This is the week that was in matters musical …
1954, Elvis Presley’s career comes to a crashing end—his career as a truck driver that is … he signs his first contract with Sun Records …
1955, “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets becomes the first rock-and-roll record to hit #1 on the national pop charts …
1962, The Rolling Stones play out for the first time at the Marquee Club in London … Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, Mick Avory, and Dick Taylor constitute the lineup …
1969, Blind Faith makes their American concert debut at Madison Square Garden in New York City … Elvis Presley’s cool comes to a crashing end as the heavily sequined King plays to a packed house at the International Hotel in Vegas … not being one to let an opportunity pass, manager Colonel Parker works out a multi-year, multimillion-dollar contract covering return engagements … the terms are jotted down on a tablecloth in the hotel’s coffee shop …
1972, Paul McCartney appears onstage for the first time since 1966 when his group Wings opens at Chateauvillon in the south of France …
1973, The Everly Brothers arrive at an ignominious career low when the sweet-harmonizing siblings’ set at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, is stopped by the theme park’s entertainment director who feels Don is doing a poor job … brother Phil sees red, smashes his guitar, and stalks offstage … ironically, Don performs the third set as a solo and announces that the Everly Brothers are history … singer and guitarist for the Byrds, Clarence White is run down and killed by a drunk driver while loading equipment after a gig in Palmdale, California …
1974, Crosby, Stills, and Nash start their reunion tour in Seattle …
1975, after completion of his U.K. tour, over 200,000 gather at Blackbushe Airport to see Bob Dylan off …
1977, just like his namesake, Elvis Costello’s career comes to a crashing end—his career as a computer operator at a cosmetic factory, that is … ignoring the advice given to all rock star hopefuls, Elvis quits his day job to enter rock history …
1979, Chuck Berry is sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service after pleading guilty to tax evasion … Berry will perform benefit concerts as part of his sentence …
1986, after 28 years of collaboration, Columbia Records drops Johnny Cash … Mercury Records backs the man in black with a new contract …
1989, Venice, Italy, is overrun by 200,000 fans who show up for a free Pink Floyd concert and annoy the locals with noise, littering, and drug use … clearly not the same respectful 200,000 who saw Bob Dylan off at Blackbushe Airport in ’75 …
1995, Jerry Garcia plays his final show with The Grateful Dead … the guitarist, vocalist, and founder of the band will die of a heart attack a month later while in a California rehab center …
1998, a Los Angeles judge issues a bench warrant for Scott Weiland when the Stone Temple Pilots singer fails to appear in court for a second time on drug possession charges … in what’s becoming a bad week for Weiland, he’s sentenced to three years’ probation and a stint in rehab this same week in 2004 for a DUI arrest the previous October …
1999, Limp Bizkit leader Fred Durst is arrested in St. Paul, MN, for suspicion of aggravated assault following the band’s show at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium … during the performance, Durst’s bodyguard was attempting to remove a fan who had jumped onstage … venue security mistook the bodyguard for an unruly fan and attempted to remove him from the stage … at this point Durst allegedly kicked one of the guards in the head …
2003, Jack White of The White Stripes breaks his finger in a car wreck in his hometown of Detroit … as a result of the injury, the band must cancel two European performances and reschedule their North American tour … White spends his recuperation time producing an album for country star Loretta Lynn, and posts a video clip of his finger surgery on the band’s website to prove the injury’s not a publicity stunt …
2006, in a sorry commentary on the state of pop music sales and the vapidity of the product being crammed down the throats of the music-buying public, the soundtrack to Disney’s High School Musical scores top-seller status through the first half of 2006 with 2.6 million discs sold, while the industry continues to struggle with overall CD sales down four percent … rap and rock are the biggest losers while digital downloads offer a ray of hope with a 77-percent increase … but the online business consists mostly of sales of singles and the profit margins for the record companies and artists are much slimmer … country music is an exception posting a 17-percent increase in disc sales … The Grateful Dead cut a long-term deal with Rhino Records to handle the band’s vast archive of live-show recordings and market Dead-related merch … Rhino executive vice president Gregg Goldman promises the label will be selective in the deals it makes with potential advertisers averring that, “We are sensitive to the legacy. We would never pitch to The Grateful Dead that they should do a deal with a fast food company or a soda company.” …
2007, Prince angers the music industry and stirs up trouble with British retailers by giving away his new album with a tabloid newspaper … the giveaway is roundly criticized as a major blow for an industry already facing rapidly declining CD sales … says Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk, referring to Prince’s ’90s nom de nothing, “The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behavior like this, he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores” … no comment from The Artist Presently Known Once More As Prince …
2008, Bon Jovi treats a crowd of 60,000 to a two-hour set of hits on Central Park’s Great Lawn … three days later, the Jersey band wraps up its Lost Highway tour after grossing $56 million, making it the biggest money-maker of the festival season … the drumhead from the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band brings in $1.1 million at an auction in London … other items sold at Christie’s include the guitar on which Pete Townshend composed “Behind Blue Eyes” that fetches $27,000; some multicolored pants worn by Jimi Hendrix go for $40,000; and John Lennon’s tinted prescription sunglasses fetch $78,000 …
… and that was the week that was in matters musical.
Arrivals:
July 9: jump blues singer Joe Liggins (1916), producer Lee Hazelwood (1929), Phil Leavitt of The Diamonds (1935), Donald McPherson of the Main Ingredient (1941), drummer Mitch Mitchell of The Jimi Hendrix Experience (1946), Bon Scott of AC/DC (1946), Debbie Sledge of Sister Sledge (1954), Soft Cell’s Marc Almond (1959), Jim Kerr of Simple Minds (1959), singer-songwriter Courtney Love (1965)
July 10: composer-music educator Carl Orff (1895), Arkansas blues slide guitarist Casey Bill Weldon (1909), heavy metal shrieker Ronnie James Dio (1942), Jerry Miller of Moby Grape (1943), Arlo Guthrie of “Alice’s Restaurant” fame and son of Woody Guthrie (1947), Dave Smalley of The Raspberries (1949), Greg Kihn, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and frontman of the Greg Kihn Band (1950), Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys (1954), banjo-meister Bela Fleck of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (1958), Peter DiStefano of Porno for Pyros (1965), pop singer Jessica Simpson (1980)
July 11: blues guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson (1897), actor-singer Tab Hunter (1931), R&B singer Thurston Harris (1931), Jeff Hanna of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (1947), Bonnie Pointer of The Pointer Sisters (1950), Benny DeFranco of The DeFranco Family (1954), singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega (1959), Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi (1960), rapper Li’l Kim (1975)
July 12: lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895), Barbara Cowsill, mother and member of The Cowsills (1928), concert pianist Van Cliburn (1934), Kiss drummer Eric Carr (1950), Chicago electric blues guitarist Sammy Lawhorne (1935), singer-keyboardist Christine VcVie of Fleetwood Mac (1943), Liz Mitchell of Boney M (1952), Phillip Taylor Kramer, bassist with Iron Butterfly (1952), singer Sandi Patti (1956), Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy (1962), UB40’s Alan Duval (1963), John Petrucci of Dream Theater (1967)
July 13: Cajun artist Joe Berry, born Joseph Barrios (1939), drummer Steven Jo Bladd of the J. Geils Band (1942), Roger McGuinn of The Byrds (1942), comedian Cheech Marin (how’d he get in here?), who sang on the hidden track of Korn’s Follow the Leader (oh, that’s how) (1946), country singer and multi-instrumentalist, Louise Mandrell (1954), Mark Mendoza of Twisted Sister (1956), rock journalist and movie maker Cameron Crowe (1957), R&B singer Gerald Levert, son of O’Jays lead singer Eddie Levert (1966), Coldplay’s Will Champion (1978)
July 14: American folk legend Woody Guthrie (1912), influential Atlanta DJ Zenas “Daddy” Sears (1913), Cliff Trenier of ’50s doo-wop group The Treniers (1919), Lowman Pauling of The “5” Royales (1926), Bob Scholl, member of The Mello-Kings (1938), expatriate British rocker Vince Taylor, role model for Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust (1939), Detroit soul singer Ty Hunter (1940), Trevor Horn of Buggles and Yes (1949), singer-songwriter Christopher Cross (1952), singer, songwriter, and guitarist Tanya Donelly of Belly (1966), keyboardist-vocalist Ellen Reid of Crash Test Dummies (1966), singer-songwriter Tameka “Tiny” Cottle of Xscape (1975), rapper Taboo of Black Eyed Peas, born Jaime Luis Gómez (1975)
July 15: Cowboy Copas, country singing star who died in the same plane as Patsy Cline (1913), Motown house drummer William “Benny” Benjamin (1925), singer-actress Nina, Baroness van Pallandt (1932), soul star Millie Jackson (1944), guitarist (and son of actress Loretta Young) Peter Lewis of Moby Grape (1945), singer, songwriter, and producer Linda Ronstadt (1946), flamboyant New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, born John Anthony Genzale Jr. (1952), guitarist for .38 Special Jeff Carlisi (1952), Joy Division vocalist Ian Curtis (1956), instrumental rock guitarist Joe Satriani (1956)
Departures:
July 9: for one day in rock history, everybody lives!
July 10: music journalist, producer, and talent scout who discovered Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Hammond Sr. (1987), Boston Pops Orchestra conductor Arthur Fiedler (1979), “Jelly Roll” Morton, born Ferdinand Joseph Lemott (1941)
July 11: James Hill of The Fairfield Four (2000), Helen Forrest, popular big band jazz vocalist who worked with Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Harry James (1999), Louis Gottlieb, bassist and lofty comic spokesman for The Limeliters (1996), Afro-Cuban jazz maestro Mario Bauza (1993), Hubert Johnson of The Contours (1981), composer George Gershwin (1937)
July 12: rapper Luis “Papo” Deschamps of Sandy Y Papo (1999), Jimmie Driftwood, born James Corbett Morris, the “Father of Arkansas Folk Music” (1998), Jonathan Melvoin of the Smashing Pumpkins (1996), Chris Wood of Traffic (1983), singer-songwriter Minnie Riperton, known for her 5-1/2 octave range (1979)
July 13: Arthur “Killer” Kane, New York Dolls bassist (2004), Compay Segundo, Cuban musician featured on the Buena Vista Social Club CD (2003), Chicago blues pianist Eddie Boyd (1994)
July 14: Beryl Bryden, dubbed the “British Queen of the Blues” (1998), Phillippe Wynne of the Spinners (1984), Malcolm Owen of the Rutts (1980), progressive country guitarist Clarence White of The Byrds (1973)
July 15: rapper Too Poetic, born Anthony Berkeley (2001) Bizarros drummer Rick Garberson (1979)