Today in Music History
May 21
May 21, 1955:
Chuck Berry recorded “
Maybellene” – his debut single, and one of the world’s first rock‘n’roll songs – at Chicago’s Universal Recording Studio. The tune, which was based around the 1938 Western Swing song, “Ida Red,” by Bob Willis and his Texas Playboys, instantly appealed to young music fans around the country, breaking through the segregated radio waves. Released via the legendary blues imprint Chess Records, “
Maybellene” topped Billboard’s R&B chart and landed in the Hot 100’s Top 5, effectively launching Berry’s career and forever altering the course of popular music.
May 21, 1965:
Ten years into the Rock Era,
Time magazine reports on the music with the cover story, "Rock 'n' Roll: The Sound of the Sixties."
"A surprisingly large segment of 20-to-40-year-olds are now facing up to the music and, what is more, liking it," the magazine reports.
It's a huge shift in attitudes, as rock is now seen as sophisticated, and its critics hopelessly behind the times. "In chic circles, anyone damning rock 'n' roll is labeled not only square but uncultured," Time reports.
Appearing on the cover are The Beach Boys, Petula Clark, Herman's Hermits, The Righteous Brothers, and notably, The Supremes, marking a rare appearance of black faces on the cover of a mainstream magazine. "The best brown sound is, of course, that sung by Negroes," Time notes, offering praise for the "Motown Sound" that is taking hold.
May 21, 1966:
The Castiles (with
Bruce Springsteen on vocals) appeared at Freehold Regional High School in New Jersey. They were performing at their own high school for the very first time. All five members of the band were Juniors at Freehold High School.
May 21, 1967:
Jimi Hendrix signed with Reprise Records on the US Warner Brothers label. They released the guitarist's albums
Are You Experienced?,
Axis: Bold as Love and
Electric Ladyland.
May 21, 1970:
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released their protest anthem, “
Ohio.” The poignant track was written by
Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, when unarmed college students were shot by the Ohio National Guard. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others who were peacefully opposing the Vietnam War, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.
May 21, 1971:
Marvin Gaye released his celebrated 11th studio album,
What’s Going On. The nine-song concept album tells the bittersweet homecoming story from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning to the country he had been fighting for, and seeing only hatred, suffering, and injustice.
What’s Going On marked a turning point in Gaye’s career, finding the “Prince of Motown” swapping upbeat singles for honest and introspective lyricism. Considered to be one of the greatest albums of all time, the LP was met with broad critical acclaim and commercial success, remaining on the Billboard 200 for more than a year and spawning several hit singles, including the title track, “
Mercy Mercy Me,” and “
Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler).”
May 21, 1971:
Paul and Linda McCartney released
Ram, his second solo album, featuring
Maybe I'm Amazed. While it was a commercial success (double platinum, two million units sold[/I], the LP was critically panned, especially in comparison to what John Lennon was producing.
May 21, 1972:
The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, Humble Pie, Uriah Heep, Buddy Miles, Country Joe McDonald, Rory Gallagher, Savoy Brown and many others appeared at the 2nd British Rock Meeting, at Insel Grun, Germersheim, West Germany. The festival was due to take place in Mannheim, West Germany, but after protests from the locals, the concert actually took place in nearby Germersheim. The Faces were supposed to headline but failed to show up, and Wishbone Ash played instead. Over 70,000 people attend the 4-day festival with 35 bands performing. More than three hundred people were hospitalized for drug problems, with another 1200 receiving outpatient treatment.
May 21, 1977:
Fleetwood Mac's
Rumours reclaims the #1 album spot in the US from the
Eagles'
Hotel California. Rumours was #1 for two weeks in April before Hotel California was #1 for five weeks. Then beginning on this date, Rumours ranked #1 for 27 of the next 28 weeks, with the only blip coming in mid-July from - crazily, of all musical acts - a one-week mutation with
Barry Manilow Live on top of the album charts. Their 11th studio album was their best, selling 21 million copies in the US and 40 million worldwide.
May 21, 1977:
Stevie Wonder started a three-week run at #1 on the US singles chart with '
Sir Duke', his tribute to
Duke Ellington, the influential jazz legend who had died in 1974. The lyrics also refer to Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald. The track was taken from his 1976 album
Songs in the Key of Life. From October 16, 1976 to January 8, 1977, the album spent 13 consecutive weeks at #1, preventing other albums such as Boz Scaggs'
Silk Degrees and Led Zeppelin's first live album,
The Song Remains the Same from reaching the top spot.
May 21, 1979:
Elton John started a tour of Russia, when he played the first of eight concerts making him the first Western musician ever to do so. The concerts that were videotaped for a cable-TV special and a videodisc, both titled
To Russia with Elton.
May 21, 1980:
A thief broke into Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the recording studio built by
Jimi Hendrix and
stole five Hendrix gold records for the albums ‘
Are You Experienced’, ‘
Axis: Bold as Love’, ‘
Cry of Love’, ‘
Rainbow Bridge’ and
Live at Monterey.
May 21, 1983:
David Bowie went to #1 on the US singles chart with '
Let's Dance', featuring blues guitarist
Stevie Ray Vaughan. It was Bowie's first single to reach number one on both sides of the Atlantic. The music video was made by David Mallet on location in Australia including a bar in Carinda in New South Wales, featured Bowie playing with his band while impassively watching an Aboriginal couple’s struggles against metaphors of Western cultural imperialism.
May 21, 1983:
ZZ Top releases their video for
Gimme All Your Lovin', marking the first appearance of the Eliminator, Billy Gibbons' 1933 Ford Hot Rod. The car appears in three other ZZ Top videos and becomes closely associated with the band. Gibbons has another one built just like it to bring on tour.
The "Gimme All Your Lovin'" video contains no studio footage, breaking away from the format of "band plays fake concert while other stuff goes on." It's all outdoors, opening with a scene where a gas-station attendant is turning a wrench. When the eliminator pulls up, it begins an adventure where the three lovely ladies inside take him for a ride. He wakes up as if from a dream, but the Eliminator rolls by and he's holding the key the girls gave him.
Not only is it a cohesive storyline (rare for MTV at the time), but it also leaves room for a sequel, which is filled by the next ZZ Top single, "Sharp Dressed Man," where he is working as a valet. When the Eliminator pulls up, the same three girls emerge, helping him find his inner dance demon. The third video in the series if for "Legs," which this time features a girl working a thankless job where she is constantly harassed. When the Eliminator pulls up, the girls give her a makeover and imbue her with confidence, which she uses to take control.
May 21, 1992:
The decline of western civilization:
MTV airs the first episode of
The Real World, which gets huge ratings and begins a shift in their programming away from music videos. It also encourages other networks to try this "Reality TV" thing.
May 21, 2001:
Producer, arranger and keyboardist Tommy Eyre died of cancer aged 51. Worked with George Harrison, Wham! Dusty Springfield, and B.B. King. Played and arranged Joe ****er's
With a Little Help from My Friends and Gerry Rafferty's '
Baker Street'.
May 21, 2003:
Mariah Carey hit back at
Eminem's threats to sample the slushy voicemail messages she left on his mobile. Carey described the rapper as "a little girl" saying it's "
like dealing with a girlfriend in 7th grade, and he shouldn't do it because it'll get him in a bit of trouble with her lawyers."
May 21, 2006:
Madonna played the first of three sold out nights at The Los Angeles Forum in California, the first dates on her
Confessions Tour. The 60-date tour grossed over $260 million, becoming the
highest grossing tour ever for a female artist.
May 21, 2008:
Lou Pearlman, the music mogul who created the
Backstreet Boys and
NSYNC was
sentenced to 25 years in federal prison over a decades-long scam that swindled thousands of investors out of their life savings. Many victims were Pearlman's relatives, friends and retirees in their 70s or 80s who lost everything.
May 21, 2011:
Adele scored her first #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with “
Rolling in the Deep.” The Grammy-winning song, which led her sophomore album, 21, held the top spot for seven weeks, eventually becoming the best-selling digital song ever by a female artist in the US. Elsewhere, “
Rolling in the Deep” topped the charts in more than 20 countries.
May 21, 2013:
Trevor Bolder, the bass player in
David Bowie's 1970s backing band
Spiders From Mars, died from cancer at the age of 62. Bolder appeared on the studio albums
Hunky Dory (1971),
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972),
Aladdin Sane (1973), and
Pin Ups (1973).
May 21, 1904:
Jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer and comedic entertainer
Fats Waller was born in New York City. His best-known compositions,
Ain't Misbehavin' and
Honeysuckle Rose, were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999. In 1926 Waller was kidnapped at gunpoint in Chicago and driven to a club owned by
Al Capone. Inside the club he was ordered to perform at what turned out to be a surprise birthday party for the gangster.
May 21, 1934:
Sonny Forriest, guitar player for the
Coasters, was born in Pendleton, North Carolina. The rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group scored the 1958 US #1 single
Yakety Yak, the 1959 #2 single
Charlie Brown, as well as
Young Blood and
Poison Ivy.
May 21, 1940:
Singer, songwriter and guitarist
Tony Sheridan was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England. He was best known as an early collaborator of The Beatles and the only non-Beatle to appear as lead singer on a Beatles recording (
My Bonnie) which charted as a single.
May 21, 1941:
Singer, songwriter and record producer
Ronald Isley was born on Cincinnati.
The Isley Brothers first came to prominence in 1959 with their fourth single,
Shout, and then the 1962 hit
Twist and Shout. The band also scored the hits
It's Your Thing,
That Lady and
Fight the Power, among others. Sixteen of their albums charted in the Top 40.
May 21, 1943:
One of the five original members of
The Animals, guitar player
Hilton Valentine, was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England.
The House of the Rising Sun and
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place both rank in the top half of
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
May 21, 1943:
Bass player
John Dalton of
The Kinks was born in Enfield, Middlesex, England. He temporarily played with the band in 1966 after Peter Quaife broke his leg in a car accident, and again when the band achieved much of its critical success, from 1969 to 1976, on songs such as
Victoria,
Lola and
Apeman.
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