Rock 'n' Roll History for
September 18


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1956 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
A fight broke out during a Fats Domino concert at the Naval base in Newport, Rhode Island, where several are injured and arrested. Rock and Roll music would be banned at the club for a month.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
A record hop style show called The Big Record premieres on CBS-TV. Hostess Patti Page welcomed her guests, Sal Mineo, Billy Ward And His Dominoes, and Tony Bennett.

1960 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
On his twenty-first birthday, Frankie Avalon is given $600,000 that he earned as a minor.

September 18
The Tab Hunter Show premieres on NBC. The program stars the actor and singer who reached #1 on Billboard's Top 100 with "Young Love" in 1957. The situation comedy centered around Paul Morgan, a young comic-strip artist and his romantic adventures. Unable to compete in its time slot with The Ed Sullivan Show, the series would be canceled on April 30th, 1961


1961 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Bobby Vee scores his third US Top Ten hit and his only number one with "Take Good Care Of My Baby". The song reached #3 on the UK chart.

September 18
15 year old English actress Hayley Mills sees her US debut recording "Let's Get Together" enter the Billboard charts, where it will reach #8. Concentrating mostly on her film career, she would have just one more hit next year when "Johnny Jingo" reached #21.

1967 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
The Beach Boys release their twelfth studio album, "Smiley Smile". The LP is the subject of harsh reviews and could only climb to #41 in America, although it did much better in the UK where it went to #9. "Good Vibrations" (US #1, UK #1) and "Heroes and Villains" (US #12, UK #8) were the hit singles included in the collection.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Paul McCartney writes "Birthday" during a recording session at EMI Studios. When the rest of The Beatles arrive, an arrangement is quickly worked out and the song is recorded the same night. Although the tune would end up opening the third side of "The White Album", John Lennon later described it as "a piece of garbage."

1970 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
27 year old Rock legend Jimi Hendrix died in Kensington, London, England. He was in an ambulance after taking too many sleeping pills when he choked to death on his own vomit and was pronounced D.O.A. at the hospital. His death was ruled an accident, but in 1993 an investigation was re-opened by Scotland Yard. When no new evidence was unearthed, the matter was dropped.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Bobby Sherman's TV sitcom Getting' Together premieres on ABC. It would be canceled after just 14 episodes.


1974 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
John Lennon appears as a guest D.J. on New York radio station WNEW-FM.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
"Play That Funky Music" by a Steubenville, Ohio quintet called Wild Cherry topped the Billboard Pop chart. It was the first of five chart singles for the band who took their name from a box of cough drops.

September 18
Boston's "More Than A Feeling" is released in the US, where it will reach #5. In the UK, the song topped out at #22. It was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll" and was ranked #212 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

1979 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Greg Arama, bassist for The Amboy Dukes on their 1968 hit, "Journey To The Center Of The Mind", was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was 29 years old.

September 18
The Eagles' "Heartache Tonight" is released. It will become their fifth Billboard number one single, but stalled at #40 in the UK.

1981 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
More than ten years after Jim Morrison's death, The Doors' "Greatest Hits" album goes Platinum. It would go on to become one of the highest-selling compilations of all time, with combined CD and vinyl sales of 5,000,000 in the United States alone.

1983 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
KISS appeared in public for the first time without their make-up when they guested on MTV, promoting the release of their newest album, "Lick It Up".

1996 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
At Sotheby's in London, Julian Lennon successfully bids just over $39,000 for the recording notes for a song that Paul McCartney wrote for him, "Hey Jude". At the same event, John Lennon's scribbled lyrics to "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite" sold for $103,500.

1998 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Charlie Foxx, a guitarist and vocalist who teamed up with his sister Inez on the 1963 Billboard #7 hit "Mockingbird", died of leukemia at the age of 68.

1999 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Carl Perkins Day is celebrated in the state of Tennessee.


2012 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Using a survey of more than 160,000 readers, British music magazine NME named John Lennon as Rock's ultimate icon. Former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher placed second, followed by David Bowie, Arctic Monkeys star Alex Turner and late Nirvana icon Kurt Cobain.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
The Who was forced to postpone all 50 dates of The Who Hits 50! tour because lead singer Roger Daltrey had contracted viral meningitis. Plans were made to reschedule for the Spring of 2016.

September 18
A tune called "Love Song to the Earth", billed as by Paul McCartney & Various Artists, debuted on Billboard's Pop Digital Songs chart at #36 with 11,000 first-week downloads.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
71-year-old Jann Wenner, who co-founded Rolling Stone magazine in 1967, officially put the publication up for sale, saying "it's time for young people to run it."

2020 - ClassicBands.com

September 18
Georgia Dobbins, an original member of The Marvelettes and the co-writer of their 1961 hit, "Please Mr. Postman", died of cardiac arrest at the age of 78. The record became Motown's first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Unfortunately, by the time The Marvelettes recorded it, Dobbins had left the group to look after her ailing mother and because her father forbade her from touring or getting involved in the music industry.



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