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.
January 26, 1968 At the University of Southampton, Pink Floyd play their first gig without founding member Syd Barrett, who never returns to the band. The 22-year-old Barrett is an early acid casualty, no longer able to contribute to the group.
January 20, 1968 John Fred and His Playboy Band's "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" hits #1. The song is a takeoff on The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."
January 20, 1968 Roughly three months after the death of Woody Guthrie, a tribute concert is put on in the folk hero's name by Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, The Band, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Odetta, and Richie Havens at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
January 18, 1968 At a White House luncheon to discuss the rise in urban crime, Eartha Kitt gets into a notorious spat with First Lady Claudia Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson, declaring, "Vietnam is the main reason we are having trouble with the youth of America. It is a war without explanation or reason." Although accounts of the entire argument differ, Kitt is subsequently blackballed in America.
January 13, 1968 Johnny Cash plays two shows for inmates at Folsom Prison in California. Unlike his previous prison concerts, they are recorded and packaged into his acclaimed live album At Folsom Prison.More
January 8, 1968 Stax Records releases Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" and Sam & Dave's "I Thank You." Both are very successful, but neither artist scores another hit (Redding had died about a month earlier).
December 31, 1967 Sonny and Cher are suddenly disinvited to appear at tomorrow's Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, after publicly backing the "Sunset Strip Rioters," teenagers protesting the city's new curfew.
December 27, 1967 Bob Dylan releases his eighth album, John Wesley Harding, featuring the classic tune "All Along the Watchtower." The Jimi Hendrix Experience later covers the song, which becomes the band's biggest US hit, peaking at #20 in October 1968.
December 27, 1967 After establishing his career as a poet and writer, Leonard Cohen releases his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, on Columbia Records. The album doesn't sell particularly well at first, peaking at #83 on the Billboard charts, but Cohen's powerful voice and lyrics in oft-covered tracks like "Suzanne" and "So Long, Marianne" become highly influential.
December 10, 1967 The previously unknown San Francisco group The Steve Miller Blues Band signs to Capitol for an unprecedented $750,000, dropping "Blues" from their name in the process.
December 10, 1967 Otis Redding dies at age 26 when his personal Beechcraft plane crashes into Lake Monona near Madison, Wisconsin. Members of his road band The Bar-Kays also die in the crash; the only survivor is the band's trumpet player Ben Cauley. One month later, "Dock of the Bay" is released, becoming the first #1 song issued after the artist's death.
December 9, 1967 Jim Morrison of The Doors is arrested onstage during his band's concert in New Haven, Connecticut. The singer is arrested after angrily telling the crowd about a backstage run-in he'd had with a police officer before the show. The officer had confronted Morrison and maced him while he was hanging out in a private area with a young woman. It's the first time a famous musician is arrested in the middle of a performance.More
November 25, 1967 Rodney Sheppard (guitarist for Sugar Ray) is born in Trinidad, but is raised in Newport Beach, California.
November 14, 1967 Pink Floyd begin their first UK tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London, playing on a package bill with The Move, The Nice, Amen Corner, and the headliner, Jimi Hendrix.
November 10, 1967 The Beatles film three separate videos for their new single, "Hello Goodbye," at London's Saville Theatre. The three are eventually edited together to form one video, but the BBC, which has just given in to a Musician's Union ban on lip-syncing, refuses to air the clip.
November 9, 1967 The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine is published, with a photo of John Lennon on the cover and items about David Crosby, The Who and Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe & the Fish).More
November 9, 1967 In a battle of egos, The Byrds's Roger McGuinn boots David Crosby from the group. Crosby is replaced by Gene Clark and goes on to form Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
November 7, 1967 Elton John, still going by his given name of Reg Dwight, and songwriting partner Bernie Taupin sign their first major publishing deal. Their parents are there to witness the signing, as both are still minors.
November 7, 1967 The radio station KSHE 94.7 FM in St. Louis flips format from easy listening to rock, starting with "White Rabbit." The move helps spread the sounds and ethos of the counterculture to the midwest, and KSHE becomes a major force in the movement.
November 5, 1967 Kenny Rogers makes his TV debut, appearing with his group The First Edition on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
October 26, 1967 Keith Urban is born in Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand, but moves with his family to Queensland, Australia when he's 2. He conquers America in the '00s with a string of hits that includes "Somebody Like You" and "You'll Think Of Me." In 2012 he's inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.
October 21, 1967 Lulu's "To Sir With Love" hits #1 in the US for the first of five weeks. Lulu performs the song in the movie of the same name, where she portrays a high school student taught by Sidney Poitier.
October 18, 1967 Louis Armstrong, 66 years old, releases "What a Wonderful World." It goes to #1 in the UK, but takes a lot longer to catch on in his home country of America, where it doesn't make much impact until 1988 when it's used in the film Good Morning, Vietnam.
October 17, 1967 The songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, along with producer Phil Spector, guest star on the "Jeannie, The Hip Hippie" episode of I Dream Of Jeannie, where Jeannie joins a band.
October 4, 1967 George Harrison and John Lennon appear on David Frost's TV show, where they take the "pro" side in a debate over Transcendental Meditation. On the panel is the author Juan Mascaro, who later sends Harrison a book containing a translation of Chapter 47 of Tao Te Ching, which he uses as the lyric for the song "The Inner Light."
October 3, 1967 Chris Collingwood (lead vocalist for Fountains of Wayne) is born in Britain, but would be raised in Sellersville, Pennsylvania.
October 2, 1967 Drummer Bud Gaugh is born Floyd I. Gaugh IV in Long Beach, California. With lead singer Brad Nowell and bass player Eric Wilson, he forms Sublime in 1988. After Nowell's death in 1996, he and Wilson keep making music together but can't use the Sublime name until Nowell's son Jakob joins them in 2023.
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