Monday, May 19, 2008

This Date In Music History- May 19

Pete Townshend of the Who ("Won't Get Fooled Again") turns 63.

Freddie Garrity of Freddie & the Dreamers("I'm Telling You Now") died in 2006.

Odia Coates (sang "You're Having My Baby" and other songs with Paul Anka) died of cancer in 1991.

The Everly Brothers formed their Calliope Records label (its first release is Don performing "Pomp And Circumstance" as "Adrian Kimberley") in 1961.

Peggy Lee recorded "Fever" in 1958.

Today in 1973, the song "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder topped the charts and stayed there for a week.

Pete Seeger was born in 1919.

On this day in 1984, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon had been on the American charts for 10 years solid.

In 1965, in their efforts to determine the true significance of the lyrics to "Louie Louie," FBI agents visit the offices of Wand Records, which distributed the Kingsmen's hit record. They would eventually release a statement that said that it was impossible to exactly decipher the lyrics from "the unintelligible rendition as performed by The Kingsmen."

AC/DC
drummer Phil Rudd was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1954.

She's a slave to the rhythm. And she was born today in Kingston, Jamaica in 1952. She is Grace Jones.

Joey Ramone was born today in Forest Hills, N.Y. in 1952

In 1979, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr performed together for the first time since the breakup of the Beatles at the wedding reception for Harrison's friend Eric Clapton and Harrison's ex-wife Patti Boyd.

In an indication of the mania to come, three girls were arrested in 1963 after trying to use a ladder to gain entry to the Beatles' dressing room. The band was performing with Roy Orbison in Hanley, England. The trio were released after the Beatles gave them autographs.

Dusty Hill of ZZ Top was born in Dallas in 1949.

In 1958, Bobby Darin’s single, "Splish Splash," was released as the first eight-track master recording pressed to a plastic 45-RPM disc.

Also in 1958- Ritchie Valens recorded the self-penned "Come On, Let's Go" for Del-Fi Records in Los Angeles. The song would peak at #42 on the Billboard singles chart the following October.

In 1960, Deejay Alan Freed was indicted along with seven others for accepting $30,650 in payola from six record companies. Two years later, he was convicted and received a suspended sentence and a $300 fine.

Ron Wilson, The Surfaris' drummer who recorded one of Rock and Roll's most influential drum solo’s, "Wipe Out", died of a brain aneurysm on May 19th, 1989 at the age of 49.

The Grateful Dead debuted at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom in 1966.

Supertramp’s "Breakfast In America," with "Goodbye Stranger" and "Take The Long Way Home," was the #1 album in the U.S. in 1979.

The Beatles single “Get Back” went gold in 1969. It shows that despite the feuding, the group can still hit #1 on the pop charts.