Rock 'n' Roll History for
January 4


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1950 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Two years after Columbia Records introduced the 33 1/3 RPM long-playing vinyl record, RCA announces that they will also start using the same format.

1953 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Over 20,000 people jam the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, as Hank Williams' funeral is held at the City Auditorium. Williams is still regarded as one of the most significant and influential American songwriters of the 20th century. Between 1947 and 1952, he placed fifty-five singles in the Top Ten of the Billboard Country & Western chart, twelve of which went to number one.


1954 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Four days before his 20th birthday, a young truck driver named Elvis Presley paid $4 to record a ten-inch acetate demo at the Memphis Recording Service, an open-to-the-public business run by Sam Phillips. The two songs Presley recorded, "Casual Love Affair" and "I'll Never Stand In Your Way", impressed Phillips enough that he had Elvis record his first professional sides for Sun Records the following August.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
On NBC's Steve Allen Show, former heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis introduces singer Solomon Burke, who performs Louis' song "You Can Run, But You Can't Hide". The song would fail to crack either the Billboard Pop or R&B chart, but Burke would break through in 1961 with "Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms)" and go on to enjoy twenty-four Hot 100 hits.

1959 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" enters the Billboard Hot 100 at #81. It will peak at #22 a month later. In 2018, the record was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It has also been included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the 500 songs that shaped Rock 'n' Roll.

1960 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Marty Robbins' Country Crossover hit, "El Paso" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of a two week run. At 4:40, it was the longest record to top the chart up to that time. The song would go on to win the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording in 1961. Robbins would later explain that the name of the character Feleena was based upon a schoolmate of his that he knew in the fifth grade, Fidelina Martinez.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
After leaping from #100 to #50 last week, Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel" enters the Top 40 of the Billboard Pop chart. The teenage tragedy song will reach the top spot less than five weeks later. In the UK, it climbed to #37, despite being banned by the BBC.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
The British music magazine Mersey Beat publishes a group popularity poll which shows The Beatles at the top, well ahead of Gerry And The Pacemakers, The Remo Four, Rory Storm And The Hurricanes and Johnny Sandon And The Searchers. A rare copy of this edition recently sold for $2,500.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Bobby Vinton's "There! I've Said It Again" becomes the last US number one record before the so called British Invasion. Between Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock" in July, 1955 and Vinton's hit, only five non-American artists could manage a US chart topper. All that was about to change.

January 4
New York native Lenny Welch enjoys his biggest hit when a cover version of the big band standard "Since I Fell for You" reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was written in 1945 and has been recorded by over three dozen artists since then, but none achieved the chart success of Welch's rendition.

January 4
After enjoying a #4 smash in early 1963 with "Tell Him", a Queens, New York quartet called The Exciters return to Billboard's Hot 100 with their rendition of "Doo-Wah-Diddy". Unfortunately the record stalled at #90 during a one week stay while a version of the same song, re-titled "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", would top the charts in the UK, the US and Canada for the British band Manfred Mann next October.


1965 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
CBS purchases The Fender Guitar Company from Leo Fender for $13 million. The firm had been turning out electric guitars since 1945, and introduced the first mass-produced, solid-body, electric guitar, the Telecaster, in 1950.

1970 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Tragedy struck The Who when a gang of teens attacked Keith Moon's Bentley limo. His chauffeur, Neil Boland got out to try to protect the car, but left it in gear, and it started moving. Moon, who had no driver's license, jumped behind the wheel. Unfortunately, the chauffeur, who was being beaten, had fallen under the car and as Keith gunned the engine, Neil was run over and killed. Though the inquest absolved Moon of blame, Neil's family didn't and neither did Moon himself, as he was been haunted by the incident for the rest of his life.

1973 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
The Allman Brothers name bassist Lamar Williams as the replacement for the late Berry Oakley, who had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia, the previous November 11th.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Marvin Gaye performs his first concert in over four years when he appears in front of 14,000 fans at the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum in California to record the album "Marvin Gaye Live!". The LP would climb to #1 on Billboard's R&B chart and #8 on the Pop chart. It also received a nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance at the 17th Annual Grammy Awards, but lost to Stevie Wonder's "Boogie on Reggae Woman".

1975 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Due to renewed interest in The Beatles, the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, reopens to the public. The venue achieved worldwide renown through the performances of The Beatles, who played three residencies there between April and December 1962. The original club had closed on December 31st, 1969 and the building it occupied was destroyed by a fire in 1987.

January 4
Elton John's remake of The Beatles' "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" becomes his tenth US Top Ten hit and his third number one. The recording included John Lennon on guitar.

1977 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
The Sex Pistols board a plane at London's Heathrow Airport and proceed to be as obnoxious as possible. A flight attendant would later tell the press "These are the most revolting people I've ever seen. They called us filthy names and insulted everyone in sight."

1986 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy died at the age of 36. A pathologist's report later indicated that he had developed multiple internal abscesses and blood poisoning, as a result of which he had suffered kidney, liver and heart failure. His last single, "Nineteen", had been released just a few weeks earlier.


2002 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Bill "Little Bo" Savich, drummer for the instrumental group Johnny And The Hurricanes, died at the age of 62. The band placed four songs on the Billboard Top 40, including the #5 hit, "Red River Rock" in 1959.

2004 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Ray Davies of The Kinks was shot in the leg during a robbery in New Orleans when two thieves stole a lady friend's purse at gun point. Davies gave chase and one of the men turned and shot him in the thigh.

2008 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
New music industry data showed the number of US albums sold last year tumbled 9.5% from 2006, even as the number of digital tracks sold soared by 45%.

2011 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Gerry Rafferty, the lead singer of Stealers Wheel on their 1973 hit "Stuck In The Middle With You", died after a long illness at the age of 63. After the band split up, he went on to a successful solo career, enjoying five more Billboard Top 30 hits, including "Baker Street" (US #4) and "Right Down The Line" (US #1), both in 1978.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Sammy Johns, most often remembered for his 1975, Billboard #5 hit, "Chevy Van", passed away at the age of 66. The song sold about three million copies and is credited by automotive executives for an increase in van sales the following year.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
David Cassidy won a law suit against Sony Pictures Television over non-payment of royalties from Partridge Family merchandise. The court action, first filed in 2011, was settled for $160,000, but a return court date was set to recover $58,000 in legal fees and $36,000 in interest.

2016 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Robert Stigwood, who managed Cream and The Bee Gees before producing the Rock musicals Saturday Night Fever and Grease, passed away at the age of 81.

January 4
Robert Balser, who served as the animation director for The Beatles' film Yellow Submarine and on the Saturday morning Jackson 5 cartoons of the early 1970s, passed away at the age of 88.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Nielsen Music reported that sales of George Michael's music skyrocketed in the days following his death last Christmas Day. The former Wham! singer sold around 477,000 albums and songs in the week ending December 29th, compared to 17,000 the week before, an increase of 2,678 per cent.

January 4
The British Phonographic Industry announced that sales of David Bowie's album "Blackstar" helped push global sales of vinyl records to a twenty-five year high. Sales in the UK topped 3.2 million, an increase of a whopping 53 percent over last year.


2018 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
Ray Thomas, flautist, vocalist and founding member of The Moody Blues, died at the age of 76, just three and half months before the band was due to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

2024 - ClassicBands.com

January 4
David Soul, who topped the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Official Chart in 1977 with "Don't Give Up On Us", died after a long bout with cancer at the age of 80. Born David Richard Solberg, he appeared as Officer John Davis in the Clint Eastwood film Magnum Force in 1973, and played Detective Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson in the television series Starsky & Hutch from 1975 to 1979.



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