Rock 'n' Roll History for
March 25


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1957 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Elvis Presley buys the Graceland mansion from Mrs. Ruth Brown-Moore for $102,500, outbidding the YMCA's offer of $35,000. The 23 room, 10,000 square foot home, sitting on 13.8 acres of land, would be expanded to 17,552 square feet of living space before Elvis' parents and grandmother moved in on May 16th. The original building had at one time been a place of worship used by the Graceland Christian Church and was named after the builder's daughter, Grace Toof.

1958 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Elvis Presley's ducktail hairstyle and famous sideburns are removed as he received the regulation short haircut from US Army barber James Peterson. The King would never go back to wearing a DA.

1960 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Roy Orbison records "Only The Lonely (Know The Way I Feel)" at RCA Victor's Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. When it is released on Monument Records the following May, the record will become Orbison's first of twenty-three major hits, reaching #2 on the Hot 100, #14 on the Billboard R&B chart, and #1 in the UK. Earlier in the year, Orbison and the song's lyricist, Joe Melson, tried to sell it to Elvis Presley and The Everly Brothers, who both turned it down. On the strength of "Only The Lonely", Orbison appeared on American Bandstand and toured the US for three months non-stop with Patsy Cline.

March 25
Ray Charles updates Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Mind", a song that first became a #10 hit for Frankie Trumbauer in 1931. Charles' version will become his fifth Billboard Pop chart hit and his first #1 next November.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Elvis Presley appears in concert at a benefit for the U.S.S. Arizona memorial in Hawaii. Following his seventeen song set, the King would not play another live date for the next eight years.

1963 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Johnny Cash records one of his biggest Pop hits, "Ring Of Fire", which will climb to #17 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Country Chart. The song was written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore and was originally recorded by June's sister, Anita Carter. When her version failed to become a hit, Johnny added the mariachi-style horns and changed a few of the words. Four years later, Johnny and June were married.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Chuck Berry records "No Particular Place To Go" at Chess Studios in Chicago. The song features the same music as Berry's earlier hit "School Days", but still manages to climb to #10 in America and #3 in the UK.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
The Yardbirds release "For Your Love", which will reach #3 in the UK and #6 in the US. Organist Brian Auger was hired to play keyboards on the track, but when he arrived at the recording studio there was no organ, or even a piano there. All that could be found was a two-tiered harpsichord on which Auger improvised the now familiar intro. After the session he wondered, "Who in their right mind is going to buy a Pop single with harpsichord on it?"

1966 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
The Beatles posed for photographer Robert Whitaker with mutilated and butchered dolls for the cover of the album, "Yesterday and Today". After a public outcry, the LP was pulled from stores and re-issued with a new cover that showed them sitting in and around a steamer trunk.

1967 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Although they had cracked the Top 40 on three previous occasions, The Turtles enjoyed their first and only Billboard number one hit with "Happy Together". It made #12 in the UK. The song, written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, two former members of a band called The Magicians, had been rejected a dozen times before it was offered to The Turtles. Like all of their records, the entire band, Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, guitarists Al Nichol and Jim Tucker, bassist Chip Douglas and drummer John Barbata, played on the recording of "Happy Together". Their independent label, White Whale, could not afford LA session musicians to augment or replace them.

March 25
The Doors debut album, featuring "Light My Fire", enters the Billboard Hot 200. The LP had been released during the first week of January and would end up leading the chart for three weeks and topping the Cashbox Best Sellers for a week.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
The Monkees 58th and final TV episode was broadcast, ending a two year run. The Fabricated Four would soon start to dissolve as Peter Tork left the group later that year, leaving just Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones on the cover of the group's next album, "Instant Replay".

1969 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin their seven day "bed-in" to promote world peace at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam.

March 25
32-year-old Roy Orbison marries his second wife, 19-year-old Barbara Jakobs, in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Barbara would go on to manage Roy's career and following his death in 1988, took charge of his business affairs. Sadly, she would die from pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 on December 6, 2011, 23 years to the day after her husband passed away.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Tom Jones is awarded a Gold Record for the Paul Anka composition, "She's A Lady". The song was currently sitting at its peak position of #2, making it Tom's fifteenth Billboard Top 40 hit.

March 25
New York radio station WNBC banned the song "One Toke Over the Line" by Brewer and Shipley because of its alleged drug references. Other stations around the country follow suit, but the record still made it to Billboard's #10 spot.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Deep Purple release their sixth studio album, "Machine Head". It would become the band's most commercially successful LP, topping the charts in the UK and reaching #7 in America. The seven song collection included the band's final Billboard Top 40 hit, "Smoke On The Water", which rose to #4.

March 25
The trio of Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek, collectively known as America, reached the top spot on The Hot 100 and The Cashbox Best Sellers chart with "A Horse With No Name". The tune, which reached #3 in the UK, was originally titled "Desert Song".

March 25
Roberta Flack started a five-week run at the top of the Billboard album chart with "First Take", an LP that Atlantic Records would claim took just ten hours to record.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Capitol Records releases Linda Ronstadt's rendition of The Everly Brothers' 1960 tune, "When Will I Be Loved". Taken from the LP "Heart Like A Wheel", Ronstadt's cover will rise to #2 on the Hot 100, six steps higher than the Everly's version. It also topped the Cash Box Best Sellers chart and the Billboard Country And Western chart.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Jackson Browne's wife, Phyllis Major committed suicide. Much of the music on Browne's album, "The Pretender" displays the sense of despair at her death. The recording became the first of Browne's LPs to sell a million copies.

1977 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
After a decade of having only local success in the Michigan area, 33 year old Bob Seger gets his big break. His 7th album, "Night Moves" goes Platinum on the strength of two Top Forty hits: "Night Moves" (US #4) and "Mainstreet" (US #24).

1978 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
During a wave of nostalgia and oldies revival, Buddy Holly And The Crickets topped the UK album chart with "20 Golden Greats".

March 25
A Philadelphia R&B / Disco group called The Trammps enter the Billboard Top 40 for the third and final time with "Disco Inferno", which will climb to #11 during its thirteen week stay.

1983 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Motown Records celebrates its 25 anniversary with a concert in Pasadena, featuring The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Martha Reeves, Jr. Walker, The Commodores, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and The Jackson 5.

1985 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
At the 57th annual Academy Awards, Prince wins the Best Original Song Score Oscar for "Purple Rain", and Stevie Wonder is awarded Best Original Song for "I Just Called To Say I Love You".

1989 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Fire destroyed a recording studio on Chuck Berry's farm at Wentzville, Missouri. Among the items lost was a tape containing thirteen unreleased Berry songs.

1990 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is taken to the police station for allegedly exposing his buttocks during a concert in Augusta, Georgia. It is later revealed that the incident was actually staged, and after Lee signed a citation and paid a small fine, he was released without being charged.

2000 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Former Bay City Rollers' drummer Derek Longmuir was sentenced to 300 hours of community service after admitting to possessing child pornography. Despite his guilty plea, he maintained that the offending materials did not belong to him. He was subsequently fired from his job as a nurse at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, but later reinstated.

2001 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Bob Dylan wins the Best Original Song Oscar for "Things Have Changed" from the movie Wonder Boys.

2005 - ClassicBands.com

2001 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon were treated for smoke inhalation after a fire broke out as they slept at their Buckinghamshire mansion. No one was seriously injured, but the blaze caused extensive smoke, heat and water damage.

2006 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
76-year-old Country music star Buck Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield, California. During his career, he placed twenty-one #1 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, with "I've Got A Tiger By The Tail" crossing over to hit #25 on the Hot 100 in 1965.

2009 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Dan Seals, of the 1970s duo England Dan And John Ford Coley, died of cancer at the age of 61. After scoring several Billboard Pop chart hits, including "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight", "Nights are Forever" and "Love Is The Answer", Seals went on to have a solid career in Country music during the 1980s and early '90s.

2012 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Soul legend Bobby Womack was diagnosed with colon cancer. Womack canceled a live appearance in Houston, Texas earlier in the month after he experienced severe shortness of breath. He would pass away on June 27, 2014 at the age of 70.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Dionne Warwick's attorney confirmed that the singer had filed for bankruptcy over a tax debt dating back almost twenty years. In 2012 she appeared on a list of the top 500 people owing the most in unpaid taxes in the state of California. Her legal team insisted that Ms. Warwick was the "innocent victim of terrible mismanagement."

2015 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Ringo Starr told Rolling Stone magazine that The Beatles would have gotten back together at some point if John Lennon and George Harrison had lived. "We still had the songs and we still could play. We could have put it together... Of course, it's ended now. John and George are gone."

March 25
Boy George was the guest judge on TV's American Idol where he joined the remaining eleven contestants in singing his 1983, #1 hit, "Karma Chameleon".

2016 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
The Rolling Stones made a historic appearance in Havana, Cuba in front of an estimated crowd of 450,000 people. Rock 'n' Roll music was outlawed in Cuba shortly after Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959 and was reinstated in 2000.

2020 - ClassicBands.com

March 25
Several songs from the Classic Rock era were added to the National Recording Registry by the United States Library Of Congress. Included were "YMCA" by Village People, "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell, Whitney Houston's rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You", "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" by comedian Allan Sherman, and Eddy Arnold's "Make the World Go Away".



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