Rock 'n' Roll History for
May 21


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1955 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Chuck Berry recorded "Maybellene", which would become his first hit record, reaching #5 on the Billboard Top 100 and #1 on the R&B chart. By the end of the year, it had sold over one million copies. In the heyday of Pat Boone, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and The McGuire Sisters, it was one of the few Rock 'n' Roll songs to get any radio air play that year.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
16-year-old Paul Anka records "Diana" at the ABC-Paramount studios in New York. The song would reach #1 in the US the following September and became the first of his thirty-three US Top 40 hits. It was also a chart topper in the UK and Canada.

1963 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Tamla Records releases "Fingertips Pt. 2", a song that 13 year old Little Stevie Wonder recorded at a concert in Detroit the previous June. It would go on to become the first of his nine number one hits on the Billboard Top 40. The seven minute song was later edited into two parts for radio play.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Rudy Lewis, the lead singer of The Drifters on their hits "On Broadway" and "Up On The Roof", died under mysterious circumstances the night before the group was set to record "Under the Boardwalk". He was 28 years old. Rather than reschedule the studio session to find a new front man, former Drifters backup singer Johnny Moore was brought back to perform lead vocals for the recording. The single reached #4 in the US the following July and #45 in the UK.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" enters the Billboard Hot 100, where it will reach #4 the next July, making it her biggest US hit. In the UK, it went all the way to #1. Recorded the previous March 9th and 10th at Philips Studio in London, it took forty-seven takes before Dusty was satisfied with her vocal.

May 21
The Mamas And The Papas went to the top of the Billboard album chart with "If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears", which contained the singles "Monday Monday" and "California Dreamin'". The LP was initially credited to the grammatically incorrect The Mama's and The Papa's, which was corrected on later printings.

1975 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Officials at Gatwick Airport in London announce that they will not permit a plane carrying The Osmonds to land there because when the group last visited the UK, twenty overly enthusiastic teens were injured.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
The Rolling Stones open a six night stand at London's Earl's Court Theatre. The indifference of the Stones' performance causes them to be targeted as "dinosaurs" by the growing British Punk movement.

1977 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Stevie Wonder scored his sixth #1 record on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Sir Duke", a song written as a tribute to Jazz legend, Duke Ellington. The song reached #2 in the UK and made the Top Ten in five other European countries.

May 21
After five weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart, the Eagles' "Hotel California" gives way to Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours". That LP would stay at the top of the chart for twenty-seven of the next twenty-eight weeks, interrupted the week ending July 16th by "Barry Manilow Live".

1979 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Elton John became the first solo Rock artist to tour Russia when he played the first of eight concerts in Leningrad. He was currently enjoying chart success back in the USA with "Mama Can't Buy You Love", his first Top 10 hit in two and a half years.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
A thief breaks into Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the recording studio built by Jimi Hendrix, and steals five Hendrix Gold records. They are for the albums "Are You Experienced?", "Axis: Bold as Love", "Cry of Love", "Rainbow Bridge" and "Live at Monterey".

May 21
Singer / guitarist Joe Strummer of the British punk group the Clash is arrested in Hamburg, Germany for hitting a fan on the head with his guitar. A fight broke out between the band and the audience following a concert.

1983 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
David Bowie topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the second time with "Let's Dance". It was also a #1 in eleven other countries, including the UK where it was certified Platinum.

May 21
"Little Red Corvette" peaks at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Prince his first Top Ten hit on that chart. It also climbed to #15 on the R&B chart and #2 in Great Britain.

2008 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Lou Pearlman, the music mogul who created the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, was sentenced to twenty-five years in federal prison for a decades-long scam that bilked thousands of investors out of their life savings. Many victims were Pearlman's relatives, friends and retirees in their 70s or 80s who lost everything. A view of the behind-the-scenes life of The Backstreet Boys is revealed in Gary James' interview with A.J. Mclean's mother, Denise McLean Solis

2012 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a Boston University student who was successfully sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for illegally sharing music on peer-to-peer networks. In 2009, a jury ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay $675,000, or $22,500 for each song he illegally downloaded and shared. In 2013, a second jury would uphold the original verdict, but a judge later reduced the penalty by 90% to $67,500.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Trevor Bolder, bassist for Davie Bowie's Spiders From Mars before moving on to Uriah Heep, died of cancer at the age of 62.

May 21
News reports surfaced that 47-year-old Janet Jackson had now become a billionaire on the strength of her album sales, music and book publishing fees and sold out tours.

2016 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Auctioneers at Julien's auction house in New York sold one of Elvis Presley's acoustic guitars for $354,400. Other items in the sale included a red vinyl jacket which Michael Jackson wore for his 1996-97 HIStory world tour which sold for $256,000, and John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for The Beatles' "Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite", which brought $354,400.

2023 - ClassicBands.com

May 21
Singer and actor Ed Ames passed away at his Los Angeles home at the age of 95. After placing ten songs on the Billboard Top 40 between 1954 and 1960 with The Ames Brothers, he achieved two solo hits in 1967, "My Cup Runneth Over" (#8) and "Who Will Answer?" (#19). He also enjoyed a lengthy acting career that included playing Mingo in the NBC television series Daniel Boone, with Fess Parker. One of his most famous moments came on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on April 27th, 1965. Ames was demonstrating his axe throwing abilities when he accidentally struck a chalk drawing of a cowboy in the crotch, with the axe handle facing up. The clip became one of Carson's favorites, and was shown yearly in subsequent blooper television specials.



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