Rock 'n' Roll History for
July 17


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1961 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Motown Records releases The Supremes' second single, "Buttered Popcorn" with "Who's Loving You" on the flip side. The record, featuring Florence Ballard on lead vocal, would be a total flop, despite receiving much air play in the Detroit area.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
RCA Victor issues Elvis Presley's "She's Not You". Bolstered by the background vocals of The Jordanaires, the song would rise to #5 on the Hot 100 and top the UK's Official Chart.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
King Records releases "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" by James Brown And His Famous Flames. The record would reach #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the R&B chart. It would go on to sell over 2 million copies and receive the Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording. In 1999, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at #71 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time.

July 17
The Miracles' "The Tracks of My Tears" is released on Motown's Tamla label. It will reach #16 in the US and #9 in the UK and sell over a million copies. In 2021, Rolling Stone called the recording, "The Greatest Motown Song of All Time".

1967 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Jimi Hendrix either quit or was fired as the opening act for the Monkees' US tour. Mickey Dolenz later recalled, "Jimi would amble out onto the stage, fire up the amps and break out into 'Purple Haze' and the kids in the audience would instantly drown him out with 'We want Daaavy!' God, was it embarrassing." Hendix's replacement was Vanilla Fudge.

July 17
The Beatles released "All You Need Is Love" / "Baby You're A Rich Man" (originally titled "One Of The Beautiful People") in the US, where it would go on to become their 14th #1 single. During the live recording of "All You Need Is Love", John can be clearly seen chewing gum while singing the lead vocal.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
The Beatles' film, Yellow Submarine debuted in theatres this week. The Fab Four weren't originally too keen about the picture, but after seeing elements of the cartoon, liked it enough to make a cameo appearance at the end. The voices in the film were actually actors and not The Beatles themselves, but Ringo Starr said that years later, people were still asking him why he "pushed the button" that created all of the chaos in the animated picture.

1970 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Canada's premier Rock band, The Guess Who perform at the White House for President Richard Nixon and his royal guests, Prince Charles and Princess Anne. Officials ask them not to play their Billboard chart topping hit, "American Woman", which sounded like an attack on America's foreign policy and domestic problems. Years later, composer Burton Cummings would explain, "When I said, 'American woman, stay away from me,' I really meant 'Canadian woman, I prefer you.' It was all a happy accident."

1971 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear on the BBC late night talk show, Parkinson, where John chastises the British media for calling Yoko "ugly" and for saying that she broke up The Beatles.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
A bomb explodes under a Rolling Stones equipment truck in Montreal, and although no one is hurt, the blast blows out the cones of thirty speakers stored inside. It's never determined who planted the dynamite, and the show went on as planned.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
The Moody Blues opened their own 32-track recording studio in London, England. It was the first in Britain to be equipped for quadraphonic recording, a now almost-forgotten form of stereo which required a playback system with four speakers.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
After ten years of marriage, Ringo Starr and Maureen Cox are officially divorced. She had briefly dated Paul McCartney before taking up with Ringo and was later linked with George Harrison. In her book John, Cynthia Lennon wrote that after her divorce from Ringo, Maureen was so upset that she rode a motorbike at full speed into a brick wall and required plastic surgery to repair injuries to her face. Maureen died at the age of 48 on December 30th, 1994 due to complications from leukemia. Her children, current husband Isaac Tigrett, and Ringo were all at her bedside when she passed away.

1979 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Gary Moore left Thin Lizzy during a US tour and was replaced by former Slick guitarist, Midge Ure.

1982 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
"Valley Girl" by Frank Zappa and his 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit, enters the Billboard Pop chart at #75. It will peak at #32 in August and was later nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 25th Annual Grammy Awards. It lost to "Up Where We Belong" by Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes.

July 17
Chicago's "Chicago 16" album enters the Hot 200. The LP featured the #1 hit "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" and ultimately went Platinum, reaching #9.

1991 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
A revamped version of Lynyrd Skynyrd opened their world tour in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Fourteen years earlier, the band was on its way to a concert in that city when their private plane crashed, killing three members of the group including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. The new Lynyrd Skynyrd was fronted by Van Zant's brother Johnny and featured original guitarist Gary Rossington.

July 17
James Brown was honored by the state of Georgia for his comeback after a two-year prison term. The proclamation cited the Godfather of Soul for his "unique brand of Funk."

1996 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Chas Chandler, who was the bassist for The Animals as well as Jimi Hendrix's manager, died in a British hospital at age 57. He had been undergoing tests related to an aortic aneurysm.

2004 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Nearly half of the 4,500 people in the audience walked out of Linda Ronstadt's show with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Aladdin Resort and Casino in Las Vegas after the singer dedicated an encore of "Desperado" to filmmaker Michael Moore and urged the crowd to see his film Fahrenheit 9/11.

2007 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered Michael Jackson to pay more than $256,000 in legal fees to a firm that handled some side issues during his 2005 child molestation trial. The law firm of Ayscough & Marar sued the 48-year-old King of Pop for failing to pay legal fees for preventing the release of some information to the public, and to lawyers in civil cases during his 2005 criminal trial in Santa Barbara County.

2009 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Gordon Waller of the Pop duo Peter and Gordon died of cardiac arrest at the age of 64. Waller and his partner Peter Asher were part of the 1960s British Invasion and had a string of hits including "A World Without Love" (#1), "I Don't Want To See You Again" (#16), "I Go to Pieces" (#9) and "Lady Godiva" (#6).

2011 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance at a tribute to Clarence Clemons at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, N.J. The boss played a 45-minute set to an intimate crowd of 400.

2021 - ClassicBands.com

July 17
Robby Steinhardt, violinist and co-lead vocalist for Kansas, died at the age of 71 after a bout of acute pancreatitis and septic shock. The band placed seven songs on the Billboard Top 40 between 1977 and 1986, including the #6 hit, "Dust In The Wind" in 1978.



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