Tonight in 1963The Beatles were playing a show in Dudley, England with an opening act called Denny and the Diplomats, fronted by a pimply-young Denny Laine who would later join the Moody Blues and then Paul McCartney's Wings.
Paul Kantner and Marty Balin started bashing out folk-rock together today in 1965 that would premier a month later as The Jefferson Airplane at a club in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco.
Chas Chandler formerly of The Animals went to the Cafe Wha? in New York tonight in 1966 to see a crazy guitarist from Seattle on the recommendation of Keith Richard's girlfriend. He loved him, and told him he should come to England, which Jimi Hendrix did, with Chas as his manager. Below is a reenactment from the 2013 film Jimi: All Is By My Side.
The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in London's Hyde Park today in 1969 ostensibly to honor their founder Brian Jones, who had died two days earlier, but mostly to unveil his replacement Mick Taylor.
Your mild-mannered guitarist from Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, points out that on this day in 1971, they were playing a bicycle track, not unlike the Marymoor Velodrome, in Milano Italy…when just a few songs into their set the police hosed the audience... and the band...with copious amounts of tear gas….Jimmy still thinks the whole thing was a set-up by sadistic Polizia, and that Led Zeppelin lost some of their equipment, and all of their enthusiasm for ever playing Italy again. Interestingly, West Seattle's Amanda Knox feels pretty much the same way...
Pink Floyd debuted their new album Wish You Were Here today in 1975 at the Knebworth festival in England. The show included flybys by British Spitfire planes, pyrotechnics, and a fake exploding plane that flew into the stage. Also on the bill: Captain Beefheart and The Steve Miller Band.
A court order halted production of the new Rolling Stones album Some Girls today in 1978, after legal complaints by most of the Girls featured on the cover: Lucille Ball, Farah Fawcett, Raquel Welch, the estate of the late Marilynn Monroe, Liza Minelli on behalf of her mother Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor.
The Grateful Dead were playing a show outside of St. Louis today in 1995. When a heavy rainstorm moved through the area, many of the 4000+ Deadheads sought shelter on or under a large wooden deck that collapsed under the weight, injuring over 100 of them.
Rock and Roll Birthdays
Canadian guitarist Robbie Robertson of The Band is 77, and still number 59 on the Rolling Stone Top 100 Guitarists list.
Lynyrd Skynyrd backup singer Cassie Gaines would be 71 today if she hadn't been on the plane that crashed in 1977 and also killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt and her brother, guitarist Steve.
Steppenwolf's original lead guitarist Michael Monarch is 70.
Huey Lewis is 70 today, and still not regretting dropping out of Cornell University's engineering program after getting a perfect score in the Math section of the S.A.T. for a career in rock and roll.