Today In History, March 20th - 1959: Dick Clark protege and teen idol Bobby Rydell makes his first television appearance, naturally enough, on ABC-TVs American Bandstand. 1961: Elvis begins filming his ninth movie, Blue Hawaii, on location. * Chuck Jackson hits #36 with I Dont Want To Cry. * Bill Blacks Combo hits #20 with Heart of Stones. 1964: The Beatles make their first appearance on the British television show Ready Steady Go!, miming along, as was the custom, to Cant Buy Me Love, It Wont Be Long, and You Cant Do That. 1965: After a celebratory formal street parade, Motowns first UK package tour begins at Finsbury Park Astoria, in London, featuring The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Martha & the Vandellas. 1968: In Los Angeles, Eric Clapton and three members of Buffalo Springfield -- Neil Young, Jim Messina, and Richie Furay -- are arrested for suspicion of marijuana use. The band members are eventually found guilty and fined, while Clapton beats the charges. 1969: After days of looking for a suitable and legal place, John Lennon finally gets to marry Yoko Ono at the Rock of Gibraltar in Spain, a piece of land still owned by the English and described by Lennon as being necessarily quiet, friendly, and British. Later, in the Beatles song The Ballad Of John And Yoko, he describes the site as Gibraltar, near Spain, unintentionally setting off an international furor, as England and Spain were currently at odds over ownership of the area. 1976: Alice Cooper marries his first and only wife, Sheryl Goddard, a 19-year-old dancer on his Welcome To My Nightmare tour. * Roxy Music hits #30 in the US with Love Is the Drug. :-) 1977: T. Rex plays what is to be their last concert before the untimely death of leader Marc Bolan in a car accident, a gig at Portsmouth, England club The Locarno. * Rich Girl by Daryl Hall & John Oates was a hit. 1980: Joseph Riviera, 28, a truck driver from New York, breaks into the offices of record label Asylum, takes the office manager hostage, and demands to see label artists Jackson Browne and/or The Eagles so that they can help finance his trucking business. After he realizes the artists in question arent actually in the building, he surrenders to police. 1982: Japan hits #5 in the UK with Ghosts. 1988: Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson was a hit. 1989: After 37 years on the air, Dick Clark announces he will discontinue hosting his creation, ABC-TVs highly influential American Bandstand. The show continues with another host, but folds for good soon after. 1991: Eric Claptons son Conor, all of four years old, dies after falling from the 53rd story window of his mothers apartment in New York. (The guitarist was staying at a hotel not far away, having taken Conor to the circus the night before.) A shaken Clapton later writes the hit song Tears In Heaven as a way to help him through the grief. * Michael Jackson signs the largest contract renewal in history to that time, inking a $65 million deal with Sony. 2003: On the day the Iraq war begins, Bruce Springsteen opens his Melbourne, Australia show with a quiet, acoustic version of his hit Born In The U.S.A. and follows it, pointedly, with a cover of Edwin Starrs War. 2004: The University of Washington presents Quincy Jones with an honorary doctorate in Music. Todays Birthdays Include: 1906: Ozzie Nelson 1918: Marian McPartland 1922: Larry Elgart 1937: Jerry Reed 1937: Joe Rivers (Johnnie and Joe) 1941: Vito Picone (The Elegants) 1950: Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) (Pix below) 1951: Jimmie Vaughan (The Fabulous Thunderbirds) Deaths 1988: Gil Evans
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:03:06 +0000
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