Rock 'n' Roll History for
July 1


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1956 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Elvis Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show where he wore a tuxedo and sang "Hound Dog" to a basset hound. Many Elvis fans thought it was a deliberate attempt to humiliate Elvis and ridicule Rock 'n' Roll music, but Allen insisted for years that he meant no disrespect and that Elvis was in on the gag from the beginning and thought it was hilarious. The King earned $5,000 for the performance and headed for the studio the next day to record the song for a single release.

July 1
Brenda Lee signed her first recording contract at the age of 11 after five years of singing professionally. Little Miss Dynamite, as she was called, would go on to have a total of 29 US Top 40 singles in the 1960s, including "Sweet Nothin's" (#4) "I'm Sorry" (#1), "Dum Dum" (#4) "Fool #1" (#3), "Break It To Me Gently" (#4) and "All Alone Am I" (#3).


1957 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
The headlines of Billboard magazine say, "Good music may be making a comeback on the bestseller charts...but rock & roll discs continue to dominate the pop market."

July 1
Buddy Holly finishes recording "Peggy Sue", which will go on to reach #3 on the Billboard chart and #6 in the UK. In real life, she was Peggy Sue Gerron, the girlfriend of Crickets drummer Jerry Allison. The song was initially titled "Cindy Lou" after Buddy's niece, but Allison convinced Buddy to change the title just before the recording session. Allison and Gerron were later married.

1962 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Gene Vincent was the featured act at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, along with an up and coming local group called The Beatles.

1963 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
The Beatles record "She Loves You", which will be released in August and become the group's second UK #1 hit. Adding to the song's popularity among young people was the phrase "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah", which was looked down upon by British establishment and in some quarters was seen to hail "the collapse of civilized society."

1967 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
The Association held down the top spot in the US for the first of four weeks with their biggest hit, "Windy". Strangely, the record failed to chart at all in the UK. The song's writer, Ruthann Friedman said that she wrote it in about 20 minutes when she started to fantasize about what kind of a guy she would like to be with.

July 1
Jefferson Airplane's psychedelic masterpiece "White Rabbit" entered the Billboard chart, where it eventually reached #8. The song became one of the first records to sneak drug references past radio censors. It uses imagery found in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass, such as changing size after taking pills.

1969 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
John Lennon and his son Julian, along with Yoko Ono and her daughter Kyoko, are injured in a car crash in Scotland. John receives 17 stitches for a facial injury, Yoko receives 14 stitches and the children are badly shaken. Lennon later had the car crushed into a cube and exhibited it on his lawn at Tittenhurst Park.

July 1
Sam Phillips sells the legendary Sun Records Studio in Memphis to Shelby Singleton. Sun, more than other record company, was responsible for the emergence of White Rock 'n' Roll in the mid-1950s.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Jethro Tull's first US Top Ten album, "Aqualung" is awarded a Gold record. It has since sold over seven million copies world wide, making it the band's most successful LP.


1972 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Neil Diamond went to the top spot on the Billboard singles chart with "Song Sung Blue", his second US #1. The tune made it to number 14 in the UK. "Song Sung Blue" was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1973, Record of the Year and Song of the Year, but lost both to Roberta Flack's rendition of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face".

July 1
Warner Bros. Records releases The Doobie Brothers second album, "Toulouse Street", which will peak at #21 on the Billboard 200 chart. The LP includes the band's first big hits, "Listen To The Music" (US #11, UK #29), and "Jesus Is Just Alright" (US #35).

1976 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Connie Francis is granted a $2.5 million judgment against the hotel where she was assaulted in 1974.

1981 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Steppenwolf bassist Rushton Moreve, who co-wrote "Magic Carpet Ride" with John Kay, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Santa Barbara, California. He was 32. He had been kicked out of the group in 1969 when he refused to return to California, fearing it was about to sink into the Pacific Ocean.

1983 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
A New Jersey based quintet calling themselves Bon Jovi are signed to Phonogram's Mercury label. Their debut album is slated for next Fall.

1995 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Disc Jockey Wolfman Jack, who appeared in the movie American Graffiti, died of a heart attack at the age of 57 at his home in Belvidere, North Carolina. He had risen to fame in the mid-1960s and was immortalized in 1974 by The Guess Who's "Clap For The Wolfman", on which his raspy voice is heard in the background.


1999 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Guy Mitchell, who scored two US number one hits with "You Got Me Singing The Blues" in 1956 and "Heartaches By The Number" in 1959, died at the age of 72 from complications following surgery.

2000 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Cub Koda, the leader of Brownsville Station and composer of their hit "Smokin' in the Boys Room", passed away from complications arising from kidney dialysis, at the age of 51.

2004 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Glen Campbell began serving ten nights in jail along with two years of probation for a November 2003 drunken-driving, hit-and-run collision. The 68-year-old entertainer was also sentenced to seventy-five hours of community service and fined $900.

2005 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Renaldo "Obie" Benson, who sang bass for the legendary Motown group The Four Tops for over fifty years, died of lung cancer at the age of 69. He also co-wrote "What's Going On" which became a #2 hit for Marvin Gaye in 1971. His last performance with The Tops was on April 8th, 2005 on The Late Show with David Letterman.

July 1
R&B artist Luther Vandross passed away at the age of 54, two years after suffering a major stroke. During his career he placed twelve songs on the Billboard Top 40, including "Here And Now" (US #6 in 1990) and "Power Of Love/Love Power" (US #4 in 1991).

2008 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
A Beatles interview from April 30, 1964, in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney discussed how they met and the way they composed songs together, was broadcast by the BBC after it was discovered in a film can in a damp garage in south London.

2009 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
The week after Michael Jackson's death, The King Of Pop dominated the Top Ten of Billboard's album chart. Leading the pack was "Number Ones", followed by "The Essential Michael Jackson" at #2, "Thriller" was #3 and "Off The Wall" was #4. The Jackson 5's "Ultimate Collection" held the #5 spot, "Bad" was #6, "Dangerous" was #7, "Greatest Hits - HIStory - Vol. 1" came in at #8 and Michael's "Ultimate Collection" occupied the #9 position. Collectively, Jackson's solo albums sold 415,000 copies for the week, 58% of which were digital downloads. The week before his death, his titles sold a combined 10,000 units.


2012 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees revealed on his Twitter page that he planned to continue performing as a solo artist, singing his group's hits as a tribute to his late brothers, Maurice and Robin.

2013 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Boston guitarist Tom Scholz was ordered to pay $132,000 in court fees to the Boston Herald after he unsuccessfully sued the newspaper. The Herald had suggested that Scholz was responsible for the 2007 suicide of Boston lead singer Brad Delp, but a Superior Court judge ruled that the paper could not be held liable for defaming Scholz because it's impossible to know what caused Delp to kill himself.

2015 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance at Brian Wilson's show in Holmdel, New Jersey where he joined the Beach Boys legend on "Barbara Ann" and "Surfin' USA".

2021 - ClassicBands.com

July 1
"ABBA Gold" became the first LP to spend 1,000 weeks on the UK's album chart. Released in 1992, the compilation became the second biggest-seller of all time in the UK with sales of 5.61 million, behind only "Queen's Greatest Hits". Upon hearing the news, Benny Andersson quipped, "Not bad for four old turnips."




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