Rock 'n' Roll History for
April 24


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1954 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Billboard magazine featured a headline that read: "Teenagers Demand Music with a Beat - Spur Rhythm and Blues." It was a sign of things to come. Within a year, R&B music by both Black and White artists caught the public's fancy.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
16 year old Ricky Nelson releases his first record, "Teenager's Romance", with his cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'" on the flip side. The disc sold nearly 60,000 copies within three days and eventually went over a million.

1959 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" goes to number one in the United Kingdom for the first of three weeks, making it the first posthumous chart topper in UK chart history. In the United States it reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

April 24
Your Hit Parade, the Saturday night, Pop-music show that had been running since April 12th, 1935, has its final US radio broadcast. The program's final Top Five were: "Elvis Presley, "I Need Your Love Tonight" (#5), Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter Of Time" (#4), Ricky Nelson, "Never Be Anyone Else But You" (#3), Dodie Stevens, "Pink Shoe Laces" (#2), and The Fleetwoods at #1 with "Come Softly To Me".

April 24
Atlantic Records releases The Drifters' "There Goes My Baby". The song would top the Billboard R&B chart and the Cashbox Best Sellers list. It reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100, behind "A Big Hunk o' Love" by Elvis Presley. In 2010, the song was ranked #196 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Two weeks after he appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, Del Shannon's "Runaway" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, enabling him to finally quit his job as a carpet salesman. At its peak, the record was selling 80,000 copies a day. The song also reached the top of the chart in the UK and has since been ranked at #466 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

1963 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Eighteen year old Brenda Lee marries nineteen year old Ronnie Shacklett, six months after spotting him in a crowd at a Jackie Wilson concert. In 2023 the couple celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders had the top tune on both the Billboard Hot 100 and The Cashbox Best Sellers list with "Game Of Love", a #2 hit in the UK. By the end of the year, Fontana would leave the band and would go on to some solo success in the UK, scoring four chart entries. The rest of the group would enjoy a #2 hit in the US the following year with "A Groovy Kind Of Love".

1968 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Louis Armstrong was at #1 in the UK with the single "What A Wonderful World". At 66 years of age, it made him the oldest act ever to score a UK #1. The song stalled at #32 in the US, but Louis is also the oldest person to reach #1 on the Billboard chart, a feat he accomplished in 1964 with "Hello Dolly".

1970 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane is inadvertently invited to Tricia Nixon's White House party. Guards stop her escort, Chicago Seven defendant Abbie Hoffman, and both leave without incident.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Fleetwood Mac announce that guitarist Bob Welch will be the replacement for the departed Jeremy Spencer. Welch would leave near the end of 1974 and was replaced by Lindsey Buckingham.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
One of John Lennon's most controversial singles, "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" is released in the US. The song actually reached #57 on Billboard's Hot 100, despite virtually every radio station in the country refusing to play it. The phrase was originally uttered by Yoko Ono during a magazine interview in 1967 and John would later explain that he was making a point that women deserved higher status in society.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
27-year-old Peter Ham, singer / guitarist for Badfinger, committed suicide by hanging himself in the garage of his home. He was reported to be deeply depressed by financial problems the group was having and left a note blaming the group's manager for his troubles.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels makes an on-air offer to pay the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were apparently watching the show together in New York and briefly considered walking down to the studio to accept the check.

April 24
Wings' "At The Speed Of Sound" went to #1 on the US album chart. It was Paul McCartney's fifth #1 after he left The Beatles.

April 24
Led Zeppelin had their sixth UK #1 album when "Presence" went to the top. Although it achieved Triple-Platinum status in the United States, the LP received mixed reviews and is the lowest-selling album by the band.

1982 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder were at #1 on the UK singles chart with "Ebony And Ivory". This was McCartney's 24th #1 as a songwriter.

1984 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
48 year old Jerry Lee Lewis married wife number six, 22-year-old Kerrie McCarver. They would split in 2002.

1990 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
The road crew for Roger Waters discovered an unexploded World War II bomb while constructing the set for The Wall concert in Potsdamer Platz, Germany.

1992 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
The Cleveland Orchestra sued Michael Jackson and his production company for seven million dollars. The orchestra claimed Jackson used 67 seconds from its recording of Beethoven's "Symphony Number Nine" on his "Dangerous" album without giving the orchestra credit or compensation.

April 24
Wilson Pickett was arrested after hitting an 86-year-old man with his car. Pickett was charged with driving with open bottles of alcohol in his car.

1993 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
About 40,000 people attend Farm Aid 6 in Ames, Iowa, that features Willie Nelson, John Cougar Mellencamp and Neil Young.

2010 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
All four original members of The Young Rascals reunited onstage for the first time since their 1997 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction when they appeared at the Kristen Ann Carr Fund gala in New York after an invite by The E Street Band's Steven Van Zandt. Hopes of a more permanent reunion were quickly dashed by guitarist Gene Cornish, who said "I speak on behalf of the band when I say all the money offers in the world could not entice The Rascals to reunite." They would get back together however, for a series of concerts beginning in 2012.

2012 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
The Beach Boys begin their 50th anniversary tour, which reunites Brian Wilson with Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks. When the band finished their series of shows as scheduled on September 28th, 2012, Wilson, Jardine and Marks would go one way, while Love and Johnston went another.

April 24
Ozzy Osbourne became a grandfather when his son Jack's fiancee, Lisa Stelly, gave birth to the couple's first child.

2016 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Soul singer Billy Paul died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 81. Along with considerable success on the R&B charts, he topped the Hot 100 in 1972 with "Me And Mrs. Jones", which sold over two million copies and earned him a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

2020 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Harold Reid, bass vocalist for The Statler Brothers on their 1965, Billboard #4 hit, "Flowers On The Wall", died after a long battle with kidney failure. He was 80 years old.

2024 - ClassicBands.com

April 24
Mike Pinder, keyboardist and founding member of The Moody Blues, passed away peacefully at his California home at the age of 82. The band enjoyed ten UK Top 40 hits and thirteen in America.



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