Today in Music History
April 12 Events
1954:
Bill Haley and His Comets record
(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock at Pythian Temple studios in New York City, a song that was first released by Sunny Dae in 1952. Near the end of the session, Bill Haley and his band recorded two takes, which were later combined to create the song’s final version. The first recording of Haley’s vocals had been drowned out by band, so a second take was recorded in which Haley sang with minimal accompaniment. The record was a modest hit, selling 75,000 copies, but would become a national sensation when it was featured in the movie
The Blackboard Jungle twelve months later, pushing rock‘n’roll firmly into mainstream culture. The upbeat track became the first rock‘n’roll single to top the charts in both the UK and the US, where it spent two months at #1. It was later ranked at #159 on the
Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2018 it was chosen for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
1932:
Singer
Tiny Tim is born Herbert B. Khaury is born in Manhattan.
1940:
Musician
Herbie Hancock is born in Chicago. After playing in
Miles Davis' band, he makes very eclectic and experimental jazz music. In 1983 he had a huge hit with
Rockit, which incorporated synthesizers and turntable scratching.
1944:
John Kay (frontman of
Steppenwolf) is born Joachim Fritz Krauledat in former Tilsit, East Prussia, Germany.
1947:
Alexander Briley (the sailor from
The Village People) is born in Harlem.
1950:
David Cassidy is born in New York City to actor Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. He becomes a teen idol and pop star thanks to his role as Keith Partridge on the musical sitcom
The Partridge Family.
1954:
Guitarist, keyboardist, and singer
Pat Travers (
Boom Boom, Out Go The Lights) was born in Toronto.
1961:
Ray Charles is the big winner at the third annual
Grammy Awards, winning four times, including the award for Best Male Vocal for
Georgia On My Mind.
1963:
Bob Dylan performed his first major solo concert at the
Town Hall in New York City, to a crowd of nine hundred people. The show was recorded by Columbia Records as part of a plan to release a live album. Though the album was never released, various tracks surfaced over the years. Dylan played a 24-song set including
Blowin' In The Wind, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Highway 51 and
Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie.
1965:
The
Byrds release their cover of Bob Dylan's
Mr. Tambourine Man. It's their first single and a huge hit, going to #1 in June.
1966:
Jan Berry of
Jan & Dean crashes his corvette into a parked truck on Beverly Hills' Whittier Drive, near a stretch of road in Los Angeles known as Dead Man's Curve. In a terrible twist of irony, the group had scored a Top Ten hit two years earlier with their song
Dead Man’s Curve, a teenage tragedy song about a street race gone bad. Berry suffers paralysis and extensive brain damage, and would require four years of rehabilitation to be able to talk, and a full decade in order to perform live again.
1966:
Tom Jones enters a hospital to have his tonsils removed, though some who claim to have seen his tonsils since claim his real visit was for a nose job.
1967:
Mick Jagger was punched in the face by an airport official during a row at Le Bourget Airport in France. Jagger lost his temper after The Rolling Stones were being searched for drugs, resulting in them missing their flight.
1967:
Greyhound begins offering tours of the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, billing it as
Hippyland.
1968:
Outspoken
Frank Zappa performs at a dinner for the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, who are the people who give us the Grammys. Zappa says the event is "a load of pompous hokum" and tells the audience, "All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!" He later said he had no idea how the Mothers got the gig, and that even though a lot of people were offended by the performance, there were some that really liked it.
1969:
The
5th Dimension began a six-week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the medley
Aquarius / Let The Sunshine In. Both songs were taken from the counterculture Broadway rock musical,
Hair.
Simon & Garfunkel's
The Boxer was released.
1971:
Crosby, Stills Nash & Young's live album
Four Way Street was certified gold by the RIAA.
1973:
The
J. Geils Band released their third studio album,
Bloodshoot. It was the band’s breakthrough release, reaching #10 on the Billboard pop chart. Listen to 1972's
Live Full House for much better versions of the songs, in my opinion.
1974:
Bad Company's
Can't Get Enough was released.
1975:
Bob Seger released his eighth studio album,
Beautiful Loser. The LP marked Seger’s return to Capitol Records and relied largely on session musicians from the
Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.
1976:
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, beloved in Michigan but an obscurity elsewhere, releases
Live Bullet, which captures the intensity of his live performances and makes him a national act.
1977:
At the
Rat in Kenmore Square,
The Damned get a mild reception for their first set - so when they return to the stage, they sit down and eat pizza while they play, telling the crowd,
We can sit on our asses just like you.
The music, the vermin, the disturbing bathrooms - Rocker celebrates the filth and the fury of the seminal club!
www.rockerzine.com
1979:
Former
Elvin Bishop Group lead singer
Mickey Thomas (
Fooled Around And Fell In Love) became the lead singer for
Jefferson Starship after the departure of
Marty Balin and
Grace Slick. Two years later, drummer Donny Baldwin, also previously a member of the Elvin Bishop Group, joined the band and replaced Aynsley Dunbar. Thomas shifted to band leader after the departure of Paul Kantner, and the band continued as
Starship and later
Starship featuring Mickey Thomas, after disputes over the group’s name. It is an absolute disgrace that Jefferson Airplane devolved into one of the worst garbage pop groups in the history of music, or that their name is in any way associated with that abomination of an excuse for music.
1983:
R.E.M. release their debut album,
Murmur.
1988:
Sonny Bono is elected mayor in his hometown of Palm Springs, California. He holds the position until 1992; in 1994 he is elected to Congress.
The "I Got You Babe" singer, better known as Cher's bell-bottom-wearing other (not, necessarily, "better") half, got into politics after encountering local government red tape over his home and an...
content.time.com
1989:
Garth Brooks released his self-titled debut album which was both a critical and chart success, peaking at #13 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the top country albums. This album contains Brooks earliest hits, including his first ever single,
Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old), his first #1,
If Tomorrow Never Comes and the Academy of Country Music's 1990 Song of the Year and Video of the Year,
The Dance.
1989:
Two DJ's on Los Angeles station KLOS asked
what ever happened to David Cassidy The singer called the station up and the hosts invited him onto the show. David played three songs live on air and was subsequently signed by a new record label.
1990:
Sinead O'Connor refuses to appear as the musical guest on
Saturday Night Live in protest of the guest host, comedian
Andrew Dice Clay.
Hot-selling pop singer Sinead O'Connor decided Wednesday to pull out of her scheduled appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, saying she did not want to appear on the same program with guest host Andrew Dice Clay.
www.latimes.com
1990:
James Brown was released from a South Carolina jail on work furlough after serving 15 months of a six-year sentence for aggravated assault, drug possession and resisting arrest. He makes $3.80/hour on work release counseling youths about drug abuse.
Grammy-winning soul singer James Brown was freed from prison today after 16 months so that he can begin a work-release program.
www.latimes.com
1992:
The Eagles'
Don Henley leads 6,000 fans through Walden Woods in Massachusetts as part of a benefit walk to save the literally significant woods popularized by Henry Thoreau's work.
Best known as a founder of the legendary rock band, the Eagles, as well as an influential solo artist, Don Henley has maintained an extraordinary commitment to music and to various philanthropic…
www.walden.org
1995:
Dave Grohl's new band
Foo Fighters starts a club tour in Tempe, Arizona, opening for Mike Watt. Grohl is also Watt's drummer for the tour, and an incognito
Eddie Vedder is his guitarist.
1999:
Billy Joel's
Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II becomes just the fourth album certified by the RIAA as Double Diamond for sales of over 20 million in the US, following
Thriller, Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 and
The Wall.
2000:
Metallica filed a suit against
Napster, Yale University, The University of Southern California and Indiana University for copyright infringement.
Bo Diddley filed suit against
Nike for using his name and image without permission. Nike is accused of continuing to use his image after a contract expired in 1991.
2002:
Ozzy Osbourne received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2005:
Mariah Carey released
The Emancipation of Mimi, and the album entered the US charts at #1, going six times platinum in less than a year, and subsequently became the most successful album of 2005.
2010:
The Vatican's official newspaper
L'Osservatore Ramano published a story praising the
Beatles and saying that it forgave
John Lennon for his 1966 comment that the group was
bigger than Jesus. Lennon told a British newspaper in 1966 - at the height of Beatlemania - that he did not know which would die out first, Christianity or rock and roll.
At the height of their fame The Beatles enraged the Roman Catholic Church by famously declaring they were bigger than Jesus. Their enthusiastic pursuit of the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle also did little to convince the Vatican they were anything other than a thoroughly bad influence...
www.historynewsnetwork.org
2011:
Foo Fighters released their seventh studio album,
Wasting Light. The album was preceded by the successful single
Rope which became only the second song ever to debut at #1 on Billboard's Rock Songs chart. Wasting Light earned four Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album.
2016:
A US federal judge ruled that members of
Led Zeppelin founders
Robert Plant and
Jimmy Page would have to face trial in a copyright infringement lawsuit over their 1971 song
Stairway to Heaven. The lawsuit was brought by the estate of Randy California, guitarist for the band
Spirit - who played on the same bill as Led Zeppelin in the 1960s, alleging that the opening of
Stairway to Heaven copied elements from Spirit's 1968 instrumental track
Taurus. The case would go to trial later in the year, where Led Zeppelin initially prevailed, and after further appeals, the band ultimately won the case in 2020.
After listening to the song, I have to agree with the verdict. There are far more egregious examples of plagiarism out there.
