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October 2, 1954 Elvis Presley makes his one and only appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, where he sings "Blue Moon Of Kentucky." It doesn't go over well with the crowd, which does not approve of his take on traditional country music. The Opry's talent director, Jim Denny, reportedly tells Presley he should go back to driving a truck. Elvis swears never to return.
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.
September 8, 1954 The DJ Alan Freed makes his move from Cleveland to New York, where he begins broadcasting his "Alan Freed Rock 'n' Roll Show" on WINS. The first white DJ to play black music, Freed brings R&B music to a wider audience in New York, and the sound quickly goes mainstream with the rise of Elvis and the popularization of rock music.
July 28, 1954 Elvis Presley gets his first interview through an article published in his hometown paper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar.
July 8, 1954 Dewey Phillips at WHBQ in Memphis becomes the first DJ to play an Elvis Presley song when he spins "That's Alright Mama" on his Red Hot & Blue show. The switchboard lights up, so Phillips keeps playing the song, giving Elvis some prime publicity early in his career.
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.
June 17, 1954 Danny Cedrone, guitarist featured on Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around The Clock," dies at age 33 after falling down stairs and breaking his neck.
May 20, 1954 Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around The Clock" is released for the first time. It stalls on the charts, but becomes a hit a year later when it is used in the movie Blackboard Jungle.
May 1, 1954 Guitarist and songwriter Ray Parker, Jr., writer and performer of the Ghostbusters theme, is born in Detroit, Michigan.
April 24, 1954 Keeping an eye on the new trends, Billboard publishes an article titled, "Teenagers Demand Music With A Beat - Spur Rhythm And Blues."
April 12, 1954 At his first session for Decca Records, Bill Haley records "Rock Around The Clock" and "Thirteen Women" (a post-nuclear song that was originally the A-side of the single).
March 31, 1954 Tony Brock (drummer for The Tubes, The Babys) is born in Poole, Dorset, England.
March 10, 1954 The Threepenny Opera opens at the Theater de Lys in New York's Greenwich Village. A revival of a German production from 1928, the standout scene is when the Street Singer does "Mack The Knife," a song about the murderous Macheath.More
February 26, 1954 Responding to the rising popularity of black music, the United States congress proposes a bill forbidding distribution of "obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy publication, picture, disc, transcription, or other article capable of producing sound." The bill fails.
February 18, 1954 John Travolta is born in Englewood, New Jersey.More
January 13, 1954 Trevor Rabin (guitarist for Yes) is born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Rabin is also a noted film composer with over 40 scores to his credit, including Remember the Titans (2002) and National Treasure (2004).
January 4, 1954 A young truck driver named Elvis Presley pays to record two songs at the Memphis Recording Service. It's his second visit, and this time MRS head Sam Phillips gets his number and later calls him to record for his Sun label.
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
November 17, 1953 "Rags to Riches" by Tony Bennett is #1 on all three US Billboard charts (jukeboxes, sales, radio).
November 7, 1953 Pat Boone marries Shirley Lee Foley, the daughter of country singer Red Foley, in what will be a lifelong union. Boone and Foley are both 19 years old.
June 22, 1953 Cyndi Lauper is born in Astoria, Queens, New York. She releases an album with her group Blue Angel before going solo, exploding onto the scene with her 1983 album She's So Unusual, which includes the hits "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" and "Time After Time."
June 7, 1953 South African musician Johnny Clegg (of Johnny Clegg & Juluka) is born in Bacup, Lancashire, England. He moves to South Africa at six years old.
June 4, 1953 Jimmy McCulloch (guitarist for Thunderclap Newman, lead guitarist, bassist for Wings) is born in Dumbarton, Scotland.
April 9, 1953 Hal Ketchum, whose country hits include "Small Town Saturday Night" and "Past The Point Of Rescue," is born in Greenwich, New York.
March 27, 1953 Rock guitarist Wally Stocker (of The Babys, Air Supply and Humble Pie) is born in London, England.
March 19, 1953 Guitarist Ricky Wilson is born in Athens, Georgia, where he and his sister Cindy form The B-52s. Ricky's off-kilter tunings and unusual jangle help for the musical identity of the band, but his life is cut short in 1985 when he becomes one of the first victims of AIDS.
March 12, 1953 Popular WDIA disc jockey Rufus Thomas signs with an upstart Memphis label called Sun Records in order to release a song called "Bear Cat," an answer record to Big Mama Thornton's hit "Hound Dog."
March 5, 1953 America learns of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's death when Air Force Staff Sergeant Johnny Cash intercepts a coded message from Russia. Cash enlisted in 1950 after he turned 18 and was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile of the US Air Force Security Service at Landsberg, West Germany, where he proved his skill as a Morse Code operator.
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.
February 26, 1953 Michael Bolton is born Michael Bolotin in New Haven, Connecticut. Before reaching soft-rock stardom, he fronts a hard-rock band called Blackjack.More
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