Pet Sounds 59th Anniversary

May 16, 1966 — Capitol Records releases the Beach Boys' landmark album Pet Sounds, produced with great ingenuity by 23-year-old Brian Wilson. Standout tracks include "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "God Only Knows." Rolling Stone says the album took more 10 than months to produce at a then unheard of cost of $70,000, making it one of the most expensive albums ever recorded at that time. However, Capitol executives are horrified because it is a departure from the group's surfing sound. They soon try to bury it and recoup their sizable investment with a Best of the Beach Boys album, which quickly goes gold while Pet Sounds sales are meager.
May 17, 1952 — 19-year-old Lloyd Price's first single, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” debuts on Billboard's R&B chart, staying for 26 weeks, seven of them at #1. Rock historians consider the smash record as one that hooked white youth and anticipated rock 'n' roll. May 20, 1954 — Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around The Clock" is released for the first time. It stalls on the charts, but becomes a hit a year later when it is used in the movie Blackboard Jungle.
                  1960 — Famed New York rock 'n' roll disc jockey Alan Freed is indicted for taking payola, namely $30,650 from six record companies to spin their discs on the air. In 1962, he pleads guilty to two counts of commercial bribery, receives a suspended sentence and $300 fine, and loses his job at powerhouse WABC Radio. (He leaves New York for radio jobs in Florida and California, but works only sporadically, and in 1965 dies in Palms Springs at age 43 of complications of alcoholism. Freed's ashes are interred under a jukebox-shaped headstone (right) in Cleveland, Ohio — the city where he first found fame in the early 1950s spinning increasingly popular rhythm and blues records.)

May 21, 1955 — Chuck Berry records his first single, "Maybellene." It zooms up the music charts, reaching #1 R&B and #5 pop, making Berry the first black rock artist to find national success performing his own music. (He is shocked to soon find, however, he shares composing credit with Alan Freed and another man as payola for promoting the record. In 1986, more than 30 years after he wrote "Maybellene," Berry is finally credited as the song's sole composer.)
                                                                         1964 — The Drifters record "Under The Boardwalk" the day after lead singer Rudy Lewis (right) ("Up On The Roof," "On Broadway," and others) is found dead. He is replaced by former member Johnny Moore.

May 22, 1955 — Police in Bridgeport, Connecticut cancel a dance featuring Fats Domino. Authorities say they discovered that "Rock and Roll dances might be featured" and justify their action by citing "a recent near riot at the New Haven Arena" where rock 'n' roll dances were held.

Reference  (Eight Days A Week  Ron Smith)