12, 1957 Johnny Mathis releases his first #1 hit single, "Chances Are."
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
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.
September 8, 1955 In an attempt to hide the wrinkles in his suit, Chuck Berry does the duck walk for the first time.More
November 6, 1954 Rosemary Clooney's "This Ole House" hits #1.
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
May 22, 1950 Bernie Taupin is born in Lincolnshire, England. He becomes Elton John's lyricist, and also co-writes #1 hits for two other acts: "These Dreams" for Heart and "We Built This City" for Starship.
January 13, 1950 Jinx Dawson, practitioner of the dark arts and frontwoman of the metal band Coven, is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.More
May 9, 1949 Billy Joel is born in The Bronx, New York, raised in Hicksville on Long Island.More
May 15, 1948 Ambient composer Brian Eno is born in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England.More
July 8, 1947 New Mexico's Roswell Daily Record reports an alien aircraft has crashed near a local ranch with the headline "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer In Roswell Region." In the coming decades, extraterrestrials and flying saucers invade several songs, including David Bowie's "Starman," Megadeth's "Hangar 18," and Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien."More
September 5, 1946 Queen frontman Freddie Mercury is born as Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar (a set of islands off the coast of Africa).More
April 16, 1944 On shore leave from the Merchant Marines, Woody Guthrie arrives at Folkway Records' studios in New York City, where he starts recording with the label's founder, Moses Asch, in what becomes known as the "Asch recordings." Among the songs recorded during these sessions is "This Land Is Your Land," which becomes an iconic populist protest anthem, covered by countless artists including Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen.More
September 30, 1935 Johnny Mathis is born John Royce Mathis in Gilmer, Texas. He is raised in San Francisco.More
March 31, 1934 An article in Melody Maker declares: "Expel All Jewish Musicians: A Little Hitler Invades Archer Street. Fascists Launch Fierce New Campaign." This refers to an Imperial Fascist League member Jackson Phillips as the "Little Hitler" of Archer Street. The article contains the memorable quote: "...he saw the light of Fascism, and this apparently so dazzled him that he has been unable to see anything else very clearly since."
May 12, 1929 Burt Bacharach is born in Kansas City, Missouri.More
April 7, 1915 Billie Holiday is born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More
December 5, 1912 Blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson, author of "Eyesight To The Blind" and "One Way Out," is born Alex "Rice" Miller in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. This is the date he claims he was born, but his headstone (erected 12 years after his death) reads March 11, 1908. He became Sonny Boy Williamson after impersonating another blues musician with that name, and is often referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II so they don't get mixed up.
January 21, 1834 Peter Dodds McCormick, the man who is best known for the patriotic tune, "Advance Australia Fair", is born in Glasgow, Scotland. Though his date of birth is usually given as being on an unknown date in 1834, this is a little off. Twenty-two years later, he would emigrate to Sydney, Australia, where in 1878, he would compose his famous tune, as well as many other patriotic songs, most of which were Scottish tunes. A little side note, one of Peter's siblings, most likely a brother, was credited as having invented the life jacket.
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