Rock 'n' Roll History for
November 23


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1899 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
The world's first jukebox, then known as a "nickel in the slot machine," was installed at San Francisco's' Palais Royal Hotel. It had been created by simply adding a coin slot to an Edison phonograph. The machine had no amplification and patrons had to listen to the music using one of four listening tubes. In its first six months of service, the machine earned over $1000.

1954 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Bob Neal, a 37-year-old disc jockey at WMPS in Memphis, assumes the manager's role for Elvis Presley, booking him as "Elvis Presley, the Hillbilly Cat." Neal would stay Elvis' manager until March, 1956, when he would give way to Colonel Tom Parker.

1956 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
A 19-year-old, sheet metal worker named Louis Balint was arrested after punching Elvis Presley at a hotel bar in Toledo, Ohio. Balint was upset that his wife carried a picture of Elvis in her wallet. He was fined $19.60 but ended up being jailed for seven days because he was unable to pay the fine.

1963 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
The Beach Boys' "Be True To Your School" enters the Billboard Top 40 on its way to #6. The song was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love as a tribute to their own Hawthorne High School, but features the melody of the University Of Wisconsin's fight song, "On Wisconsin".

November 23
Betty Everett's version of "You're No Good" peeks at #51 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at #5 on the Cashbox R&B Locations chart. The song would be a #3 hit in the UK for The Swinging Blue Jeans the following year and Linda Ronstadt would take it to #1 in America in 1974.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
The Rolling Stones arrive late for the BBC radio shows, Top Gear and Saturday Club and are banned for a time by the BBC.

1967 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Rolling Stone magazine quotes San Francisco disc jockey Tom Donahue: "Top Forty radio, as we know it today and have known it for the last ten years, is dead, and its rotting corpse is stinking up the airwaves."

1968 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Judy Collins' version of the Joni Mitchell written "Both Sides Now" enters the Billboard Top 40, on its way to #8. It will go on to win a Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance of the year.

November 23
Rolling Stone magazine publishes a naked picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono on their cover, taken from the couple's "Two Virgins" album. The issue would sell out and another twenty thousand copies were printed to meet the demand. Publisher Jann Wenner would later write, "The point of this is, print a famous foreskin and the world will beat a path to your door."

November 23
The TV Special, The Cowsills: A Family Thing airs on NBC-TV. Going up against The Lawrence Welk Show and My Three Sons, the program received an 18.5 share and was the 43rd most popular special of the year.

1970 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Apple Records releases George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" in the United States. As the lead single from the album "All Things Must Pass", the song will top the charts in sixteen countries around the world.

November 23
Cat Stevens issues his fourth studio album, "Tea for the Tillerman". Featuring "Wild World" and "Father And Son", the LP will reach #20 in the UK and #8 in the US, where it would eventually go Triple Platinum. Rolling Stone included the album in its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time at number 205 in 2020.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
The band Spooky Tooth split up after releasing seven albums since 1968. At various times, the group included Gary Wright (who would have solo success with "Dreamweaver" and "Love Is Alive"), Mick Jones (later with Foreigner), Chris Stainton (who went on to work with Joe Cocker), and Henry McCullough. (recruited by Paul McCartney And Wings) The British band never charted in their home country, but gained modest success in America.

November 23
Billy Swan, a former member of Kris Kristofferson's band and writer of Clyde McPhatter's "Lover Please", tops the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Country Chart with "I Can Help". Along with reaching #6 on Billboard's Hot Adult Contemporary Singles list, it also achieved the same position in the UK. The song would be awarded a Gold Record by the RIAA for sales of one million copies.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Queen's, "Bohemian Rhapsody" hit number one in the UK, where it would stay until the end of January 1977, longer than any other song since Slim Whitman's "Rose Marie" in 1955. The promotional video that accompanied the song is generally acknowledged as being the first UK Pop video and cost £5,000 to produce.

November 23
After Elvis had invited him, Jerry Lee Lewis shows up at Presley's Graceland mansion just before three o'clock in the morning, driving a brand new Lincoln Continental, which he accidentally rams into the famous front gates with the wrought-iron music notes. Elvis' cousin, Harold Lloyd, who was manning the gates, didn't recognize Jerry Lee and called the police. The press later reported that The Killer was waving a pistol in the air, demanding to see Elvis. It was a story that tour guides at Graceland told for years, but Jerry Lee emphatically denied. "I really didn't mean to do nothin' to harm Elvis. He was my friend. I was his." The two never saw each other again.

1991 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Michael Bolton has Billboard's number one song with a cover of Percy Sledge's 1966 chart topper, "When A Man Loves A Woman". It reached #8 in the UK and later won the 1991 Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.

1993 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Emerson, Lake And Palmer receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The group achieved seven Billboard Top 40 hits and seven more in the UK.

1994 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Songwriter Tommy Boyce committed suicide by shooting himself at his Nashville home. Besides writing "Last Train To Clarksville", "Valleri" and "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone" for The Monkees, Boyce and his partner Bobby Hart scored a number eight hit of their own with "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" in 1967.

1995 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Junior Walker, leader of the All-Stars on "Shotgun" (US #4 in 1965), "What Does It Take" (US #4 in 1969) and "These Eyes" (US #16 in 1969), died of cancer at the age of 64. In all, the band placed twelve songs on the Billboard Top 40 between 1965 and 1970.

1998 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Despite objections from The Recording Industry Association of America, who is worried about the growing problem of internet file swapping, the first portable MP3 player goes on sale in the US. Ten years later over 150 million had been sold.

2001 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Singer O.C. Smith suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 69. He is most often remembered for a pair of 1968 hits, "The Son Of Hickory Holler's Tramp" (#40) and the Grammy Award winning "Little Green Apples" (#2). Smith's final entry into the US Top 40 was 1969's "Daddy's Little Man" (#34), although the Soul-flavored "La La Peace Song" proved popular in 1974 and "Together" was a chart entry in 1977.

2002 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Otis Redding's widow and his former manager launched a lawsuit against the author of a biography written in 2001 about the R&B legend, claiming the book is filled with lies. The lawsuit, filed in Atlanta's Fulton County, sought $15 million in damages and claims that the book details rumors about the singer's drug use, extramarital affairs and divorce, causing "harm to the plaintiffs." It also cites rumors that Otis' manager plotted with the Mafia to kill Otis by causing the plane to crash in order to claim $1 million in life insurance.

2009 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot said it's "not likely" he will ever release another album of new material. Lightfoot stated that his last record, 2004's "Harmony", fulfilled his recording contract and he did not foresee another album. One further LP called "Solo", made up from demos that he recorded in 2001 and 2002, would be issued in March, 2020, three years before his death on May 1, 2023.

November 23
76-year-old Little Richard undergoes hip replacement surgery. Although doctors say the operation was a success, Richard was later quoted as saying "The hip surgery was really bad for me. I haven't walked since. I'm in pain 24 hours a day."

2011 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Rolling Stone magazine rated Jimi Hendrix as the greatest guitar player in history in a list which included Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend among the top ten.

2014 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
The Gretsch 6120 guitar that John Lennon used to record "Paperback Writer" in 1966 was put up for auction by the late Beatle's cousin, David Birch, at Le Meridien hotel in central London. Unfortunately for Birch, the instrument failed to sell.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Cynthia Robinson, vocalist and trumpeter for Sly And The Family Stone, died of cancer at the age of 69. The band released ten albums between 1967 and 1982, and reached the Billboard Top 40 ten times.

2016 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
Elvis Presley's close personal friend and professional aide Joe Esposito died at the age of 78. The pair met in 1959 while both were serving in the Army. Esposito later became Presley's road manager and professional assistant and was one of two best men at Presley's 1967 wedding and a pallbearer at his funeral in 1977.

2020 - ClassicBands.com

November 23
The copy of "Double Fantasy" that John Lennon signed for his killer, Mark David Chapman, was put up for sale by Goldin Auctions. The record, which the auctioneers said still had the police markings from their original investigation, had an opening bid set at $400,000. In the end, it sold to a private collector for 1.5 million dollars.



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