1964 - The Beatles made their second live appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, exactly one week after the first. After a few days of shopping, speedboating (Ringo recalls being put behind the wheel of a speedboat and running it into the dock) swimming, meeting Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) and snorkeling, they play before an audience of 3,500 at the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. The Beatles performed ‘She Loves You’, ‘This Boy’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘From Me to You’, and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’.
1972 - Doing a week-long stint as guest host of the Mike Douglas Show, John Lennon performs "Memphis" and "Johnny B. Goode" with Chuck Berry, whom Lennon refers to as "my hero."
It capped off an amazing week of guests curated by John and Yoko. They included, comedian George Carlin, Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, Youth International Party (Yippies!) leader Jerry Rubin, and Joseph Blatchford, director of the United States Peace Corps. Good Morning America, this was not.
"We wanted to do the shows to show that we are working for peace and love and also to change the world, not with violence, but with love,” Yoko explained.
1974 - You would think that Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, or perhaps even Bringing It All Back Home, would have topped the American albums chart. But it was Planet Waves that becomes Bob Dylan's first US No.1.
It's a collection of modest songs about domestic life that he and The Band knocked out in the course of three days. While it doesn't contain some of Dylan and The Band's wildness of the 60's, there are highlights, "On a Night Like This," "Something There Is About You," the lovely "Forever Young".
The album was originally set to be titled Ceremonies Of The Horsemen, a reference to the song 'Love Minus Zero / No Limit' , from the 1965 album 'Bringing It All Back Home'. (In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge). When Dylan decided to change the title at the last minute, the release was delayed for two weeks. (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
1975 - Cher, who starred with her husband Sonny Bono in The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour from 1971-1974, gets her own show when Cher premieres on CBS. The first guests are Elton John, Bette Midler and Flip Wilson.
1982 - Van Morrison releases Beautiful Vision. It continued Morrison's departure from R&B at the time, instead favoring Celtic folk and American jazz in its music. As with many of Morrison's recordings, spirituality is a major theme and some of the songs are based on the teachings of Alice Bailey. Other songs show Morrison's Celtic heritage and reminiscence of his Belfast background.
While it doesn't have the universal appeal of some of his past albums, it does have it's moments, "She Gives Me Religion," "Beautiful Vision," "Dweller On The Threshold", and "Cleaning Windows," a skipping light R&B tune that became one of his latter-day standards.
1990 - The day before he turns 18, Billie Joe Armstrong drops out of high school. A week later, he releases the first album with his band Green Day: 39/Smooth.
1991 - The Simpsons were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Do The Bartman'. The song was written by Michael Jackson and Bryan Lorenand, The Simpsons became the first cartoon characters to make No.1 since the Archies hit 'Sugar Sugar' in 1969. Jackson was a massive fan of The Simpsons and had called the producers one night offering to write Bart a number one single and do a guest spot on the show.
Birthdays:
Otis Blackwell, songwriter and producer was born today in 1931. Few 1950s rock & roll tunesmiths were as prolifically talented as Otis Blackwell. His immortal compositions include Little Willie John's "Fever," Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" and "All Shook Up," Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" and "Breathless," and Jimmy Jones' "Handy Man" (just for starters).
Though he often collaborated with various partners on the thriving '50s New York R&B scene, Blackwell's songwriting style is as identifiable as that of Willie Dixon or Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller. He helped formulate the musical vocabulary of rock & roll when the genre was barely breathing on its own.
Sonny Bono was born today in 1935. His work and career straddled the eras of Brill Building pop, the British Invasion, and folk-rock, right through to 1970s pop. His talent and keen sense of where popular culture was heading sent him and his partner and wife Cher into the birth of the counterculture and through to a post-rock career in Las Vegas and onto television. And, in a final, ironic act of reinvention, Sonny Bono became one of the symbols of the 1994 Republican revolution in Congress and an exponent of right wing politics.
Ice-T (Tracy Lauren Marrow) is 66. One of the original gangsta rappers, Ice-T helped pave the way for hip-hop to evolve from its break-of-dawn party roots into a more visceral portrayal of the harsh realities faced by Black Americans. He co-founded the heavy metal band Body Count in 1990. Since 2000, he has portrayed NYPD detective/sergeant Odafin Tutuola on the NBC police drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
R.I.P.:
2015 - Lesley Gore died. One of the most commercially successful solo singers to be identified with the girl group sound, Lesley Gore hit the number one spot with her very first release (recorded at the age of 16), "It's My Party," in 1963. Produced by Quincy Jones, who fattened the teenager's sound with double-tracked vocals and intricate backup vocals and horns, she reeled off a few more big hits in 1963 and 1964, including "Judy's Turn to Cry," "She's a Fool," and "You Don't Own Me." She was nominated for an Oscar in 1983 along with her brother for writing "Out Here On My Own" from "Fame".
On This Day In Music Music History was sourced, copied, pasted, edited, and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose, from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Beatle net, Allmusic, Louder Sound, and Wikipedia.
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