Rock 'n' Roll History for
November 18


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1952 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Bill Haley marries his pregnant girlfriend just four days after he divorces his first wife. In all, Bill would marry three times and have eight children.

1956 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Fats Domino appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and sang his hit, "Blueberry Hill", which was still rising up the US charts on its way to #2. The song was first recorded by band leader Sammy Kaye in 1940 and was covered at least a half dozen times that year. Domino's rendition was ranked at #82 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
As a follow-up to his #3 hit, "Be-Bop Baby", Ricky Nelson records "Stood Up" at Master Recorders in Hollywood. Released the following month on Imperial Records, the song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, #4 on the R&B chart, #8 on the Country chart, and #27 on the UK Singles Chart.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
With their best hit making years now behind them, The Everly Brothers see their song "Don't Ask Me To Be Friends" peak at #48 on the Hot 100. Although they had placed twenty-five songs in the Top 40 since 1957, the duo would accomplish that feat only two more times with "Gone Gone Gone" (#31 in 1964) and "Bowling Green" (#40 in 1967).

1964 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
The Supremes appear on TV's Rock 'n' Roll show, Shindig! and perform "Baby Love" and "Come See About Me". The Righteous Brothers are also on the bill, and sing "Little Latin Lupe Lu" and "Ko Ko Joe". Paul Petersen performed his hits, "My Dad" and "She Can't Find Her Keys".

1967 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
The Elvis Presley film Clambake opens in the US to dismal reviews, with The New York Times' critic Howard Thompson calling it "a real Christmas clinker." Despite the thin plot and weak story line, the movie, which co-stared Shelley Fabares and Bill Bixby, would still be a box office success, although Presley himself would later say that he thought it was his worst film. The soundtrack album reached number 40 on the Billboard 200 album chart.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Glen Campbell, a former session musician who appeared on recordings by Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole and The Beach Boys, receives two Gold records - the first for "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" (Hot 100 #26) and another for "Gentle On My Mind" (Hot 100 #39).

November 18
The Jimi Hendrix double album, "Electric Ladyland" made it to number one on the US albums chart for the first of two weeks. Jimi got a little help on the LP from Steve Winwood, Al Kooper and Dave Mason.

November 18
The Spiral Staircase record their million selling tune, "More Today Than Yesterday", which will reach #12 on the Billboard chart and #7 on the Cash Box Best Sellers list the following spring. Unfortunately, about eighteen months following the single's release, after issuing one album and a couple of more singles, the group disbanded due to management issues and squabbles over finances.

November 18
An L.A. based quartet made up of Randy Meisner, Jim Messina, Richie Furay and Rusty Young, who called themselves Pogo, debuted at The Troubadour. After building up an local following, they would be forced to change their moniker, which they had openly pilfered from Walt Kelly's comic strip of the same name, when Kelly filed suit. They settled on Poco because it sounded like the original name that fans had come to know.

1970 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Jerry Lee Lewis and wife / cousin Myra Brown are granted a divorce, ending their thirteen year marriage. The two wed on December 12, 1957, when Myra was just 13 years old.

November 18
Cat Stevens plays his first show in America when he opens for Traffic at the Fillmore East in New York City. He would go on to record four Gold and four Platinum albums, and sell more than 100 million records worldwide.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Bill Withers appears on Soul Train, singing his hit "Lean On Me" (#1) and its follow-up, "Use Me Up" (#2).

November 18
Danny Whitten, of Neil Young's backup band Crazy Horse, died of an alleged heroin overdose at the age of 29. The tragedy inspired Young to write "The Needle and the Damage Done". Whitten is often remembered for writing "I Don't Want To Talk About It", recorded by both Rita Coolidge and Rod Stewart.

November 18
Cat Stevens started a three week run at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart with his most successful LP, "Catch Bull At Four". It would reach the Top Ten of eight other album charts around the world. Stevens played fourteen different instruments during the recording of the ten tracks that make up the LP.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
John Denver is awarded a Gold record for his double sided, US #1 hit, "I'm Sorry" / "Calypso", which topped Billboard's Hot 100, Country Chart and Easy Listening Chart. It would prove to be the final number-one Pop hit released during his life time.

November 18
Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen appear on the American TV show Police Woman, playing a Rock band called The Chromium Skateboard.

1978 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Billy Joel's sixth studio album, "52nd Street" rises to the top of the Billboard 200 chart for the first of eight weeks. The LP would go on to win the 1979 Grammy Award for Album Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance – Male, and produce three Billboard Top 40 hits, "My Life" (#3), "Big Shot" (#14), and "Honesty" (#24). The album is often cited as being the first commercially available CD in 1982.

1979 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Paul McCartney releases "Wonderful Christmastime", a tune on which he plays all the instruments himself. The song would peak at #6 on the UK singles chart and #83 on the Cash Box Best Sellers chart, but did not reach the Billboard Hot 100. Considered by many fans as one of his weakest efforts, the record reportedly earns Maca $400,000 a year, which puts its cumulative earnings at near $15 million.

November 18
Chuck Berry was released from Lompoc Prison Farm in California after serving four months for tax evasion. While he was away, his latest studio album of new material, "Rock It", was issued by Atco Records. It would be his last studio album for thirty-eight years, until his final LP, "Chuck" was issued in 2017.

1985 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Thieves broke into the home of James (Al) Hendrix, the father of late Rock 'n' Roll star Jimi Hendrix, and made off with seven of his Gold records. The platters, which symbolized sales of one million dollars, were for "Axis: Bold as Love", "Smash Hits", "The Cry of Love", "Are You Experienced", "Crash Landing", "Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding at Monterey", and "Electric Ladyland". "They're not really gold, only records painted gold," the senior Hendrix explained. "It's sentimental value more than anything." The discs were later replaced by Warner Bros. Records at a party hosted by Mo Ostin, who signed Jimi to the label in 1967.

1987 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
The band U2 opened for themselves when they pretended to be a Country / Rock group called The Dalton Brothers at a concert in Los Angeles.

1990 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
The Righteous Brothers saw their popularity surge when the movie, Ghost, (starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore) featured their 1965 hit, "Unchained Melody". Their original version and a re-recorded cut both made it into the US top 20, while three Greatest Hits albums made the Billboard chart.

November 18
Paul McCartney's original birth certificate, which had been sold by his stepmother, Angie McCartney, was bought by a collector at an auction in Houston, Texas for $18,000.

1992 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Black Sabbath were honored with a star at the Rock Walk in Hollywood.

1994 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
David Crosby undergoes a successful liver transplant. During his stay at UCLA Medical Center, David received two pieces of wonderful news: He found out that his wife Jan was pregnant, and he got a letter from the adoptive father of the son that David had given up for adoption in the early 1960s.

November 18
The Rolling Stones become the first major act to broadcast a concert over the Internet when they webcast twenty minutes of their show at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. The stunt is mainly for publicity to promote their upcoming pay-per-view concert, as very few computers at that time had enough power to receive the webcast.

1997 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Gary Glitter is questioned by police after he was arrested at a computer store in Bristol England. Store staff reported that, while doing repair work, they had found child pornography on his hard drive.

1999 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Doug Sahm, leader of The Sir Douglas Quintet died of natural causes while vacationing at the at the Kachina Inn in Taos, New Mexico. He was just days shy of his 58th birthday. That band's biggest hits were "She's About A Mover" (US #13, UK #15 in 1965) and "Mendocino" (US #27 in 1968).

2002 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Former Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman threatened a US journalist with legal action because he shares the same name as the musician. The star's lawyers ordered the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter to "cease and desist" writing under his birth name, insisting that he add a disclaimer to everything he writes, "clearly indicating that (you are) not the same Bill Wyman who was a member of the Rolling Stones". The writer however was born with the name in 1961, three years before the musician changed his name from William George Perks to Bill Wyman. The whole thing eventually died down and no suit was ever filed.

November 18
George Harrison's twelfth and final studio album, "Brainwashed" is released. He had been working on the project before his death on November 29th, 2001 and it had to be completed by his son Dhani and his longtime friend, Jeff Lynne. The LP would rise to #18 in the US and #29 in the UK.

2003 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Sixty to seventy personnel from the Santa Barbara County sheriff's and district attorney's offices served a warrant at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch following allegations of sexual abuse of a 12-year-old boy. At the time of the raid, Jackson and his family were in Las Vegas where Michael was filming a video.

November 18
John Lennon's original, handwritten lyrics to "Nowhere Man" are sold by Christie's auction house for $455,000. Lennon told Playboy magazine in 1980, "I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then 'Nowhere Man' came, words and music, the whole damn thing as I lay down."

2005 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Vietnamese police conduct a search for 61-year-old Gary Glitter because of his alleged relationship with a teenage Vietnamese girl.

November 18
US Senator Russ Feingold introduced legislation designed to close loopholes on payola-like practices by broadcast companies that force performers to play for reduced fees or for free.

November 18
Walk the Line, a biographical film about the life of Johnny Cash, opens in theatres across America. Starring Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, the movie would gross $187 million on a $28 million budget.

2006 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
The British press panned Michael Jackson's so called "comeback concert" in London, calling his first public performance since his child molestation trial last year "shambolic." Jackson appeared to struggle to reach the high notes when he sang the chorus of "We Are The World" with a choir of children.

2010 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
The Ray Charles Foundation launched a lawsuit against the late singer's son for publishing pictures and lyrics in the book You Don't Know Me: Reflections of My Father, Ray Charles. The Ray Charles Foundation was set up by the singer in 1986 to provide financial support of hearing disorders.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Carly Simon finally revealed part of the mystery behind one of Pop music's most enduring puzzles: the inspiration for her 1972 hit "You're So Vain". Simon said the subject in question is actually based on a composite of three of the men in her life around that time, and the second verse is about actor Warren Beatty.

2016 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Former Motley Crue vocalist, Vince Neil revealed that just hours after he had been recruited to perform at Donald Trump's presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. on January 20th, 2017, he was abruptly un-invited without explanation. Neil pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault on a female autograph seeker in July, 2016.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Malcolm Young, rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and co-founder of AC/DC, passed away at the age of 64. The band enjoyed seventeen charting albums in Australia, fourteen in the UK, and sixteen in in the US.

2024 - ClassicBands.com

November 18
Colin Petersen, who played drums on four Bee Gees albums between 1966 and 1970, passed away of undisclosed causes at the age of 78. His efforts can be heard on the band's classic hits, "New York Mining Disaster 1941", "To Love Somebody", "Holiday", "I've Gotta Get a Message to You" and "I Started a Joke".



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