Rock 'n' Roll History for
November 21


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1955 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Elvis Presley agrees to let Colonel Tom Parker be his manager. Parker was a flamboyant promoter whose previous experience includes The Great Parker Pony Circus and Tom Parker And His Dancing Turkeys and was a veteran of carnivals, medicine shows and various other entertainment enterprises. Actually an illegal Dutch immigrant named Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, he was awarded the honorary rank of colonel by Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis for assisting in his successful campaign.

1960 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
While The Beatles are performing at the Kaiserkellar in Hamburg, Germany, 17-year-old George Harrison is deported back to England for being in the club while underage.

November 21
"Stay" by Maurice Williams And The Zodiacs topped the Billboard chart. At just one minute, thirty-seven seconds long, it is the shortest number one record in Rock and Roll history. The song would reach #14 in the UK in 1961.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
The film Blue Hawaii, starring Elvis Presley is released in the US. By the end of the year it will gross $4.7 million, finishing as the #8 top-grossing movie of the year.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Following its premier in Honolulu on October 31st, Elvis Presley's film Girls! Girls! Girls! opens in theatres across America. The movie would come in at #19 on the year-end list of the top-grossing films of 1962.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is" enters the Hot 100, where it will peak at #6 during a fourteen week stay. The song would become a hit all over again when James Taylor took it to #5 in 1975.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Bill Black, who backed Elvis Presley on his early hits, died of a brain tumor at the age of 39. After leaving Elvis, he formed Bill Black's Combo and placed eight hits in the US Top 40, including "Smokie, Part 2" (#17 in 1959), "White Silver Sands" (#9 in 1960), "Blue Tango" (#16 in 1960) and "Hearts of Stone" (#20 in 1960).

1968 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Yoko Ono suffers a miscarriage of John Lennon's child. They named the baby John Ono Lennon II and buried it at a secret location.

1970 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Two months after launching their TV series, The Partridge Family reaches the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with "I Think I Love You". The only members of the cast who actually sang on the record were David Cassidy and his real-life step-mother, Shirley Jones.

November 21
The Carpenters were at #2 on the US singles chart with "We've Only Just Begun", a song originally written for a TV commercial advertising a bank.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
After years of saying he never would, Marty Balin joined Jefferson Starship on stage at the Winterland in San Francisco.

November 21
Wilson Pickett was arrested in New York for possession of a dangerous weapon after he pulled a gun during an argument in a bar.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Queen release their fourth studio album, "A Night at the Opera". Titled after the Marx Brothers' film of the same name, the LP would top the UK Official Albums Chart and peak at #4 on the Billboard 200. Two singles were released from the collection, "Bohemian Rhapsody" (UK #1, US #9) and "You're My Best Friend" (UK #7, US #16). In 2020, Rolling Stone listed "A Night At The Opera" at #128 on their list of The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Eagles' drummer / vocalist Don Henley is arrested in Los Angeles after paramedics find a nude, sixteen year-old girl suffering from drug intoxication at his home. Henley was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, cocaine and Quaaludes and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He received a $2,000 fine with two years probation.

November 21
Steely Dan release their seventh studio album, "Gaucho". Receiving mixed reviews, it reached #27 in the UK and #9 on the Billboard 200, being certified Platinum in America. The single "Hey Nineteen" reached #10 on the Hot 100, and topped the chart in Canada.

1981 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Olivia Newton-John started the first of ten weeks at the top of the US singles chart with "Physical". It was her fourth #1 and went on to sell over two million copies. In the UK, the song reached #7.

November 21
Foreigner's "Waiting for a Girl Like You" entered the top five on the US singles chart, where it would sit for the next ten weeks, unable to unseat "Physical" by Olivia Newton John and "I Can't Go For That" by Hall And Oates. The band would eventually score a number one hit with "I Want to Know What Love Is" in 1985.

November 21
The Queen and David Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure" hits #1 in the UK, making it Queen's first chart-topper there since "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 1975.

1982 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
39-year-old Joni Mitchell marries her bass player, Larry Klein, at the Malibu home of her manager, Elliot Roberts. The union would dissolve twelve years later.

1983 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Michael Jackson's fourteen minute video, Thriller premiers in L.A. movie theatres. Guinness World Records later named it as the "most successful music video", selling over nine million units.

1986 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Two albums by Simon And Garfunkel, "Parsley, Sage Rosemary, and Thyme" (released on October 24, 1966) and "Bookends" (released April 3, 1968) were certified Platinum for sales of 1,000,000 copies each.

1987 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Billy Idol had Billboard's top tune with a live version of Tommy James And The Shondells', "Mony Mony". Idol pushed another Tommy James' re-make, Tiffany's version of "I Think We're Alone Now", down to number four.

1990 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Mick Jagger marries his girlfriend of ten years, model Jerry Hall, on the island of Bali. The two would split in 1998 and the marriage was declared 'null and void' in August 1999 after a judge ruled that the six hour ceremony in Bali was never registered.

1991 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
An arrest warrant was issued for Michael Jackson's brother Randy after he failed to surrender to authorities in Los Angeles to begin serving a 30-day jail sentence for assaulting his wife and baby.

2001 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
British singer Jonathan King, who reached #17 in America in 1965 with "Everyone's Gone To The Moon", was found guilty of sexual assault involving five boys aged 14 and 15 during the 1980s. Although he maintained his innocence, King was sentenced to seven years in prison and was paroled in 2005.

2002 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Songwriter Buddy Kaye passed away at the age of 84. His fifty-seven year songwriting career produced Barry Manilow's "The Old Songs", Pat Boone's "Speedy Gonzales", Perry Como's "You're Adorable" and the theme for the TV show I Dream of Jeannie.

2003 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
The newest members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were announced. Those who will join the distinguished list of previous inductees are George Harrison, Prince, ZZ Top, Jackson Browne, The Dells, Bob Seger and Traffic. George Harrison will become the third Beatle to enter the Rock Hall as a solo performer; John Lennon was inducted in 1992 and Paul McCartney in 1999. The group was inducted in 1988.

November 21
Teddy Randazzo, a Rock icon from the 1950s who composed classic hit songs such as "Goin' Out of My Head" and "Hurt So Bad", passed away at the age of 68.

November 21
An acoustic guitar on which the late Beatle George Harrison learned to play, fetched £276,000 ($431,812) at a London auction. The Egmond guitar was originally bought for Harrison by his father for £3.10.

2008 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
More than forty years after Christians around the world were infuriated by John Lennon's saying that The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus", the Vatican's official newspaper absolved John of his notorious remark, saying that "After so many years it sounds merely like the boasting of an English, working-class lad struggling to cope with unexpected success."

2010 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Ratings for ABC's telecast of The American Music Awards dropped 22% from the previous year, making it one of the lowest rated shows in the history of the program.

2012 - ClassicBands.com.

November 21
The Grammy Hall Of Fame announced that twenty-seven new recordings were being added, including: "Hit The Road Jack" by Ray Charles, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel, "I Feel Good" by James Brown, "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
The Beatles "On Air - Live at the BBC Volume 2" debuted at #7 on the Billboard 200, making it the Fab Four's 31st Top 10 album.

2016 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Leonard Cohen's rendition of "Hallelujah" appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in the single's history in the week following his death. Thirty-two years after his signature tune was first released on the 1984 LP "Various Positions", the song came in at #59 on the strength of 33,000 downloads and 3.8 million streams.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
David Cassidy, the lead singer of the TV band The Partridge Family died of multiple organ failure at the age of 67. Along with achieving seven Billboard Top 40 hits with the group, including the chart topping "I Think I Love You" in 1970, Cassidy would also score five more as a solo artist.

2023 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Chad Allen, founder of Chad Allan And The Expressions, which evolved into Guess Who, passed away at the age of 80. He sang lead vocals on the band's 1965, Billboard #22 hit, "Shakin' All Over".

2024 - ClassicBands.com

November 21
Alice Brock, who inspired Arlo Guthrie's 1967, hippie anthem, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", passed away after a long illness. She was 83. Guthrie wrote the tune, which was later adapted into a movie, after being arrested for throwing Brock's restaurant garbage off a cliff because the local dump was closed. He and a friend were fined $25 each and ordered to retrieve the rubbish. Guthrie's album, "Alice's Restaurant" spent sixteen weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart, peaking at #29 during the week of March 2nd, 1968, and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2017.

November 21
The Broadway show, Tammy Faye: A New Musical, for which Elton John wrote the music, was canceled less than one week after it launched. Based on televangelist Tammy Faye Messner's (Bakker) life story, the show had been a hit in London's West End, but unsupportive early reviews and low ticket sales were said to have caused its demise.



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