THIS WEEK IN ROCK HISTORY
Events involving 1950s & '60s performers & their influences
April 25, 1960 — Elvis Presley scores his first #1 hit of the '60s (and 13th of his career) when "Stuck on You" reaches the top spot.
April 27, 1956 — Capitol Records signs Gene Vincent, intending to market him as the next Elvis.
2006 — 62-year-old Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones falls out of a palm tree while vacationing in Fiji and goes to the hospital with a concussion, creating a rare news event on the island. A band spokeswoman refuses to explain what he was doing up the tree, but the British newspaper The Independent quotes an islander as saying, "Picking coconuts is quite common on the island. It's just that Keith had a bit of an accident coming down."
April 29, 1944 — R&B and rock 'n' roll progenitor Louis Jordan's "G. I. Jive" enters the music charts, becoming his third #1 R&B record (for six weeks) and crossing over to #1 pop (for two weeks), his first appearance on that list. Jordan's discs hold the R&B record for the most time at #1, an astounding 113 weeks.
April 30, 1930 — Texas-born blues singer, bottleneck slide guitarist, and evangelist Blind Willie Johnson, an influence on later generations of musicians, records for the last time. His best known record, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground," a series of hums, moans, and pained cries, is included among the music and Earth sounds on a gold record launched aboard the U-S space probes Voyagers I and II in 1977 for any alien civilization that might intercept them as ithey passed beyond our solar system into interstellar space.
2004 — Ray Charles makes his last public appearance at his Los Angeles recording studio when the city designates it a historic landmark. He dies 41 days later at age 73.
May, 1900 — The inventor of the 78 r.p.m. record, Emile Berliner, sees the French painter France Barraud's work "His Master's Voice" portraying the artist's dog Nipper listening to an early gramophone. Britain's Gramophone Company had bought the U.K. rights to the art in 1899 and Berliner soon acquires the U.S. rights for the company's U.S. affiliate, the Victor Talking Machine Company, which RCA buys in 1929. RCA uses the image on its record labels until 1968.
May 1, 1948 — Wynonie Harris (right) enters the R&B hit parade with a cover of Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight." Harris' version reaches #1, while Brown's goes to #13. Six years later, Elvis Presley covers the song at the start of his legendary career, which is heavily influenced by black jump blues artists like Harris and Brown.
1955 — A St. Louis guitarist named Chuck Berry is signed to Chess Records in Chicago after bluesman Muddy Waters recommends him to the label.
1963 — The Rolling Stones sign a management deal with Andrew Loog Oldham, who removes the apostrophe from their name (they had been The Rollin' Stones, named after Muddy Waters' 1950 recording "Rollin' Stone").
1966 — The Beatles play their last concert (not counting their informal Apple Records rooftop appearance in 1969) in their native England when they appear at a show put on by the New Musical Express. The last song is "I'm Down."
#1 R&B, #22 pop) that the group is renamed the Midnighters (eventually Hank Ballard & The Midnighters) to avoid confusion with the "5" Royales, who are under contract to the same record company.
1959 — After 24 years on radio and TV, the final Saturday night broadcast of the musical countdown show Your Hit Parade airs on NBC television.
The final Top Five:
#5 - "I Need Your Love Tonight" (Elvis Presley)
#4 - "It's Just A Matter Of Time" (Brook Benton)
#3 - "Never Be Anyone Else But You" (Ricky Nelson)
#2 - "Pink Shoe Laces" (Dodie Stevens)
#1 - "Come Softly To Me" (The Fleetwoods)
2012 — The Beach Boys begin their 50th anniversary tour, which reunites Brian Wilson with fellow founders Mike Love and Al Jardine along with longtime members Bruce Johnston and David Marks.
Sources:
Reference (Eight Days A Week Ron Smith)
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