Happy Birthday Ritchie Blackmore!
FUN FACT!!!
In 1974, Keith Richards was nominated ‘The World’s Most Elegantly Wasted Human Being’ by the New Musical Express.
In 1992, Billy Idol pleaded guilty to assault and battery charges after an incident outside a West Hollywood restaurant. He was fined $2,700 and ordered to appear in a series of anti-drug commercials.
Today in Rock History!!!
1963 - The Rolling Stones played at The Crawdaddy Club, Richmond. All four members of The Beatles were in the audience. The name of the club derived from Bo Diddley's 1960 song ‘Doing the CrawDaddy’, which The Rolling Stones regularly performed as part of their set. In turn the club would inspire the name of the American music magazine Crawdaddy!
1967 - David Bowie's novelty record ‘The Laughing Gnome’ was released in the UK. The track consisted of the singer meeting and conversing with the creature of the title, whose sped-up voice (created by Bowie and studio engineer Gus Dudgeon) delivered several puns on the word ‘gnome’. The song became a hit when reissued in 1973, despite it being radically different to his material at the time, the single made No. 6 in the UK charts.
1967 - The Rolling Stones A riot broke out at Warsaw’s Palace Of Culture as The Rolling Stones made their first appearance in an Iron curtain Country; police used tear gas in a battle with 2,000 fans.
1969 - John Lennon The recording of ‘The Ballad Of John and Yoko’ took place, with just two Beatles, Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Paul played bass, drums and piano with John on guitars and lead vocals. The song was banned from many radio stations as being blasphemous. On some stations, the word ‘Christ’ was edited in backwards to avoid the ban.
1970 - Creedence Clearwater Revival made their live UK debut when they played the first of two nights at The Royal Albert Hall, London.
1973 - Led Zeppelin started a two-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with Houses Of The Holy also a No.1 in the US. The young girl featured on the cover of the album climbing naked up Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland is Samantha Gates who was 6 years old at the time of the photo shoot.
1975 - Ron Wood After rumours that Jimmy Page, Steve Marriott, Jeff Beck or Chris Spedding variously would replace Mick Taylor as guitarist in The Rolling Stones, a press release confirmed that Ronnie Wood would be joining the band for their forthcoming American tour.
1980 - Judas Priest release “British Steel” The group’s sixth album is the first to feature drummer Dave Holland and contains the track “Breaking The Law.”
1980 - Iron Maiden unleash their self-titled debut album. Paul Di’Anno is the vocalist (Bruce Dickinson’s tenure begins in ‘81).
1982 - Diver Down Van Halen’s fifth studio album, is released. Selling four-million copies it spends 65-weeks on the U.S. album chart. The album cover displays the ‘diver down’ flag.
1983 - Pete Farndon The Pretenders bass player Pete Farndon died from a drug overdose. He was sacked from the group on June 14th 1982, (two days before Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott was found dead of heart failure). Farndon was in the midst of forming a new band with former The Clash drummer Topper Headon when he died.
1994 - Kurt Cobain was cremated at the Bleitz Funeral Home, Seattle. The death certificate listed Cobain’s occupation as Poet/Musician and his type of business as Punk Rock.
2009 - Former Beatle George Harrison was honoured with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. Sir Paul McCartney attended the unveiling outside the landmark Capitol Records building, joining Harrison’s widow Olivia and son Dhani. Eric Idle, Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and musician Tom Petty also attended the ceremony.
2012 - Guns N’ Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Small Faces/Faces are inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame at Cleveland’s Public Hall. As expected, frontman Axl Rose is a no-show. The flu keeps Rod Stewart from fronting the Faces during their induction.
2019 - Queen’s biopic, “Bohemian Rhapsody” passes the $900 million box office at the worldwide. The Hollywood Reporter states the film grossed $216.2 million in North America and $685.2 million overseas (including over $110 million coming from Japan).
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