Happy Birthday to Adam Clayton (Bassist for U2!)
In Today’s Rock History!
1964 - The Beatles Billboard reported that sales of Beatles singles currently accounted for 60 percent of the US singles market and The Beatles album Meet the Beatles had reached a record 3.5 million copies sold.
1965 - The Beatles started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Eight Days A Week’, the group’s 7th US No.1. Paul McCartney would later say the name of the song came from a chauffeur who drove him one day. ‘I said, ‘How’ve you been?’ ‘Oh working hard,’ he said, ‘Working eight days a week.’
1965 - Eric Clapton quit The Yardbirds due to musical differences with the other band members. Clapton wanted to continue in a blues type vein, while the rest of the band preferred the more commercial style of their first hit, ‘For Your Love’.
1966 - Rod Stewart left the British blues band Steampacket to work as a solo artist. Arguably, the UK’s first “supergroup” Steampacket was formed in 1965 by Long John Baldry and also featured singer Julie Driscoll, organist Brian Auger and guitarist Vic Briggs.
1966 - Pink Floyd appeared for the first time at The The Marquee Club in Wardour Street, London, England. The Marquee became the most important venue for the emerging British scene and witnessed the rise of some of the most important artists in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Manfred Mann, The Who, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and Genesis.
1967 - The Beatles Working at Abbey Road studios in London, six members of Sounds, Inc. recorded the horn parts for The Beatles song ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ (three saxophones, two trombones, and one French horn).
1976 - The Eagles Their Greatest Hits” begins a four-week stay at #1 on the Billboard 200. It recaptures the #1 position the following month on its way to becoming the best-selling album of all time.
1987 - Bob Seger is inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1993 - Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” lands at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
1993 - Eric Clapton started a three-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with Unplugged. It remains the most successful and best-selling live album ever, winning two Grammy awards at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards in 1993. It is also Clapton’s best-selling album ever, having sold 26 million copies worldwide.
1995 - Radiohead released their second studio album The Bends. In the UK, The Bends, which features the tracks ‘High and Dry’ and ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ reached No.4 and stayed on the chart for 160 weeks. In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums and NME organized a poll in which 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever. The Bends was placed at No.10.
2006 - Here’s an unlikely combination. The Sex Pistols, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Blondie are inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. “Don’t accept the old order,” says the Pistols’ Johnny Rotten. “Get rid of it.”
2010 - Mix lingerie-clad models with billionaire socialites and there’s bound to be trouble. A Guns N’ Roses VIP party in Sao Paulo, Brazil, turns nasty when the group doesn’t show up for a performance. As event organizers break the news, patrons begin fighting and destroying the club. “The audience got angry and started to mount the stage, and fight and destroy everything,” an eyewitness tells the New York Post. “I guess the free drinks didn’t help.” Ya think? It may have been the best GN’R no-show ever.
2011 - Jon Bon Jovi criticizes Apple’s Steve Jobs in the Sunday Times Magazine saying that Jobs is “personally responsible for killing the music business.” “Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes, and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like,” says Bon Jovi. Apple’s iTunes had recently sold its 10-billionth track.
2012 - A fight breaks out during a Van Halen concert in Manchester, NH. Singer David Lee Roth halts the band’s rendition of Roy Orbison’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman.” “What do you think this is, a f-ing mosh pit?,” Roth shouts at the fighters. “You’ve got all the best-looking women on the f-ing east coast here and all you can f-ing think of is f-ing fighting?” As security sorts out the mess, Roth instructs the band to “start it back at the top… let’s do the whole thing over again.”
2013 - Jimi Hendrix scored his highest chart debut since 1969 when his new studio album, People, Hell & Angels, consisting of unreleased tracks recorded with a variety of musicians between 1968 and 1970, sold 72,000 copies in the US on the week of release and made its debut at No.2 on the charts.
2018 - Judas Priest’s world tour begins in Wilkes-Barre, PA. It’s the band’s first performance since guitarist Glenn Tipton announced that he is not touring due to his battle with Parkinson’s disease.
2022 - Sir Rod Stewart filmed himself fixing potholes on a road near his home and complaining about the state of it. Videos on the 77-year-old singer’s Instagram account showed him shoveling gravel in Harlow, Essex, claiming “no-one can be bothered to do it”. In one, he said: “People are bashing their cars up. The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tire. My Ferrari can’t go through here at all.” Rod was seen dressed in a tracksuit and high-vis vest while singing and shoveling.
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