Rock 'n' Roll History for
July 5


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1954 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
While taking a break during a Blue Moon Boys' recording session at Sun Studio, Elvis Presley began improvising an up-tempo version of Arthur Crudup's song "That's All Right". Joined by Scotty Moore on electric guitar, and Bill Black was on string bass, the trio was interrupted by producer Sam Phillips, who asked them to start over so he could record them. The result would be Presley's debut single, which sold around 20,000 copies and reached #4 on the local Memphis charts. After the session, Bill Black was said to have remarked, "Damn. Get that on the radio and they'll run us out of town."

1963 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Marty Balin and Paul Kantner formed a Folk-Rock group that would evolve into the Jefferson Airplane, the premier San Francisco psychedelic band of the late '60s. The Airplane made its debut the following month at a Haight-Ashbury club and was signed to RCA later in the year.

July 5
The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" was recorded at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood. Backed by members of The Wrecking Crew, Ronnie Spector was the only member of The Ronettes to appear on the record, as Ellie Greenwich, Darlene Love, Fanita James, Gracia Nitzsche, Bobby Sheen and Nino Tempo were used as backing vocalists instead of group members Estelle Bennett and Nedra Talley. The record would reach #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 the next Autumn and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers had an operation in a Los Angeles hospital to remove nodes on his vocal cords.

1969 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
The Rolling Stones appear at a free outdoor concert held at Hyde Park in London, England. It was the band's first public appearance in over two years, and was planned as an introduction of their new guitarist, Mick Taylor. Those plans changed to a tribute to their former guitarist Brian Jones who had drowned in his swimming pool two days earlier.

1973 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Dobie Gray is awarded a Gold record for the biggest hit of his career, "Drift Away". In 2002, Gray re-recorded this as a duet with singer Uncle Kracker (real name: Matthew Shafer). When the track reached the Billboard Top 10 in 2003, thirty years after the original, Gray broke the record for the biggest gap between US Top 10 appearances.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Linda Ronstadt records "You're No Good" at The Sound Factory in Los Angeles, California. It will go on to become the only one of her twenty-one Billboard Top 40 singles to reach number one, rising to the top the following February. As with many of her songs, "You're No Good" had previously been recorded by several other artists, including Dee Dee Warwick, Betty Everett, and The Swinging Blue Jeans.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones was charged with possession of an offensive weapon and reckless driving in Arkansas. Hundreds of teenage girls gathered at the jail where he was being held.

1978 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Pressings of the album cover for "Some Girls" by The Rolling Stones were halted when some of the celebrities whose faces appeared on the cover, including Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli (representing her mother Judy Garland), Raquel Welch, and the estate of Marilyn Monroe, threatened to sue. The sleeve was quickly replaced with a cover that removed all the famous folks, whether they had complained or not.

1986 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Police had to be called to calm a rowdy crowd after rocker Ted Nugent canceled a concert in Williamsburg, Virginia. So many fans jammed the lobby for refunds that box office workers ran short of cash.

July 5
Billy Ocean went to #1 on the US singles chart with "There'll Be Sad Songs, (To Make You Cry)", a #12 hit in the UK.

July 5
At just 20-years-old, Janet Jackson becomes the youngest person to top the Billboard album chart since Stevie Wonder did it at the age of 13 in 1963. The LP "Control" featured the single "What Have You Done For Me Lately".

1995 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
More than 100 Grateful Dead fans were hurt when a wooden deck collapsed at a campground lodge in Wentzville, Missouri. Hundreds of people were on or under the deck sheltering from heavy rain. More than 4,000 Deadheads were staying at the facility while attending Grateful Dead concerts in the St. Louis suburb.

2001 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Ernie K-Doe, who scored a US number one hit in 1961 with a novelty tune called "Mother-In-Law", died of kidney and liver failure at the age of 65. After another couple of R&B chart hits, K-Doe (real name: Ernest Kador) became a radio personality in New Orleans.

2004 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
On the 50th anniversary of the day he recorded the song, Elvis Presley's first single, "That's Alright" is re-released as a CD single. The disc rose to #3 in the UK.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
The four surviving members of The Grateful Dead gave what they said would be their final performance, playing to some 70,000 singing, dancing and tearful fans at Chicago's Soldier Field. The shows came twenty years after the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, who played his last show in the nation's third-largest city in 1995.

July 5
After his triumphant appearance at England's Glastonbury Festival on June 28th, Lionel Richie saw the LP "Lionel Richie & The Commodores: The Definitive Collection" climb to the top of the UK album chart. It had previously made it to number 10 when it was released in 2003.

2019 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Three Michael Jackson fan clubs in France filed a lawsuit against Wade Robson and James Safechuck, the two men who accused the late King Of Pop of sexual abuse in the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland. While libel laws in the United States and the United Kingdom did not extend to dead people, there are laws in France against the public denunciation of a deceased person.

2024 - ClassicBands.com

July 5
Bon Jovi's new album "Forever" set a dubious chart record when, after debuting at #5 in its first week of release, the LP fell completely out of the Billboard 200.



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