Rock 'n' Roll History for
September 23


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1905 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
The first regular column devoted to music appeared in Billboard magazine. Up until then, the publication's main topics were the outdoor advertising industry and live entertainment at circuses and fairs.

1953 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
The Spaniels record "Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight", which will reach the Billboard Top 30 next year despite competition from a Pop-style, Gold record version by the McGuire Sisters. The song became well known again in the late 1970s as the closing song performed by Sha Na Na on their weekly variety show as well as its appearance in American Graffiti, and again in the late 1980s after its use in the hit film Three Men and a Baby.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Buddy Holly And The Crickets scored their only US number one hit with their first Billboard chart maker, "That'll Be the Day". The record would go on to sell a million copies in America. Holly would later reach the Top Ten with "Peggy Sue" and "Oh, Boy!" and crack the Top 20 with "Maybe Baby" and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore".

1966 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
The Rolling Stones kick off a twenty-three date tour of the UK. The opening acts were Ike And Tina Turner, The Kings Rhythm Orchestra, The Yardbirds and Peter Jay And The New Jaywalkers.

1967 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
16-year-old Alex Chilton led The Box Tops to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 with "The Letter". In the UK, it reached #5. The song would go on to sell over four million copies and receive two Grammy nominations for Best Contemporary Group Performance and Best Performance By A Vocal Group, although they lost both to The Fifth Dimension. As for the song, "The Letter", it's come back twice since The Box Tops' version. It was a Top Twenty hit for a group called The Arbours in 1969, and a Top Ten song for Joe Cocker in 1970.

September 23
The Strawberry Alarm Clock perform "Incense and Peppermints" on American Bandstand, pushing it further up the US charts.

September 23
The song "To Sir with Love" by Lulu, from the film of the same name, entered the Billboard Hot 100 where it eventually reached number one. The record wasn't promoted in Britain and didn't make the UK chart.

September 23
Philadelphia's eight-man band The Soul Survivors enter the Billboard Top 40 with "Expressway To Your Heart", which will reach #4. Unfortunately for the group, the follow-up to this million selling single, "Explosion (In Your Soul"), would only manage #33 during a three week stay.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Danny O'Keefe enters the Billboard Top 40 with "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues". The self-penned tune will rise to #9 during its ten week stay, earning a Gold Record for selling a million copies. Over the years, the song has been covered by Elvis Presley, Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Charlie Rich and Jerry Lee Lewis.

September 23
After a string of TV and Las Vegas stage shows had made him famous, Mac Davis achieves his only US chart topper with "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me". It made #29 in the UK. Mac would go on to have three more Top 40 hits over the next two years and starred in his own weekly TV show on NBC from '74 to '76 before enjoying further success in Country music.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
The drummer for The Average White Band, 24-year-old Robbie McIntosh, was found dead in his North Hollywood hotel room. He died of a heroin overdose after he inhaled a white powder thought to be cocaine but was actually pure heroin.

September 23
Elvis Presley goes on a $100,000 shopping spree in Memphis and buys six Lincoln Continentals and five Cadillacs and distributes them among his friends.

September 23
Apple Records releases John Lennon's "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night". It would peak at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 on November 16th, becoming his only #1 single in the United States during his lifetime. In the UK, the song could only manage to climb to #36.

1977 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Steely Dan release their sixth studio album, "Aja" (pronounced "Asia"). The LP would peak at #3 on the Billboard 200 and #5 in the UK, becoming the band's most commercially successful album. It spawned three hit singles, "Peg" (#11), "Deacon Blues" (#19), and "Josie" (#26).

September 23
The Rolling Stones issue the live, double album, "Love You Live", which would reach #3 in the UK and #5 in America. Originally conceived as a single disc LP, it was expanded to two platters because Mick Jagger and Keith Richards could not agree on which tracks, recorded on tour in 1975, to include.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
35-year-old Bob Marley collapses on stage at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh. He will be flown to the Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York where he is diagnosed with a brain tumor and told he has just one month to live, although he will actually survive until next May. The rest of his tour is canceled.

1997 - ClassicBands.com
September 23
The Rolling Stones start their Bridges To Babylon tour at Chicago's Soldier Field. They begin the show with "Satisfaction" and close it 2 1/2 hours later with "Brown Sugar".

1998 - ClassicBands.com
September 23
Elvis Presley was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. The King Of Rock And Roll placed forty-one singles on Billboard's Country Music charts between 1956 and 1977, including ten that made it to number one.

2006 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Neil Young was named Artist Of The Year at the fifth annual Americana Honors and Awards in Nashville, Tennessee. The 60-year-old singer-songwriter released the protest album "Living With War" a few months earlier.

2009 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Fourteen re-mastered Beatles albums and boxed sets sold more than 2.25 million copies during the first five days they were on sale in North America, Japan and the UK, prompting EMI Music CEO Elio Leoni-Sceti to declare that "Beatlemania has returned."

September 23
Former child star Mackenzie Phillips revealed that she maintained a consensual sexual relationship with her father, John Phillips of The Mamas And Papas, for more than a decade. Phillips also said that her father, who died in 2001, introduced her to drugs at the age of 11, teaching her how to roll joints and injecting her with cocaine.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California was shut down for a fifteen song set by Paul McCartney on the roof of the El Capitan Theatre that followed his appearance on TV's Jimmy Kimmel Live. An estimated crowd of 10,000 listened from the street.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Columbia Records announced the release of "Alone In The Universe", the first new album by ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) in fifteen years. The LP would reach #23 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the UK Official Chart.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Neil Young was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame during an event that took place in Toronto at Massey Hall. "I'm terribly proud to be Canadian," Young told the crowd after being introduced by Randy Bachman. "I know I've traveled a lot... but I've always been a Canadian citizen. I've never been a citizen of anywhere else, even though I love the USA."

2019 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Robert Hunter, the man who wrote the lyrics for many of The Grateful Dead's most well-known songs, passed away at the age of 78.

2023 - ClassicBands.com

September 23
Terry Kirkwood, a founding member of The Association, died of heart failure at the age of 83 after a long illness. During the band's career he wrote their biggest hit, "Cherish" along "Everything That Touches You", and contributed vocals to their other hits, including "Never My Love".



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