Rock 'n' Roll History for
July 31


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1959 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Cliff Richard And The Drifters had their first British number one when "Living Doll" started a six week run at the top of the UK singles chart. The record would eventually sell over 500,000 copies. After the song peaked at #30 on the Hot 100, The Drifters would change their name to The Shadows to avoid a conflict with the American group of the same name.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Country singer Jim Reeves, whose biggest Hot 100 hit was 1960's "He'll Have To Go" (#2), was killed when the small plane he was piloting crashed near Nashville. He was 39. After Reeves' death, his widow continued to release his material well into the 1980s.

July 31
Martha And The Vandellas' "Dancing In The Street" is released. The song will become the group's biggest hit, reaching #2 in the US and #28 in the UK. Recorded in just two takes, it would be added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress on April 12th, 2006.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
After arriving in the UK for their first tour, Sonny And Cher are apparently turned away from the London Hilton because of their appearance. It was later revealed to be a publicity stunt. During their two weeks in Britain, the duo mostly appeared on British television and radio.

1967 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones appealed their sentences on drug charges laid by British police after they were arrested in February. Richards' conviction was overturned while Jagger's three-month jail sentence was reduced to a conditional discharge.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
The Beatles laid down the bed tracks for "Hey Jude" during the first of a two day session in London. A thirty-six piece orchestra would be added the following day.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Hamilton, Joe Frank And Reynolds had the top tune on the Cashbox Best Sellers list with "Don't Pull Your Love". Dan Hamilton, Joe Frank Carollo and Tom Reynolds enjoyed their first taste of success in 1965 with a group called The T-Bones when they scored the Top Ten hit "No Matter What Shape" that was used in Alka Seltzer commercials.

July 31
James Taylor scored his only Billboard number one record with the Carole King written, "You've Got A Friend". The song would go on to win the 1971 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Chicago receives a Gold record for their first Billboard 200 chart topping album, "Chicago V". A single from the LP, "Saturday in the Park", would reach number three on the Hot 100 in September, #2 on Canada's RPM chart, but was not a hit in the UK.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
George Benson started a two-week run at #1 on the Billboard album chart with "Breezin'". Featuring the single, "This Masquerade", the LP would go on to win Grammy Awards for Best Pop Instrumental Performance and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. It was also nominated for Album of the Year, but lost that one to Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life".

1977 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
The Starland Vocal Band, who scored a number one smash with "Afternoon Delight" around this time last year, debut in their own six week, summer replacement TV show. The program included a pre-fame David Letterman as a writer and regular guest.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
John Phillips, former leader of The Mamas And Papas, was arrested on drug charges and sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $15,000. The sentence was later reduced to 30 days in jail and 250 hours of community service in the form of giving anti-drug lectures. Phillips hadn't released any new material since 1970's "John, The Wolf King of L.A.", which stalled at #181 on the Billboard 200, but did include his only solo, Billboard Top 40 hit, "Mississippi".

July 31
The Eagles split up after Glenn Frey and Don Felder nearly broke into fisticuffs onstage in Long Beach, California. Angry at the way Felder spoke to Senator Alan Cranston earlier in the day, tensions were high onstage between the two. Frey later recalled. "We're out there singing 'Best of My Love', but inside both of us are thinking, 'As soon as this is over, I'm gonna kill him.' That was when I knew I had to get out." After the show ended, Felder smashed what Frey later described as "a cheap guitar" against the wall backstage and sped away in a limo. The group went their separate ways, with Frey enjoying a highly successful solo career in which he placed seven songs on the Billboard Top 40 between 1982 and 1988. Don Henley would do the same, putting ten singles on the chart between 1981 and 1992. As for Felder, he issued a low selling album, "Airborne" in 1983.

1982 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" sat atop both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Cashbox Best Sellers chart. The song, which was commissioned by actor Sylvester Stallone for the theme for the movie Rocky III, would receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and go on to sell over five million copies.

1992 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Michael Jackson made an unscheduled appearance on his hotel balcony in London after a man apparently threatened to jump from an apartment building across the street. 28-year-old Eric Herminie said that he would leap to his death if he didn't see Jackson, who was in Britain for a series of concerts. Jackson spent a couple of minutes waving to Herminie, who then climbed back into the building.

1995 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Jamaica issued a series of postage stamps honoring Reggae superstar Bob Marley. He had died of cancer in 1981 at age 36.

2005 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Les Braid, bassist and keyboardist for The Swinging Blue Jeans on their 1964 hit "Hippy Hippy Shake", died of cancer at the age of 67.

2006 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Former Culture Club singer Boy George (O'Dowd) was ordered to do community service by picking up trash on New York City streets after pleading guilty last March to false reporting of an incident. He called police with a bogus report of a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment in October and the responding officers found cocaine inside.

2014 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
British entertainer Rolf Harris applied for permission to appeal his conviction for indecent assault. Harris, 84, was sentenced on July 4th to five years and nine months for twelve indecent assaults on four girls aged between seven and nineteen. In October, his request to appeal would be turned down and he began serving his sentence at HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire before being moved to HMP Stafford for his own safety. Interestingly, Harris is most often remembered for his 1969, UK #1 hit, "Two Little Boys".

2015 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Lynn Anderson, a Country singer who reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 with "Rose Garden", passed away at the age of 67. She also placed five other songs on the upper end of that same chart, but enjoyed forty-three Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs list.

2019 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
Woodstock 50, a music concert intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of 1969's Woodstock Festival, was officially canceled by its organizers just two weeks before it was to begin. In a statement to the press, officials said the three day event was aborted because of "a series of unforeseen setbacks has made it impossible to put on the festival we imagined." Originally, acts like Santana, John Fogerty, John Sebastian, Melanie, The Zombies, Canned Heat, David Crosby and dozens of other artists were scheduled to perform.

2021 - ClassicBands.com

July 31
A collection of electric and acoustic guitars from Journey co-founder Neal Schon was auctioned for more than $4.2 million by Heritage Auctions. At the heart of the collection was the 1977 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Black Solid Body guitar that Schon used on 1981's chart-topping album "Escape".



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