Rock 'n' Roll History for
August 4


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1956 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
The Platters score their second Billboard #1 with their version of "My Prayer". The song was originally a French tune written in 1926 by Georges Boulanger called "Avant de Mourir" that had English lyrics added in 1939. Both Glenn Miller and The Ink Spots had hits with it that year.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
The Everly Brothers make their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and perform their upcoming release, "Wake Up Little Susie", a song which would be banned from some radio stations because it was about two teenagers who accidentally fell asleep together.


1958 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
Billboard magazine changed the name of its weekly music chart from the Top 100 to the Hot 100. Their first number one was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson, his sixth hit record in the US.

1963 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
The Beatles appear on the US record charts for the first time as "From Me To You" debuts at #116.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
John Lennon's comment that The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus Christ" was re-printed in an American teen magazine called Datebook and was widely reported in North America. The statement, made to London Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave several months earlier, caused a public outcry in the US and led to mass destruction of Beatle records. Thirty five radio stations banned all Beatles songs and even the Ku Klux Klan made threats against the group. What Lennon actually said was "Christianity will go. It will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that, I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus Christ now; I don't know which will go first, Rock 'n' Roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

August 4
Pye Records releases The Kinks' third single, "You Really Got Me" in England. Although it was rumored that future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page had performed the song's guitar solo, that story has since been reported to be false, both by Shel Talmy, the record's producer, and by Page himself. The only non-band member to play on the track was session drummer Bobby Graham, while regular percussionist Mick Avory was relegated to tambourine. The record will reach #7 in the US and #1 in the UK.

1970 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson married his second wife, Barbara Charren in Los Angeles. They would divorce four years later.

1973 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
The Carpenters led the Cashbox chart with "Yesterday Once More", a #2 hit in the UK and on Billboard's Hot 100. The record will become the duo's largest selling record worldwide.

August 4
Four months after it had won an Academy Award, "The Morning After", the love theme from the movie The Poseidon Adventure, topped the Billboard chart. Although many performers were considered, the song's writers, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, chose an unknown singer named Maureen McGovern, who was working as a secretary at the time. The song was not a hit in the UK.


1975 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
Led Zeppelin's vocalist Robert Plant and his family suffer severe injuries in a car accident while on vacation on the Mediterranean island of Rhodes. Plant, his wife, son and daughter suffer broken bones and assorted bruises. The accident delays the group's Fall tour of the US for two full years.

1980 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
After a five year hiatus, John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin recording their album "Double Fantasy" at New York's Hit Factory Studio. The LP would go to number one in the US after its release in November, less than a month before Lennon was gunned down outside his New York apartment. "Double Fantasy" received the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

1984 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
Prince started a 24 week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 200 chart with his sixth album, "Purple Rain". The RIAA lists it as having gone Platinum 13 times over.

2006 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
John Locke, former keyboard player for Spirit and Nazareth, died of cancer in Ojai, California, at the age of 62.

2007 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
Lee Hazlewood, producer, songwriter and duet partner of Nancy Sinatra, died after a three-year battle with renal cancer. He was 78. Along with writing Nancy's hit "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'", Hazlewood also shared the mic with her on the US Top 40 hits "Jackson" (#14 in 1967) and "Some Velvet Morning" (#26 in 1968).


2009 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
A Federal jury ruled that a 25-year-old Boston University graduate student must pay $675,000 to four music companies for illegally downloading and distributing more than two dozen songs. The man said that he would file for bankruptcy protection.

2010 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
The Beach Boys' publishing company, Rondor Music, was threatening to file a lawsuit against Katy Perry for using the lyrics to the band's classic song, "California Girls" on her new song of the same name. A spokesman said "Using the words or melody in a new song taken from an original work is not appropriate under any circumstances, particularly from one as well known and iconic as 'California Girls'."

August 4
Don Henley reached an out-of-court settlement with Republican Senatorial candidate Chuck DeVore, who used parodies of two of the singer's hits for an election campaign without permission. "All She Wants To Do Is Dance" and "The Boys of Summer" were used in campaign videos on YouTube as "All She Wants To Do Is Tax" and "Hope Of November".

2015 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
Supertramp canceled their upcoming European tour so that leader Rick Davies could undergo treatment for myeloma. The band, who hadn't played live in five years, was planning on hitting the road on November 3rd for a 25-city tour scheduled to wrap up with a sold-out show in Amsterdam on December 11th.

2021 - ClassicBands.com

August 4
Stan Lark, bassist for The Fireballs on their Billboard Top 10 hits, "Sugar Shack" (#1 in 1963) and "Bottle Of Wine" (#9 in 1968), died of cancer at the age of 81.



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