June 14, 1968 The Jeff Beck Group, with lead singer Rod Stewart, make their US concert debut, opening for the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East in New York City. Stewart has stage fright, which is cured when he takes some swigs of rum from a bottle he shares with guitarist Ron Wood.
June 11, 1968 During a recording session while The Rolling Stones are working on "Sympathy For The Devil," a fire breaks out in the studio. While many are quick to blame Lucifer, the blaze is actually caused by a light being used by a camera crew documenting the sessions.
June 5, 1968 Senator Robert Kennedy is shot three times while exiting through a kitchen at a hotel where he delivered a speech after winning the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. This event prompts David Crosby to write "Long Time Gone" and The Rolling Stones to insert the lyrics, "Who killed the Kennedys?" to their new song "Sympathy For The Devil."
June 3, 1968 Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio in New York City. Solanas had been to see Warhol after asking for the return of a script which had apparently been misplaced. Warhol is seriously wounded in the attack and barely survives.
May 28, 1968 Kylie Minogue is born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
May 11, 1968 Richard Harris releases "MacArthur Park," a mysterious song written by Jimmy Webb about a cake left out in the rain. It climbs to #2 in America, but 10 years later reaches #1 in a version by Donna Summer.
May 4, 1968 Twiggy, one of the first English "supermodels," catches an 18-year-old Welsh singer named Mary Hopkin on the BBC-TV talent show Opportunity Knocks. She calls her friend Paul McCartney, who eventually signs Hopkin to Apple and has her record "Those Were The Days" as her first single.
May 1, 1968 D'Arcy Wretsky-Brown (bass guitarist for The Smashing Pumpkins) is born in South Haven, Michigan.
April 24, 1968 The newly formed Apple Records - a label founded by The Beatles - takes a pass on signing the relatively unknown David Bowie, sending his manager a stock rejection letter ("we don't feel he's what we're looking for at the moment").
April 24, 1968 "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong goes to #1 in the UK, where it becomes the top-selling single of 1968. In America, it stalls at #116; it's revived there in 1988 when it appears in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam.
April 22, 1968 "This Guy's in Love With You" becomes a huge hit after Herb Alpert sings it to his wife on the TV special The Beat of the Brass. The song, written by Burt Bacharach, is released as a single two days later thanks to viewer demand.
April 8, 1968 The TV special Petula airs on NBC. At one point in the show, host Petula Clark grabs hold of Harry Belafonte's arm while they are singing a duet. This marks the first time a white woman and black man have physical contact on TV in such context.More
April 7, 1968 At the Generation Club in New York, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, B.B. King, Richie Havens and Buddy Guy take the stage for a jam session in tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed three days earlier.
April 7, 1968 Three days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nina Simone performs "Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)" at the Westbury Music Fair in Long Island, New York, in his honor. The song was written by her bassist, Gene Taylor, less than 24 hours earlier.
April 6, 1968 The Graduate soundtrack hits #1 in America thanks to Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," which tops the Hot 100 less than two months later.More
April 5, 1968 With tensions high the night after Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, James Brown goes ahead with his concert at the Boston Garden, agreeing to televise the show to help keep calm in the city.More
April 4, 1968 US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. is killed after being shot on a Memphis motel balcony. King's life inspires a number of songs, including U2's "Pride (In The Name Of Love)."More
March 30, 1968 Celine Dion is born in Charlemagne, Quebec, the youngest of 14. She releases music in her native French throughout the '80s, building a huge following in Canada and France. In 1990, she sets her sights on America with her first English album, Unison, and she quickly becomes a star there as well.
March 25, 1968 The last episode of The Monkees airs on NBC, concluding the show's two-season run. Titled "The Frodis Caper," it's a very sci-fi episode directed by Micky Dolenz. It opens with the band waking up to "Good Morning Good Morning" by The Beatles, one of the first uses of a Beatles song in a non-Beatles production.
March 20, 1968 Eric Clapton jams with Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Jim Messina and Richie Furay at the Topanga Canyon home of Stills' girlfriend. Neighbors call the cops, and all but Stills (who escapes through a window) are charged with suspicion of marijuana use. Clapton beats the rap; Young, Messina and Furay are found guilty and fined.
March 16, 1968 Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" hits #1, becoming the first-ever posthumous #1 hit. Redding died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967.More
March 8, 1968 Promoter Bill Graham's East Coast version of the Fillmore, his legendary San Francisco rock ballroom, opens in the East Village section of New York City. Dubbed, appropriately enough, the Fillmore East, its first show features Big Brother & the Holding Company, Albert King, and Tim Buckley.
March 5, 1968 Syd Nathan, the record executive who founded King Records and launched James Brown's career, dies of heart disease at age 63.
March 5, 1968 The 1910 Fruitgum Company's "Simon Says" is certified gold.
February 25, 1968 The Jimi Hendrix Experience play two shows at the Civic Opera House in Chicago. Between shows, Hendrix gets "casted" by the inventive groupie Cynthia Plaster Caster, who makes a mold of his love gun.More
February 15, 1968 John Lennon and George Harrison of The Beatles depart for India to study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Later joined by Paul and Ringo, they write some songs for the White Album during the retreat.
February 10, 1968 Rolling Stone magazine offers free roach clips to new subscribers.More
February 5, 1968 Spin Doctors frontman Chris Barron is born Christopher Barron Gross in Hawaii. He moves with his family to Australia at age 8, then to Princeton, New Jersey at 12, where he goes to high school with John Popper of Blues Traveler.
February 4, 1968 US Attorney General John Mitchell receives a secret memo from Senator Strom Thurmond, in which Thurmond suggests deporting John Lennon due to his antiwar stance.
February 2, 1968 After cycling through a number of band names (including Bag 'O Nails and Navy Blue), Ian Anderson's group plays the Marquee Club in London as Jethro Tull, a name that sticks. Their agent suggested the name; Jethro Tull is the inventor of the seed drill.
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