Rock 'n' Roll History for
October 9


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1958 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Eddie Cochran records "C'mon Everybody" for Liberty Records, who release it as the B-side to "Don't Ever Let Me Go". The song would go on to be Cochran's last US Top 40 hit, reaching #35.

1959 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
21-year-old Bobby Darin becomes the youngest performer to headline at the Sands Hotel's Copa Room in Las Vegas. The previous record-holder, Johnny Mathis, appeared at 23. Darin was touring in support of his mega-hit, "Mack The Knife", which was number one in the US this week.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
"Hit The Road Jack" becomes Ray Charles' second tune to top the Billboard Pop chart. In the UK, it reached #6. The song has since been ranked #377 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Britain's BBC bans Bobby 'Boris' Pickett's "Monster Mash". Although the song is neither obscene or controversial, it's about a horror movie party and like many other songs, is banned under a catch-all regulation prohibiting the broadcast of anything deemed "offensive."

October 9
Bobby Vee records "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes" at United Recorders in Hollywood, California. Written by Benjamin Weisman, Dorothy Wayne and Marilyn Garrett, the song would spend fourteen weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #2. It also spent twelve weeks on the UK's Record Retailer chart, reaching #3 on March 6, 1963.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
The Rolling Stones announce the cancellation of a planned South African tour due to an anti-apartheid embargo by the British Musicians' Union.

October 9
The Beach Boys record "Dance Dance Dance", with Glen Campbell playing the lead guitar intro. It would go on to become their twelfth US Top 40 hit, reaching #8 during a two month chart run. As for Campbell, he would tour with the band from December, 1964 until early March, 1965.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
The Beatles' "Yesterday" topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Cashbox Best Sellers chart. The song was actually recorded by Paul McCartney alone, who had earlier tried in vain to fit the other members in, but would later admit he just couldn't make the song work in any other form.

October 9
The Miracles' "My Girl Has Gone" enters the Hot 100 where it will reach #14. It's the Motown group's 20th Pop chart entry.

1969 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
For the first time in the history of the UK music TV show Top Of The Pops, producers refuse to air the number one song in the nation. "Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus" was a provocative, French language love song performed by songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and actress Jane Birkin that had caused such a stir in Britain that the original label, Fontana, dropped the record despite its being number 2 on the charts. A small record company, Major Minor, immediately bought the rights and saw the song climb to number 1 in Britain, the first French song to ever do so. In the US, despite being popular on University campuses, the record received little or no air-play and did not chart.

October 9
A&M Records releases The Carpenters' debut album, "Offering". The LP, which will only reach #150 on the Billboard 200 chart, includes the duo's first single, a cover of The Beatles' "Ticket To Ride". That song would peak at #54 on the Billboard Hot 100. After The Carpenters' break-through, the album would be renamed "Ticket To Ride".

1970 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Elvis Presley purchases a pre-production prototype of a 1971 Stutz Blackhawk. In July of the following year, the car was involved in an accident while a chauffeur took it out to have it washed. Elvis put the car in storage and repairs were not completed until the early 1980s, using headlights from a 1961 Chrysler Imperial.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
John Lennon celebrates his 31st birthday at Yoko Ono's This Is Not Here exhibition at the Everson Art Museum in Syracuse, New York. Ringo Starr, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and a host of Hollywood actors also stopped by to view Yoko's first major art show.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Polydor Records releases Cream's double album, "Heavy Cream", which would peak at #135 on the Billboard 200. The set contains "White Room", "Sunshine Of Your Love" and other tracks from the band's back catalogue.

1973 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Elvis and Priscilla Presley are granted a divorce after six and half years of marriage. She is given property along with $725,000 and an additional $4,200 a month for the support of their five-year old daughter, Lisa Marie. The settlement also includes half the proceeds from the sale of an L.A. home and five percent of the total outstanding stock in two publishing companies. The couple emerge from a Santa Monica, California courthouse arm in arm, kiss and depart separately. Elvis was later quoted as saying, "Sad thing is... you can still love someone and be wrong for them." In 2015 Priscilla would look back at her marriage to Elvis and say, "He was the father of my child and I learned so much from that man. I'm not saying that everything was wonderful, marriages have problems, and especially in that Rock 'n' Roll environment, but we had an amazing bond."

1975 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
John Lennon and his wife Yoko celebrate his 35th birthday with the birth of their only child, Sean Taro Ono Lennon.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
"A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy And The Big Apple Band reaches the top of the Billboard singles chart and is awarded a Gold record. In the UK it made it to #28. The song was a Disco treatment of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
John Lennon releases "Starting Over", his first single in five years. At the end of December it would top the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks and the UK chart for a week.

1985 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Marking what would have been John Lennon's 45th birthday, Yoko Ono formally dedicated a two and a half acre landscaped section in New York's Central Park called Strawberry Fields. The entrance to the memorial is located on Central Park West at West 72nd Street, directly across from the Dakota Apartments where Lennon had lived during the later part of his life and where he was murdered in 1980. To this day, fans still gather there to reflect and sing Lennon songs.

1988 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Cliff Gallup, the lead guitarist for the Rockabilly group Gene Vincent And The Blue Caps, suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 58. He had played on Vincent's biggest hit, "Be-Bop-A-Lula" in 1956, but left the band later that year, not wanting to tour. At the time of his death he was working as the director of maintenance and transportation for the Chesapeake, Virginia, city school system. At the request of his family, obituaries in local newspapers made no mention of his time with Gene Vincent.

2002 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman was denied parole for a second time on October 9th, the same day that Lennon would have turned 62. The state parole board issued a statement that said releasing Chapman after twenty-two years in prison would "deprecate the seriousness" of the crime and while Chapman had "acceptable" behavior in prison, that didn't guarantee he wouldn't pose a threat to society. At his first parole hearing two years earlier, Chapman said he did not deserve to go free. The 48-year-old prisoner lived in a housing unit separate from the general population for his own safety and worked as a clerk.

2007 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Most of George Harrison's solo music made its digital debut with the release of iTunes versions of his albums. Harrison's catalog was the last of the four Beatles' to go digital.

2008 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
News media reported that Madonna sang an impromptu song at a recent concert in which she threatened U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin by saying "I will kick her ass / Just get off of my street."

October 9
Paul McCartney, who has been a vegetarian for thirty years, was furious when he heard that a Liverpool branch of McDonald's restaurant displayed his picture, accusing them of using it to attract customers. Sir Paul was quoted as saying "What sort of morons do McDonald's think Beatles fans are?"

2011 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
69-year-old Paul McCartney announced an eleven date tour that would take him through Russia, Europe and the United Arab Emirates, set to begin the following month.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Paul McCartney surprised four hundred students at the Frank Sinatra School for the Arts with a performance of a thirteen song set consisting of tunes from his latest album along with Beatles and Wings classics. Macca delighted the assembly by telling them, "This beats going to class," as he kicked off the show with "Eight Days A Week".

2014 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
The Eagles' Don Henley launched a lawsuit against The Duluth Trading Company over alleged unauthorized use of his name, trademarks and publicity rights in one of their e-mail advertisements. The company used the pun "Don a Henley and Take it easy" in an advertisement selling a collarless, half-button pullover shirt style known as "Henley." Duluth would settle the suit next April and publish an apology on their website.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

October 9
Figures released by the Recording Industry Association of America showed a 52.1 percent gain in vinyl record sales that accounted for more than $221 million in revenue. CDs, meanwhile, sold slightly more than 41 million units so far this year, a 27.6 percent drop from last year's midpoint tally of 56.8 million. They generated nearly $495 million in revenue, which represents a drop of more than 30 percent below last year's $722 million sales value.



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