It happened this week

This is the week that was in matters musical…

1964, The Rolling Stones make their American concert debut at the Manning Bowl in Lynn, Massachusetts …

1965, The Yardbirds’ “For Your Love” enters the Billboard Hot 100 at #84 … the song stays on the charts for 12 weeks, peaking at #6 … the record marks Eric Clapton’s last session with a band he feels is growing too pop …

1967, The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band … the album will go on to win a number of Grammys and be hailed by many as one of the most influential rock albums ever, both for its songs and its production … it’s also one of the first to have lyrics printed on the sleeve … the runout groove at the end of the record contains a few seconds of gibberish from The Beatles …

1969, Tommy, The Who’s rock opera, hits #2 in the U.K. and #4 in the U.S. … Blind Faith makes its live debut at a free concert in London’s Hyde Park … an estimated 150,000 people attend the show … the group, consisting of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech, will disband the following October after a U.S. tour that Winwood describes as “vulgar, crude, disgusting (and) lacking in integrity” …

1971, Grand Funk Railroad sells out its concert at Shea Stadium within 72 hours … this breaks the previous box-office record there, held by The Beatles …

1974, king of the big keyboard sound, Rick Wakeman, parts ways with Yes to pursue a solo career … he will rejoin the band for 1977’s Going for the One, setting the pattern for decades of on-again/off-again relations …

1979, Chuck Berry performs for President Jimmy Carter at the White House … just a month later he’ll be sentenced to four months on tax evasion charges …

1980, The Grateful Dead celebrates 15 years together at an anniversary concert in Phoenix, Ariz. …

1983, Jim Gordon, former in-demand L.A. session drummer and co-writer of “Layla” for Derek and the Dominos, listening to the voices in his head, murders his mother … he will be sentenced to a life prison term in California …

1991, Bruce Springsteen weds singer-songwriter Patti Scialfa, who has been singing backup vocals with the Boss’ E-Street Band for the past four years …

1992, after more than one million votes on the Elvis likeness to be used on a postage stamp are received, Priscilla Presley announces from the Graceland lawn that the ’50s-era King prevailed … fans had a choice between the young Elvis and the portly, chops-bearing King in his Vegas years … young Elvis took home 851,200 votes while the Vegas King garnered 277,723 …

1997, the drowned body of singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley is found in the Mississippi River … Buckley had decided to go for a swim days earlier in a slackwater channel known as Wolf River Harbor, where he had swam before … as roadie Keith Foti watched, Buckley had sauntered into the river fully clothed singing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” before dropping out of sight … his death was ruled an accidental drowning, with no signs of drugs or alcohol in his system …

1998, Sir Paul McCartney is joined by his former bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr as well as Pete Townshend, Elton John, and other rock luminaries to mourn the death of Linda McCartney … attendees at the private service held at St. Martin in the Fields church in London sing “Let it Be” and the Brodsky Quartet performs “The Lovely Linda” and “Calico Skies,” songs Sir Paul wrote for his late wife …

1999, Tim McGraw and 400 attendees of his charity concert are forced to evacuate the 7th House in Pontiac, Mich., after a female fan pepper-sprays a man she claims groped her … McGraw collapses mid-song from the spray as the exodus begins … the incomparable Mel “The Velvet Fog” Torme dies from complications of a stroke that ended his career three years earlier …

2000, Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood enters Priory Clinic, a rehab centre in London, to deal with his alcohol addiction … Sinead O’Connor outs herself in an article that appears in Curve magazine …

2002, KISS bassist-media mogul Gene Simmons announces the launch of Tongue magazine … the Maxim-ish publication features plenty of scantily clad babes as well as interviews with musicians … preliminary sales of the magazine prompt Simmons to proclaim, “We have a huge smash!” … the magazine folds after only five issues despite his claim … in London, Sir Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Sir Elton John, Ozzie Osbourne, Annie Lennox, Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, and Eric Clapton perform at an event dubbed “Party in the Palace” to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II …

2003, Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington is hospitalized with severe back and abdominal pains in Los Angeles … plans for festival dates in Europe are scrapped as a result … Napster-haters Metallica announce a new website, Metallicavault.com … the site offers free downloads of live recordings, rare demos, and B-sides … to access the material, fans use a passkey included in copies of the band’s forthcoming album St. Anger, making the downloads not-so-free after all … singer-songwriter Barry Manilow, notable for his hook-ridden melodies and outsized proboscis, manages to break that organ when he walks into a bedroom wall at his Palm Springs, California, home … evincing a sense of humor in recalling the accident, Manilow says, “I veered to the left instead of the right and slammed right into the wall. I may have to have my nose fixed and, with this nose, it’s going to require major surgery.” … early reports indicate Led Zeppelin’s three-disc live album How the West Was Won will debut at #1 on the U.S. album chart … rapper 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ ends up at #2 …

2004, legendary ’80s metal band Judas Priest plays the first show of its reunion tour with singer Rob Halford in Hanover, Germany … Halford left the group in 1993 to form the alt-metal band Fight … he was replaced by Tim Owens, frontman for a Judas Priest cover band …

2006, multi-platinum songstress Norah Jones has been signed to appear in the movie My Blueberry Nights … the film will open to unanimously harsh reviews … word on the street is Courtney Love has received a $540,000 advance from publisher Faber and Faber for her memoir …

2008, Kurt Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, reports his ashes were stolen from her Los Angeles home … although in typical Love fashion the distraught widow eventually recants the claim, months later German artist Natascha Stellman claims to have acquired the ashes and intends to smoke them in a joint as part of her “Set Me Free” exhibit …

2010, Rush releases the legal hounds on Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for one of Kentucky’s U.S. Senate seats … Paul had been playing the band’s “The Spirit of Radio” and “Tom Sawyer” to pump up crowds at his campaign rallies … Rush claims it’s not about politics, but copyrights …

… and that was the week that was …

Arrivals:

June 2: African-American fife player Othar Turner (1907), Chicago blues pianist and guitarist Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston (1917), Charlie Watts (1941), William Guest of Gladys Knight & The Pips (1941), bass player Pete Farndon of the Pretenders (1952), Bangles bassist-vocalist Michael Steele (1959), Spandau Ballet singer Tony Hadley (1960), Thor Eldon Jonsson of The Sugarcubes (1962), B-Real of Cypress Hill (1970), The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moreti (1980)

June 3: Memphis Minnie, gritty-voiced blues singer with a percussive guitar style (1896), Jimmy Rogers, guitarist with Muddy Waters (1924), June Abbit aka Joe Abbit, Sr. of The 5 Royales (1932), Curtis Mayfield (1942), Michael Clark, drummer with The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Byrds (1943), John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin (1946), Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople (1946), Byrds drummer Michael Clarke (1946), Dave Alexander, Stooges bassist (1947), T. Rex percussionist Mickey Finn (1947), Suzi Quatro (1950), Deniece Williams (1951), Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell (1952), David Cole, producer of C+C Music Factory (1962), Kerry King of Slayer (1964), Phish bassist Mike Gordon (1965), No Mercy’s Ariel (1971), Cuban jazz musician Gabriel Hernandez (1971)

June 4: Freddy Fender, born Baldemar Huerta (1937), Roger Ball of Average White Band (1944), Gordon Waller of Peter & Gordon (1945), Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas (1945), El DeBarge (1961), Brian McKnight (1969), Stefan Lessard of The Dave Matthews Band (1974)

June 5: jazz pianist Pete Jolly (1932), Floyd Butler of The Friends of Distinction (1941), Freddie Stone of Sly & The Family Stone (1946), Badfinger’s Tom Evans (1947), Laurie Anderson (1947), keyboardist Frank Esler-Smith of Air Supply (1948), soul singer Ronnie Dyson (1950), Nicko McBrain of Iron Maiden (1952), Peter Erskine (1954), Kenny G (1956), Richard Butler of The Psychedelic Furs (1956), Mark Wahlberg (1971), Aaron “P-Nut” Wills of 311 (1974), Sebastien Lefebvre of Simple Plan (1981)

June 6: Chess Records session drummer S.P. Leary (1930), Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops (1936), Gary U.S. Bonds (1939), The Byrds’ Clarence White (1944), Tom Araya, lead vocalist-bassist of Slayer (1961), James Schaffer of Korn (1970)

June 7: Dean Martin (1917), Welsh crooner Tom Jones (1940), Steve Torbert of New Riders of the Purple Sage (1948), Prince born Prince Roger Nelson (1958), Ecstacy of Whodini (1964), Eric Kretz of Stone Temple Pilots (1966), Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers (1967)

June 8: Nancy “Boots” Sinatra (1940), Sherman Garnes of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers (1940), Jesse Bolian of the Artistics (1941), Jon Lord of Deep Purple (1941), Three Dog Night’s Chuck Negron (1942), Boz Scaggs (1944), Uriah Heep’s Mick Box (1947), Bonnie Tyler aka Gaynor Hoskins (1953), Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall (1960), Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes (1962), Rob Pilatus of the faux pop duo Milli Vanilli (1965), Alex Band of The Calling (1981)

Departures:

June 2: Bo Diddley (2008), Vince Welnick, Grateful Dead keyboardist and co-founder of The Tubes (2006), Western swing pioneer Adolph Hofner (2000), Junior Braithwaite, one of the original members of The Wailers (1999), bassist Andy Simpkins (1999), legendary jazz trumpeter Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham (1997), Andres Segovia (1987), Flamingos singer Nate Nelson (1984), folksinger Stan Rogers (1983), Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys (1983), jazz trumpeter Bunny Berigan (1942)

June 3: blues belter Koko Taylor (2009), Louis Prima saxman Sam Butera (2009), Richard Sohl of The Patti Smith Group (1990), The Duprees’ Joe Santollo (1981), rock journalist Ralph Gleason (1975), Mississippi Fred McDowell (1971)

June 4: folk singer John Hartford (2001), Ronnie Lane of The Small Faces (1997), Herman’s Hermits guitarist Lek Leckenby (1994), Stiv Bators of Dead Boys (1990), jazz-blues pianist Todd Rhodes (1965)

June 5: guitarist Robert Quine (2004), Ramones founder and bassist Dee Dee Ramone (2002), singer Mel “The Velvet Fog” Torme (1999), Ernie Wilkins, jazz saxophonist and arranger for Count Basie (1999), pop and country singer Conway Twitty born Harold Lloyd Jenkins (1993), Tejano accordionist Narciso Martinez (1992), ex-Steely Dan drummer Jimmy Hodder (1990), bluesman “Sleepy” John Estes (1977)

June 6: Billy Preston (2006), former Animals keyboardist Dave Rowberry (2003), Pariah bassist Sims Ellison (1995), smooth saxophonist Stan Getz (1991), British Decca A&R man Dick Rowe (1986)

June 7: Tommy Perkins of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys (2003), James Eugene “Rosy” McHargue, singer and reedman for the Benny Goodman Orchestra (1999), Schwann Recording Catalog editor William Schwann (1998), producer-songwriter Jerry Capehart (1998)

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