Rock 'n' Roll History for
March 13


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1958 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
The Quarry Men, with both John Lennon and Paul McCartney playing guitar, perform at the Morgue Skiffle Cellar in Oakhill Park.

1959 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Friday the 13th proved unlucky for The Kingston Trio when they were involved in an emergency airplane landing in Indiana and nearly killed. Their song, "The Tijuana Jail" was rising up the charts, stopping at number 12 a couple weeks later.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Ricky Nelson records "Travelin' Man", which would go on to become his second and final US number one hit as well as reaching number two in the UK. Nelson used Elvis Presley's backing singers The Jordanaires on this song, as he did on most of his recordings.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Cliff Richard is named Show Business Personality of 1961 at the Variety Club of Great Britain Awards. Helen Shapiro is voted Most Promising Newcomer Of The Year, an honor she shared with actress Rita Tushingham.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Freddie And The Dreamers' "I'm Telling You Now" enters Billboard's Hot 100, where it will stay for eleven weeks, eventually climbing to #1 for two weeks starting April 10. It will be the biggest hit of the band's brief career.

March 13
The Beatles topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the seventh time with "Eight Days A Week". Paul McCartney would later say the name of the song came from a chauffeur who drove him one day. "I said, 'How've you been?'. 'Oh working hard,' he said, 'Working eight days a week.'"

March 13
Eric Clapton quit The Yardbirds due to musical differences with the other band members. Clapton wanted to continue in a bluesier vein, while the rest of the band preferred the more commercial style of their first Pop hit, "For Your Love".

March 13
"Do You Wanna Dance", The Beach Boys' cover of Bobby Freeman's 1958 #5 hit "Do You Want To Dance", enters the Billboard Top 40 on its way to #12. It would prove to be the highest charting Beach Boys song to feature drummer Dennis Wilson on lead vocals, although it was actually Hal Blaine who played drums on the recording. Among the other studio musicians on the track were Leon Russell on organ and future Bread member Larry Knechtel on bass.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
The Byrds received a Gold record for their "Greatest Hits" album. It is the top-selling LP in the band's catalogue and reached #6 on the Billboard 200, but failed to chart at all in the UK.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
The L.A. duo of Brewer And Shipley entered the Billboard Hot 100 with "One Toke Over The Line". The song, which featured The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia on steel guitar, would reach #10 despite being banned by several radio stations for its drug references. Brewer and Shipley maintained that the word "toke" meant "token", as in ticket, hence the line "Waitin' downtown at the railway station, one toke over the line."

1976 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
The Four Seasons score their fifth and final US #1 hit with "December 1963 (Oh What A Night"). It was also their only UK #1. Since 1962, the group had placed 31 songs in Billboard's Top 40.

March 13
Johnny Taylor's "Disco Lady" begins a six week stay at the top of the Billboard R&B chart. It is the first number one song to contain the word "Disco" in the title.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Pink Floyd's "The Wall" goes Platinum a few weeks into its fifteen week stay at number one on the Billboard chart. The two-record set is mostly the brainchild of bassist Roger Waters, who emerges as the group's creative leader.

1987 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Bob Seger receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 1750 Vine Street. Between 1968 and 1991, the Detroit rocker placed nineteen songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including the 1987 chart topper, "Shakedown".

1999 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
It had been nearly fifteen years since Cher led the US hit parade with "Dark Lady", but she was back on top with her fourth solo number one, "Believe". It was also #1 in the UK.

2003 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
A jury awarded concert promoter Marcel Avram $5.3 million in his suit against Michael Jackson over the cancellation of two planned 1999 concerts. Avram filed suit against Jackson in 2000 in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, claiming the singer had pulled out of New Years shows planned for Sydney and Honolulu. On the witness stand, Jackson insisted that Avram canceled the shows over concerns they would not be profitable.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Bob Dylan was voted into the century-old American Academy of Arts and Letters. The honor society, whose headquarters is in Manhattan, says their goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art.

2018 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Nokie Edwards, the influential guitarist for Surf Rock pioneers The Ventures, passed away at the age of 82. The instrumental group enjoyed thirty-four Billboard charting albums and placed fourteen singles on the Hot 100.

2023 - ClassicBands.com

March 13
Britain’s Ministry of Justice sent former Glam-Rock star Gary Glitter back to prison for violating his parole. A statement from the Ministry did not specify what the 78-year-old singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, did to violate the terms of his release. Gadd had been freed from prison in early February after serving half of a 16-year sentence for sexually abusing three young girls in the 1970s. On February 7th, 2024, his appeal for parole was denied.

March 13
Jim Gordon, a much sought after Rock 'n' Roll session drummer in the 1970s, passed away at the age of 77. He played on recordings by nearly every major musical act of his time, but suffered from growing mental health problems and spent the second half of his life in prison for killing his 71-year-old mother with a butcher knife on June 3rd, 1983. He was denied parole ten times and was still incarcerated at the time of his death.



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