May 21, 1972 The Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, is born Christopher George Latore Wallace in Brooklyn, New York. He releases just one solo album before he is murdered in 1997, but leaves a legacy as one of the most creative and distinctive rappers of his time.
May 11, 1972 In an effort to shed his teenybopper image, David Cassidy appears shirtless (and pantless) on the cover of Rolling Stone.More
May 3, 1972 Scottish rock guitarist Les Harvey, age 27, dies onstage during a Stone The Crows concert when he's electrocuted by a ungrounded microphone standing in a pool of rainwater.
May 2, 1972 Bruce Springsteen auditions for Columbia Records' John Hammond, who is the guy that signed Bob Dylan. The planned 15-minute session runs 2 hours, and the next day, Bruce records a 14-song demo. He signs with the label five weeks later.
April 29, 1972 Roberta Flack's debut album, First Take, released three years earlier in 1969, goes to #1 thanks to the Clint Eastwood movie Play Misty For Me, which uses the song "Feel Like Makin' Love." It's a huge career boost for Flack, who lands another huge hit the next year with "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."
April 27, 1972 24-year-old Phil King, a former booking agent for Blue Oyster Cult, is murdered over a gambling debt, inspiring the band's song "Deadline."
April 15, 1972 Billy Joel plays a concert at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia which is broadcast by the local radio station WMMR. After the show, the station puts his performance of "Captain Jack" in rotation, and Joel builds a following. This leads to a contract with Columbia Records, which releases Joel's breakthrough album, Piano Man, in 1973.
April 8, 1972 Bass player Paul Gray, a founding member of Slipknot, is born in Los Angeles but is raised in Des Moines, Iowa, where he forms the band. Gray is just 38 when he dies from a drug overdose in 2010.
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
March 24, 1972 The Godfather opens in theaters. Musically significant because the character Johnny Fontane is supposedly based on Frank Sinatra, and because "Godfather of..." becomes a common musical honorific.More
March 18, 1972 Neil Young's "Heart Of Gold," with backing vocals by James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, goes to #1 in the US.More
March 17, 1972 Bass player Melissa Auf der Maur is born in Montreal, Quebec. She's in Courtney Love's group Hole from 1994-1999, and does a stint in Smashing Pumpkins from 1999-2000.
March 16, 1972 The Dripping Springs Reunion festival kicks off in a field near Austin, Texas. Envisioned as the Woodstock of country music, the 3-day event features performances by Willie Nelson, Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Kris Kristofferson, Loretta Lynn, Buck Owens and Dottie West. The festival is poorly promoted and a huge flop, with attendance estimated at about 20,000 (combined) when at least 180,000 were expected. Two years later, Willie Nelson uses the same site for the first of his Fourth of July Picnic concerts, which becomes a popular annual event and helps establish Austin as a music destination.
March 15, 1972 As a publicity stunt, the Los Angeles radio station KHJ plays Donny Osmond's "Puppy Love" for 90 minutes straight. Concerned listeners call the police, who show up at the station to find no laws - except good taste - are being broken.
March 11, 1972 Neil Young's album Harvest hits #1 in America, supplanting Don McLean's American Pie, which has been on top for seven weeks.
March 10, 1972 Timothy "Timbaland" Mosley is born in Norfolk, Virginia. In the '90s, he makes a name for himself producing tracks for Aaliyah and Ginuwine; the next decade finds him crafting hits for Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, and many others.
March 9, 1972 Carole King, James Taylor, Quincy Jones and Barbra Streisand take part in a fundraiser for presidential hopeful George McGovern.
February 18, 1972 Neil Young's album Harvest is certified Gold.
February 16, 1972 Doing a week-long stint as guest host of the Mike Douglas Show, John Lennon performs "Memphis" and "Johnny B. Goode" with Chuck Berry, whom Lennon refers to as "my hero."
February 14, 1972 Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty is born to American parents in West Germany.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 14, 1972 The '50s tribute musical Grease opens off-Broadway at New York City's Eden Theatre, featuring Barry Bostwick and Adrienne Barbeau. The play is an instant hit, moving to Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre for a record 3,388 performances, and, not incidentally, spawning one of the most popular movies of all time.
February 12, 1972 Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" hits #1 in the US. Eleven years later, Tina Turner revitalizes her career with a hit cover of the song.
February 9, 1972 Beginning a covert university tour where Paul McCartney can play to small audiences, Wings play their first show: an unannounced concert at Nottingham University in England.
February 1, 1972 Neil Young releases the album Harvest, with the hit "Heart of Gold."More
January 30, 1972 British soldiers open fire on 26 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in 14 deaths. The incident inspires Paul McCartney to write "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" (Wings' debut single) and gives rise to the U2 song "Sunday Bloody Sunday."
January 13, 1972 Aretha Franklin performs the first of two concerts at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles that are recorded for her live album Amazing Grace, which sells over 2 million copies when it is released in June. Film footage is also shot, but the documentary doesn't appear until 2019, after Franklin's death.
December 31, 1971 The Band plays at the New York Academy of Music with a full horn section. The following year, the show is issued as the double album Rock of Ages.
December 25, 1971 Melanie's "Brand New Key," a whimsical song about a young girl pursuing a boy with a skate key that might fit her pair, hits #1 in America for the first of three weeks.
December 24, 1971 Ricky Martin is born Enrique Martin Morales in San Juan, Puerto Rico.More
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