Rock 'n' Roll History for
July 18


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1953 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
18-year-old Elvis Presley visited the Memphis Recording Service to record "My Happiness" as a gift for his mother, Gladys. The so-called vanity disc, which cost Presley $3.98, was his first recording. It would surface 37 years later as part of an RCA compilation called "Elvis - the Great Performances".

1960 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Roy Orbison saw his first record, "Only The Lonely" climb into the Top 5 in the United States after The Everly Brothers and Elvis both turned the song down. Over the next six years, The Big O would have 22 Top 40 hits.

July 18
15-year-old Brenda Lee had the number one song in the US with "I'm Sorry", a tune that was recorded in the last ten minutes of a session and originally meant to be the "B" side of "That's All You Gotta Do". The record reached #12 in the UK.


1964 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
The Four Seasons scored their fourth US number one hit with "Rag Doll". Co-writer Bob Gaudio said that he got the inspiration for the song from a young girl in tattered clothes that cleaned his car windows at a stop light. The song reached #2 in the UK.

July 18
The Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go?" enters Billboard's Hot 100. It would stay on the chart for 14 weeks and become the group's first number one hit.

July 18
The Rolling Stones chart in the US for the first time when a cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" peaks at #48.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Bobby Fuller, who was still riding high on the success of "I Fought The Law", was found dead in his car in Hollywood. The incident is ruled a suicide but evidence suggests foul play, as his clothes and lungs contained gasoline. Fuller was just 22 years old.

July 18
The Beach Boys release "Wouldn't It Be Nice". Sixteen studio musicians can be heard playing drums, timpani, glockenspiel, trumpet, saxophones, accordions, guitars, pianos, and upright bass, while the band members provided vocals only. The record would reach #8 on the Hot 100 and was ranked at #297 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2021. As of 2022, "Wouldn't It Be Nice" was The Beach Boys' most streamed song on Spotify.

1968 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
"Lady Willpower" by Gary Puckett And The Union Gap was certified Gold by the RIAA. The record would go on to reach the top of the Cashbox Best Sellers chart, #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on the UK Official Chart the following August.

1972 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
All six members of Sly And the Family Stone are arrested after Hollywood police search their tour bus and find two pounds of marijuana and two vials of cocaine.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
The US Justice Department ordered John Lennon out of the country by September 10th. The Immigration and Naturalization Service denied him an extension of his non-immigrant visa because of his guilty plea in England to a 1968 marijuana possession charge. The US Court of Appeal would overturn the deportation order in 1975 and Lennon was granted permanent resident status the following year.

1978 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are awarded a Platinum record for their number one hit, "You're The One That I Want".

July 18
Gerry Rafferty, once a member of Stealers Wheel, earns a Gold record for "Baker Street", which reached #2 in the US and #3 in the UK.


1983 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Abbey Road Studios in London is opened to the public, making it one of the city's most popular tourist attractions.

1988 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Ike Turner was sentenced in Santa Monica, California to one year in jail for possessing and transporting cocaine. Police had stopped Turner, former husband of Tina Turner, in August 1987 for driving erratically and found about six grams of rock cocaine in his car.

July 18
A California appeals court upholds a lower court's decision to dismiss a case against Ozzy Osbourne and CBS Records. In 1984 a teenager allegedly killed himself after listening to Ozzy's "Suicide Solution".

1992 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
800 guests saw Whitney Houston, dressed in a $40,000 Marc Bouwer wedding gown, marry Bobby Brown at her New Jersey home. Those in attendance included Stevie Wonder, Gloria Estefan, Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle and Freddie Jackson. After years of making tabloid headlines, she would file for divorce in September, 2006.

July 18
Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" crosses over from the Country chart and peaks at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became the first Country single to be certified Platinum since "Islands in the Stream" by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton in 1983.

2001 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
The KISS Kasket, an actual coffin featuring the faces of the four founding members of the band, went on sale. Also included were the KISS logo and the words "KISS Forever." Endorsing the item, Gene Simmons quipped, "I love livin', but this makes the alternative look pretty damn good."

2002 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
The Rolling Stones crew chief, 54 year old Royden Magee, who had worked with the band for 30 years, died during a rehearsal in Toronto. A spokesman for the band said Magee had said that he wasn't feeling well and went to another room to take a nap. The Stones had just finished dinner and resumed rehearsing when they got word that Magee had collapsed and stopped breathing. He was taken by ambulance to nearby Sunnybrook Hospital with no vital signs after suffering an apparent heart attack. He was pronounced dead on arrival. The members of the band said they were devastated by his death.

2008 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Paul Simon filed a law suit against Rhythm USA Inc., a Georgia-based subsidiary of a Japanese firm, claiming the company never got his permission to sell wall clocks that play "Bridge Over Troubled Water". The suit claimed that as one of the best known songs throughout the world, a proper licensing agreement could command at least a $1 million licensing fee.


2009 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Michael Jackson's nutritionist was served with a subpoena as L.A. police and the DEA tried to hunt down the singer's medical records.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Red West, a boyhood friend and member of Elvis Presley's "Memphis Mafia", passed away at the age of 81 after suffering an aortic aneurysm. West appeared in many of the singer's movies as well as in the films Road House, Black Sheep Squadron and Goodbye Solo.

2018 - ClassicBands.com

July 18
Cliff Richard was awarded damages of 210,000 Pounds in an invasion of privacy lawsuit against the BBC. The 77-year-old singer took legal action against the broadcaster over reports of a South Yorkshire Police raid on his home in Sunningdale, Berkshire, in August 2014. Officers were investigating an allegation made by a man who claimed he was sexually assaulted by Richard in 1985 when he was a child. The judge in the case ruled that it was not only the BBC's use of helicopter pictures, but also the naming of Sir Cliff as a suspect in the investigation that amounted to a breach of his privacy.

July 18
Billy Joel becomes the first musician to play 100 concerts at Madison Square Garden. His special guest that night was Bruce Springsteen, about whom Billy joked, "We go back a long ways. We were both on the same label and we both almost got dumped by the label."



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