1969 - The Rolling Stones opened their first U.S. concert tour in three years. By this time they were notorious bad boys after tales of drug busts, censorship battles and wildlife on the road, so the tour had become a full-blown media circus.
The tour began began on this day with a warm-up show at Colorado State University's Moby Gym, now known as Moby Arena.
While the Nov. 7 show was a priceless experience for students, it led to $5,873 — almost $40,000 in today's dollars (2018) — in damages to the university's arena. According to a gem of a document kept by the university's Archives and Special Collections office, here's a full list of the damages left behind:
193 cigarette burn holes on basketball floor ($2,200)
Burned tarp ($3,000)
Damaged windows in north concourse ($262)
Damaged glass in four entrance doors ($151)
Two broken Kotex machines ($70)
Damaged interior tile ($70)
Damage to walls in men's restroom, requiring sanding and repainting ($28)
Broken towel dispenser in men's restroom ($25)
Damaged ceramic tiles in Portal D ($25)
Trash pickup ($20)
Burned carpet in Lettermen's Lounge ($15)
Damaged door jam ($7.50)
Also on the bill was Ike and Tina Turner, Chuck Berry and B.B. King.
1969 - After Life magazine tracked down Paul McCartney at his farm in Scotland, they put him on the cover with his family, dispelling the "Paul is dead" rumors with the headline, "Paul Is Still With Us." The article was focused the recent "Paul Is Dead" fiasco. The article contained the now famous clues, select album cover photos, and Paul's own brief comments on the death rumors.
By this time The Beatles had privately broken up. While the breakup was still a secret and would not be announced for months, Paul states: "The Beatle thing is over."
1977 - The soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever was released. The film has been cited as the first example of "cross-media marketing", with the tie-in soundtrack's single being used to help promote the film before its release and the film popularizing the entire soundtrack after its release. Ironically, before its release, the disco boom had seemingly run its course. Saturday Night Fever, as a movie and an album, plus a brace of hit singles off of it, suddenly made disco explode into mainstream, working- and middle-class America with a new immediacy and urgency, increasing its audience ten-fold overnight.
1979 - The Rose, starring Bette Midler as a rock singer who hits the big time, opens in theaters. The film is based on the life of Janis Joplin, but filmmakers can't secure the rights to use her image or story. Midler gets an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for the role.
Birthdays:
Joni Mitchell is 80. A folk singer with a poet's spirit, Joni Mitchell is among music history's most poignant and influential songwriters. A veteran of the '60s folk circuit, Mitchell first came to prominence as a songwriter, composing oft-covered tunes of the era "Chelsea Morning," "The Circle Game," and "Both Sides Now." Mitchell became part of Los Angeles' folk-rock scene, but worked from a different compositional aesthetic, utilizing alternate guitar tunings and writing from a stark personal perspective. Over the decades, she has released 19 studio albums, including the seminal “Blue,” which was rated the third best album ever made in Rolling Stone's 2020 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”(Photo by MATT CAMPBELL / AFP) (Photo by MATT CAMPBELL/AFP via Getty Images)
Lorde is 27. Her hit 'Royals', made her the first New Zealand solo artist to have a No.1 song in the United States.
R.I.P.:
2016 - Canadian singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen died at the age of 82 . Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not launch a music career until 1967, at the age of 33. His song 'Hallelujah' found greater popular acclaim through a recording by John Cale, which inspired a recording by Jeff Buckley.
Highlights for Today in Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Beatles Interviews, Allmusic, Coloradoan, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
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