Rock 'n' Roll History for
July 2


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1958 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Paramount Pictures releases Elvis Presley's film King Creole. Receiving mostly positive reviews, the movie would peak at number five on the Variety box office earnings charts at year's end. Elvis would later say that of all the characters he portrayed throughout his acting career, the role of Danny Fisher in this film was his favorite.


1966 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Frank Sinatra's version of "Strangers In The Night" displaced The Beatles' "Paperback Writer" at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a UK #1. Sinatra's recording would win him a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year, despite the fact that Frank often said he didn't really like the song.

1969 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell quit the Jimi Hendrix Experience after completing the three-day Denver Pop Festival at Mile High Stadium. Hendrix and Mitchell would later team with bassist Billy Cox to form the short-lived Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, who played at the Woodstock Festival.

July 2
US consumer advocate Ralph Nader issued a warning that loud Rock music threatened to produce a nation of hearing-impaired people.

July 2
The British trio Thunderclap Newman enjoyed their only hit when "Something In The Air" started a three week run at the top of the UK singles chart. It would stall at #37 in the US, but still gets airplay in many commercials. The band featured guitarist Jimmy McCulloch who went on to work with Wings.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Brian Wilson appears onstage with The Beach Boys for the first time in twelve years, in Anaheim, California. He's mostly motionless at his piano, but he does sing the lead vocal on "In My Room".

1977 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Billboard's top tune was "Gonna Fly Now", the theme from the Sylvester Stallone film Rocky, while Cashbox listed "Undercover Angel" by Alan O'Day as the best selling record in America.

1979 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Sony introduces the Walkman, the first portable audio cassette player. Over the next 30 years they will sell over 385 million Walkmans in cassette, CD, mini-disc and digital file versions, but later struggled against Apple's iPod and other new devices.

1988 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Michael Jackson became the first artist to have five number one singles from one album when "Dirty Diana" went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The other four chart-toppers from the L.P. "Bad" were the title track, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Man in the Mirror".

1990 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Representatives of the Italian Catholic Church announce they'll attempt to put a stop to Madonna's concerts in Rome because of her alleged inappropriate use of crucifixes and sacred symbols. The group was successful in halting the shows.

1991 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Guns N' Roses front man Axl Rose dives into the audience to take a camera away from a fan who was taking pictures during a concert in Maryland Heights, Missouri. The ensuing brawl injures fifty people, including fifteen police officers, and results in several other Guns N' Roses concerts being canceled.


1992 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Mick Jagger becomes a grandfather when his daughter Jade has a baby.

2001 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Yoko Ono was on hand as Liverpool renamed its airport after John Lennon. Yoko said John would have been very proud. "Thank you very, very much for remembering John and for loving John."

2015 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Buddy Holly's widow, Maria Elena Holly, announced that she had entrusted the publishing rights to her late husband's influential catalog to the artist's performance rights group, BMG. The company was now authorized to administer royalties worldwide of nearly all of Holly's recordings.

July 2
Rod Stewart, Universal Music and Capitol Records were named in a lawsuit brought by the heirs of songwriter Armenter "Bo Carter" Chatmon over a song written in 1928 called "Corrine, Corrina". The complaint asserted that a number that Stewart included on his 2013 album, "Time", was "nearly identical" and "contains substantially similar defining compositional elements, including, but not limited to lyrics, melody, rhythm, tempo, meter, key, and title."

2018 - ClassicBands.com

July 2
Alan Longmuir, bassist and founding member of The Bay City Rollers died following a brief illness at the age of 70.




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