This is the week that was in matters musical …
1954, Elvis Presley officially ends his career as a truck driver when he signs his first record contract with Sun Records …
1962, the Rolling Stones play out for the first time at the Marquee Club in London … Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, Mick Avery, and Dick Taylor constitute the lineup …
1965, The Rolling Stones begin a four-week run at the top of the charts with “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” … Keith Richards came up with the signature guitar riff one sleepless night … an acoustic version of the song had been recorded in May but it was rejected until Richards plugged in his new Gibson Maestro fuzzbox and its signature riff mutated into a a sax-like clarion call to revel in the pounding, snarling, protest against youthful frustration …
1966, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker get together to form one of rock’s most celebrated trios, Cream …
1968, Steppenwolf releases the ultimate biker anthem “Born To Be Wild” …
1969, Blind Faith makes their American concert debut at Madison Square Garden …
1973, The Everly Brothers arrive at an ignominious career low when the sweet-harmonizing siblings’ set at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, is stopped by the theme park’s entertainment director who feels Don is doing a poor job … brother Phil sees red, smashes his guitar, and stalks offstage … Don performs the third set as a solo and announces that the Everly Brothers are history … singer and guitarist for the Byrds, Clarence White is run down and killed by a drunk driver while loading equipment after a gig in Palmdale, California …
1979, Chuck Berry is sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service after pleading guilty to tax evasion … Berry will perform benefit concerts as part of his community service …
1986, after 28 years of collaboration, Columbia Records drops Johnny Cash, who then signs with Mercury …
1989, Venice, Italy is overrun by 200,000 loonies who show up for a free Pink Floyd concert and annoy the Venetians with noise, littering, and rampant drug use …
1999, Limp Bizkit leader Fred Durst is arrested in St. Paul for suspicion of aggravated assault following the band’s show at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium … during the performance, Durst’s bodyguard attempts to remove a fan who has jumped onstage … venue security mistakes the bodyguard for an unruly fan and attempts to remove him from the stage … at this point Durst allegedly kicks one of the guards in the head …
2002, Bob Seger wins the Port Huron to Mackinac Island Sailboat Race, his second sailing title in two years …
2006, punk band Sleater-Kinney announces that after an 11-year run they will go on “indefinite hiatus” … in a sorry commentary on the state of pop music sales and the vapidity of the product being crammed down the throats of the music buying public, the soundtrack to Disney’s High School Musical scores top-seller status through the first half of 2006 with 2.6 million discs sold … the industry continues to struggle with overall CD sales down four percent … rap and rock are the biggest losers while digital downloads offer a ray of hope with a 77 percent uptick … but the online business consists mostly of sales of singles and the profit margins for the record companies and artists are much slimmer … country music is an exception posting a 17 percent increase in disc sales … following a protracted dispute over rent with its landlord, punk club CBGB announces it will shut down its New York venue forever on September 30 … plans are afoot for the club to be reborn in Las Vegas … founder Hilly Kristal vows that, “We’re going to take the bars, the stage, the toilets, the urinals, even the original doors. We want to re-create the realism and the essence of CBGB.” …
2007, Prince angers the music industry and stirs up trouble among British retailers by giving away his new album with a tabloid paper …
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
July 10: composer and music educator Carl Orff (1895), Ronnie James Dio (1940), Jerry Miller of Moby Grape (1943), Arlo Guthrie (1947), Dave Smalley of The Raspberries (1949), Greg Kihn (1950), Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys (1954), banjo maestro Bela Fleck (1958), Peter DiStefano of Porno for Pyros (1965), Jessica Simpson (1980)
July 11: actor and pop singer Tab Hunter (1931), Thurston Harris (1931), Jeff Hanna of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (1947), Bonnie Pointer (1950), Benny DeFranco of the DeFranco Family (1954), Suzanne Vega (1959), Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi (1960), Li’l Kim (1975)
July 12: Oscar Hammerstein II (1895), Barbara Cowsill (1928), pianist Van Cliburn (1934), blues guitarist Sammy Lawhorne (1935), Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac (1943), John Wetton of Asia (1949), Eric Carr of KISS (1950), Liz Mitchell of Boney M (1952), Sandi Patti (1956), Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy (1962), UB40’s Alan Duval (1963), John Petrucci of Dream Theater (1967)
July 13: drummer Steven Jo Bladd of the J. Geils Band (1942), Roger McGuinn (1942), Cheech Marin (1946), Louise Mandrell (1954), Mark Mendoza of Twisted Sister (1956), rock journalist and movie maker Cameron Crowe (1957), Gerald Levert (1966), Coldplay’s Will Champion (1978)
July 14: Woody Guthrie (1912), D.J. Zenas Sears (1913), Cliff Trenier (1919), Lowman Pauling of the “5” Royales (1926), Bob Scholl (1938), Vince Taylor (1939), soul singer Ty Hunter (1940), Trevor Horn of Buggles and Yes (1949), Chris Cross (1952), Tanya Donelly of Belly (1966), Ellen Reid of Crash Test Dummies (1966), Tameka Cottle of Xscape (1975), Taboo of Black Eyed Peas (1975)
July 15: Cowboy Copas (1913), Motown drummer William “Benny” Benjamin (1925), potty-mouth soul star Millie Jackson (1944), Peter Lewis of Moby Grape (1945), Linda Ronstadt (1946), guitarist for .38 Special Jeff Carlisi (1952), Johnny Thunders (1952), master guitarist Joe Satriani (1956), Ian Curtis of Joy Division (1956)
July 16: Sollie McElroy of the Flamingos (1934), soul songstress Denise LaSalle (1939), Ruben Blades (1948), Stewart Copeland (1952), Ed Kowalczyk of Live (1971)
Departures:
July 10: legendary Columbia A&R man John Hammond Sr. (1987), conductor Arthur Fiedler (1979), “Jelly Roll” Morton born Ferdinand Joseph Lemott (1941)
July 11: James Hill of The Fairfield Four (2000), Helen Forrest (1999), Louis Gottlieb (1996), Afro-Cuban jazz maestro Mario Bauza (1993), Hubert Johnson of The Contours (1981), George Gershwin (1937)
July 12: Sandy y Papo’s Luis “Papo” Deschamps (1999), Jimmie Driftwood (1998), Jonathan Melvoin of Smashing Pumpkins (1996)
July 13: Cuban maestro Compay Segundo (2003), Arthur “Killer” Kane of the New York Dolls (2004), Chicago blues pianist Eddie Boyd (1994)
July 14: “British Queen of the Blues” Beryl Bryden (1998), Phillipe Wynne of the Spinners (1984), Malcolm Owen of the Rutts (1980), progressive country guitarist Clarence White of The Byrds (1973)
July 15: rapper Too Poetic aka Anthony Berkeley (2001), Bobby Day (1990), Bizarros drummer Rick Garberson (1979)
July 16: salsa singer Celia Cruz (2003), Styx drummer John Panozzo (1996), Sun Records’ Bill Justis (1982), Harry Chapin (1981), Peter Cowap of Herman’s Hermits (1977)