Rock 'n' Roll History for
October 23


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1954 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Elvis Presley reaches a Billboard chart outside of Memphis for the first time when "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" hits #6 in Nashville and #3 in New Orleans. The song had been written in 1946 by Bill Monroe as a slow waltz, but Presley and his band turned it into an upbeat, Blues-style tune in 4/4 time.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Dion DiMucci continued his hit streak after leaving The Belmonts when "Runaround Sue" went to number one in the US. It reached #11 in the UK. Although he married a girl named Sue, Dion said he was thinking about a girl named Roberta when he wrote the song.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
12-year-old Stevie Wonder made his first recording for Motown Records when he taped "Thank You (For Loving Me All The Way)". It would show up as the B-side to "Castles In The Sand", which would rise to #52 on the Hot 100 in 1964.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
J. Frank Wilson is injured and Sonley Roush, the producer of his hit song "Last Kiss", is killed in a head-on car crash in Lima, Ohio. Their record was still in the US Top Ten at the time.

October 23
In one of Rock and Roll's most ironic tragedies, the man who replaced Buddy Holly as the lead singer of The Crickets, 21-year-old David Box, was killed when the Cessna Skyhawk 172 he had chartered crashed and burned, killing all on board. Box joined the group in early 1960, but left for a solo career a year later.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
The Temptations enter the Hot 100 for the seventh time with "My Baby", which will reach #13. The song also did well on the R&B chart where it climbed to #4.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
The Jimi Hendrix Experience record "Hey Joe" at De Lane Lea Studios in London, England. The song will become his first UK chart entry, rising to #6. It will be released in the United States on May 1st, 1967, but failed to chart.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer releases the Elvis Presley musical comedy Live A Little, Love A Little. This time out, Elvis shares the screen with legendary 1920s crooner Rudy Vallee, who does not sing in this film. The featured song in the movie was "A Little Less Conversation", which would return Presley to the music charts when it was re-mixed in 2002. That version topped the UK chart and reached #50 on the Hot 100.

1969 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Tommy Edwards, most often remembered for his 1958, million selling, number one hit "It's All In The Game", passed away at the age of 47 after suffering a brain aneurysm. In total, he reached the Top / Hot 100 twenty-one times between 1951 and 1960.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Elton John is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" hit number one in America, on its way to becoming their biggest selling record. It also topped the UK chart. At next spring's Grammy Awards, the song would win for Best Pop Vocal Performance By a Duo, Group or Chorus and was also named Record of the Year.

October 23
Led Zeppelin make their US television debut on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, where they perform "Black Dog" and "Dazed And Confused". By that time, they had already reached the Top Ten of the Billboard 200 chart seven times, with five of their albums reaching #1.

1978 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
CBS Records becomes the first US label to announce a price hike to $8.98 for albums. Other labels soon followed suit.

October 23
Punk rocker Sid Vicious, bassist for the Sex Pistols, attempts suicide while awaiting murder charges at New York's Rikers Island Detention Center. Vicious was charged with the killing of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. On February 2nd, 1979, he succeeded in taking his own life.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Mark David Chapman quit his security job and signed out for the last time. Instead of the usual "Chappy", he allegedly wrote "John Lennon". Chapman would murder Lennon on December 8th and become the most hated man in Rock 'n' Roll history.

1986 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Michael Jackson donates one of his stage outfits, including a hat and a rhinestone covered glove, to the Motown Museum in Detroit. In his address Jackson thanks Berry Gordy, calling him "The man that made it all possible for me."

1993 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Meat Loaf topped the UK singles chart with "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)", which would also rise to number one in the US two weeks later. In all, the song would top record charts in twenty-eight countries around the globe.

1995 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Def Leppard pulled off one of the greatest publicity stunts ever when they played three concerts on three different continents in the same day. The band played in Tangiers (Africa) in the morning, London (Europe) in the afternoon and finally in Vancouver, Canada, (North America) in the evening.

1998 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
A federal district judge in St. Louis denies a motion that would have permitted the Fort Zumwalt high school marching band to play a banned all-music segment of '60s songs that includes Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit". The school superintendent had banned the song because he felt it promoted the drug culture.

1999 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Thirty years after making his initial US chart appearance with a song called "Jingo", Carlos Santana had his first number one hit with "Smooth". The track, which features the vocals of Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty, would stay at the top for twelve weeks and remained in the top ten for a record setting thirty weeks.

2002 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
A federal judge in St. Louis dismissed a lawsuit against Chuck Berry by Johnnie Johnson, a piano player and former collaborator who wanted royalties for more than thirty songs written between 1955 and 1966. The songs in question included such Berry standards as "No Particular Place To Go", "Roll Over Beethoven", and "Sweet Little Sixteen". Johnson's lawsuit argued that he and Berry were co-writers on many of the songs, but because Berry copyrighted them in his name alone, Johnson got none of the royalties. The judge ruled that too many years have passed to bring about a royalties suit.

2012 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Britain's The Sun newspaper reported that Bee Gees star Robin Gibb, who died last May at the age of 62, left an estate worth $148 million.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Ringo Starr announced the publication of a book called Photograph, a collection of pictures he took during The Beatles' recording sessions, first tours of America and two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Although he declined to write his autobiography, Ringo said, "Pictures are great because they remind you of so much."

2014 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
A letter that John Lennon wrote to New York-based television host Joe Franklin sold for more than $28,000 at the Boston-based RR Auction. In the letter, Lennon raves about his wife's musical talents and asks Franklin to give her latest LP a listen.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
76-year-old Gordon Lightfoot was present as a 13-foot-high bronze sculpture of him was unveiled in front of hundreds of fans in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario, Canada. "It's an amazing sculpture," Lightfoot said. "I'm honored, much more so than any of the honors I've received up to this point in time. It's really special."

October 23
Billboard's Top Rock Albums chart showed The Zombies' new LP "Sill Got That Hunger" at #35 in its debut week, with sales of 3,000 copies. It was the band's first album chart appearance since 1969's "Odessey & Oracle".

2024 - ClassicBands.com

October 23
Jack Jones, a crooner and nightclub performer who placed five songs on the Billboard Top 40 in the mid-1960s, passed away at the age of 86. Among his hits were "Wives And Lovers (#14 in 1963) and "The Race Is On" (#15 in 1965). He is also remembered for singing the theme song to TV's The Love Boat.



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