Rock 'n' Roll History for
August 1


<-- Previous Day -- Home Page -- Next Day -->



1942 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The American Federation of Musicians went on strike after Union president James C. Petrillo told musicians that phonograph records were "a threat to members' jobs." As a result, musicians refused to perform on recording sessions over the next several months, although live, musical radio broadcasts did continue.

1954 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
An August 1st concert promoted by Alan Freed features Fats Domino, Muddy Waters, The Clovers, The Orioles and others at the Moondog Jubilee of Stars Under the Stars at Eberts Field in Brooklyn, New York.

1958 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Era Records releases "To Know Him Is To Love Him" by The Teddy Bears on their Dore label and sends 500 copies to radio stations across the US. The song was written by group member Phil Spector, who was inspired by the words on his father's tombstone. Spector's father had committed suicide when Phil was 12.

1959 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
After nine weeks as the best selling song in America, Johnny Horton's "The Battle Of New Orleans" is pushed out of the number one spot by Paul Anka's "Lonely Boy". It was Anka's eighth record to crack Billboard's Top 40. He would go on to have twenty-four more.

1960 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Elvis Presley is named Public Enemy #1 by the East German newspaper, Young World. Elvis was later quoted as saying, "They say it (Rock 'n' Roll) makes us hoodlums. That ain't true. I don't see that any type of music would have any bad influence on people."

August 1
Billboard reports the findings of a Seventeen magazine survey that said the average teenage girl listens to the radio two hours and thirteen minutes a day and plays records two hours and twelve minutes a day.

August 1
Chubby Checker's "The Twist" is released in the US, where it will become the number one song by mid-September. Record industry history was made when Checker's original hit recording re-entered the charts in the Fall of 1961 and by January of 1962, was back in the number one position. It was the first record ever to hit number one on two separate occasions.

August 1
18-year-old Aretha Franklin makes her first non-Gospel recordings for Columbia Records in New York. Her initial chart appearance would come over a year later when her version of Al Jolson's 1918 hit, "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody" would reach #37 during a two week stay on the Hot 100.

1963 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The first Beatles Monthly Fan Club magazine was published. It continued until 1969 and at its peak was selling 350,000 copies a month.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The title track from The Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night topped the record charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The film was originally titled Beatlemania until producers heard an offhanded comment by Ringo Starr as he flopped into a canvas chair and said, "It's been a hard day's night, that was."

August 1
Billboard magazine reports that the harmonica is making a comeback in a big way thanks to its use by Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Bob Dylan.

August 1
Jan And Dean's "Little Old Lady From Pasadena" peaks at #3 on the Billboard Pop chart. Although they would place five more songs in the US Top 40, this would be their final Top 10 entry.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The Troggs accomplished the rare feat of having a Top Ten hit in both the UK and the US with different songs. In England, "With a Girl Like You" topped all the major UK charts, while in the US, "Wild Thing" led the Billboard Hot 100. Because they could only afford a short amount of studio time, both songs were recorded in just two takes.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Ronnie Spector files for divorce from her husband Phil after just three and a half months of marriage. In her complaint, she estimates Phil's net worth as five million dollars and her own as "nothing." Oddly, she didn't move out of their Beverly Hills mansion and a few weeks later Phil talked her into a reconciliation.

1969 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The Beach Boys' lead guitarist Carl Wilson is indicted in Los Angeles for failure to perform required community service as a conscientious objector to military service. Wilson did in fact report to the L.A. County Hospital at his appointed date. However, he conducted music classes for handicapped patients rather than to act as an institutional helper.

1970 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" enters the Billboard Hot 100 where it will climb to #4. Many fans are confused about the song's meaning until it is explained that the tune was being written at 25 or 6 to four in the morning.

August 1
After a seven week stay at the top of the UK singles chart, Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime" is finally displaced by Elvis Presley's "The Wonder Of You".

1971 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The concert for Bangla Desh was staged to raise money for victims of famine and war in that country. The show featured George Harrison, with some help from his friends Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar and some members of Bad Finger. The three disc live album from the show reached number 1 in the UK and number 2 in the US in 1972, as well as winning a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The concerts, album and film raised nearly $11 million US for the impoverished people of the newly-independent nation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Asylum Records releases the Eagles' single "Witchy Woman". It was a song that guitarist Bernie Leadon started writing while he was a member of The Flying Burrito Brothers. After joining the Eagles, he and Don Henley finished the song together. The record reached #9 on the Hot 100, but did not chart in the UK.

1973 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Jerry Garcia celebrates his 31st birthday by playing a concert at Roosevelt Stadium with The Grateful Dead. The rocker was surprised with a cake wheeled on stage containing a naked girl. He was, in his words, "embarrassed."

1974 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The Carpenters' album "The Singles 1969 - 1973" becomes the first LP to be certified Platinum in the UK. It had topped the British charts for seventeen (non-consecutive) weeks. Richard Carpenter gave the album its title because he didn't like the term "greatest hits", as he felt it was "an overused thing."

1977 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Elvis - What Happened, an expose by Presley's former bodyguards Sonny West, his brother Red West and Dave Hebler, was published. It sat in bookstores almost unnoticed until Presley's death two weeks later. Then it sold more than three-million copies.

1981 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
A new television cable network called MTV (Music Television) started broadcasting music videos, 24 hours a day in the US. The show begins with the intro "Ladies and gentlemen, Rock and Roll."

August 1
The Oak Ridge Boys crossed over from the Country charts to make "Elvira" the top tune on the Cashbox Best Sellers list. The song had been around since 1966 and had been recorded by several others, including Kenny Rogers And The First Edition and Rodney Crowell, with limited success. The Oak's rendition would reach #5 on the Hot 100 and be certified Platinum for sales of two million units by the Recording Industry Association of America.

August 1
Shakin' Stevens led the UK chart with "Green Door", a song that had risen to #8 in Britain and topped the Billboard chart in 1956 for Country artist Jim Lowe. A cover version by Frankie Vaughan also went to #1 in the UK in 1957.

August 1
Released six months ago, "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of two weeks. Springfield would say that he wrote the song about a friend's girlfriend, whom he admired from afar. The friend's name was Gary, not Jessie.

1983 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The Soft-Rock group, America had its last Top 40 hit when "The Border" reached number 33. That ended a streak of ten other songs to crack the chart starting in 1972.

1987 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Bob Seger's "Shakedown" hits #1 on the US Pop singles chart. The song would be nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, but lost both to Dirty Dancing's "(I've Had) The Time of My Life".

August 1
The Grateful Dead's 12th studio LP "In The Dark" enters the Billboard album chart where it would climb to #6. It would achieve Double Platinum certification in the US with the help of the group's only American Top 40 hit, "Touch Of Grey", which would reach #9.

August 1
Los Lobos' rendition of "La Bamba" becomes the first Spanish language recording to top the UK chart. Ritchie Valens' 1959 version reached #49.

1988 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
A Cincinnati radio station, WCVG-AM, began broadcasting Elvis Presley songs and trivia twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The format would last slightly over a year.

1994 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The Rolling Stones turn down an invitation from President Bill Clinton to play at the White House.

1996 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Bill Buchanan, who originated novelty records known as "break-ins" with his partner Dickie Goodman, died in Los Angeles of cancer at the age of 66. Break-in records used snippets of Top 40 hits as part of a comedy routine. Buchanan and Goodman first used the concept on "The Flying Saucer", which went to number three on the Billboard chart in 1956. The following year brought the hits "Flying Saucer the 2nd" and "Santa and the Satellite". Goodman had committed suicide in 1989.

2008 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
A half-hour Beatles recording that included the band cracking jokes and breaking into giggles while they rehearsed material in 1964, went up for auction by the Berkshire-based firm, Cameo. The tape sold for £9,800 ($19,600).

2010 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
68-year-old Aretha Franklin was forced to cancel two concerts in New York after breaking her ribs in a fall in a bathtub.

2012 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Ten days after The J. Geils Band announced plans to tour without their namesake, John Warren Geils filed a lawsuit against his former band mates for trademark infringement and deceptive business practices. The suit proved unsuccessful, but Geils was later quoted as saying, "I wish them well. There is no bitterness on my part."

2013 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
The Rolling Stones charted their 50th LP on the Billboard 200 albums chart when "Hyde Park Live" debuted at #19. The band had been recorded at a free concert in Hyde Park in Westminster, Greater London, just two days after the death of founding member Brian Jones. The gig also served as the introduction to new guitarist Mick Taylor.

2014 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
A representative for Michael Jackson's estate told Forbes magazine that the singer's opulent, 2,700-acre estate, Neverland Ranch, would be put up for sale in the near future. "We are frustrated, bitterly disappointed and saddened that it has come to this. Sadly, Michael lost control of Neverland during his life as a result of advice from a former manager."

2015 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Cilla Black, the UK singer who had a string of hits in her homeland in the 1960s as well as reaching #26 in America with "You're My World" in 1964, died of natural causes at the age of 72.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Steppenwolf's original keyboard player, Goldy McJohn suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 72. He, along with singer John Kay and drummer Jerry Edmonton, formed the group in 1967, and was onboard for seven albums before being sacked by Kay in 1974.

2019 - ClassicBands.com

August 1
Ian Gibbons, the keyboard player for The Kinks, passed away at the age of 67. Joining the band in 1979, his work can be heard on their hits, "Come Dancing", "Destroyer", "Do It Again" and "Don't Forget To Dance".



<-- Previous Day -- Home Page -- Next Day -->