Rock 'n' Roll History for
October 15


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1955 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
A Canadian quartet called The Four Lads' have the fourth best selling single in America with "Moments To Remember". Originally offered to Perry Como but turned down by his management, the song would stay on the Billboard Top 40 for an amazing twenty-five weeks and sell over four million copies.


1956 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Little Richard records "Good Golly Miss Molly" at J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana. When it is released in January, 1958, the song would rise to #10 on the Billboard Top 100 and go on to be come a Rock 'n' Roll standard. It would later be ranked at #94 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

1957 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
"Elvis' Christmas Album" is released by RCA Victor. It would top the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart for four weeks and has since sold over seventeen million copies in the US alone. With sales of more twenty million worldwide, the LP remains the world's best-selling Christmas album.

1958 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Jackie Wilson records "Lonely Teardrops", which will become his first US Top Ten hit, reaching #7 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and #1 on the R&B chart.

1959 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Jim Reeves records "He'll Have To Go" at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. The song would rise to #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and #2 on the Hot 100 next February.

1960 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Ringo Starr fills in for Pete Best when The Beatles play back-up at a recording session for Rory Storm And The Hurricanes' guitarist, Wally Eymond, in the small Akustik studio in Hamburg, Germany. Nine copies of a song called "Summertime" were pressed onto 78 RPM acetate discs, though none are known to have survived. It would be nearly two years before Ringo would join John, Paul and George on a permanent basis.

1961 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Elvis Presley lays down "Good Luck Charm" at RCA Studios in Nashville. The song would become his fifteenth Billboard number one hit, and be certified Platinum by the RIAA on March 27, 1992. It would also top the Cashbox Best Sellers chart and the UK Official chart

1963 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
The Rip Chords record "Hey Little Cobra", which features Doris Day's son Terry Melcher on lead vocal, with the high harmony added by future Beach Boys member, Bruce Johnston. The record will enter the Hot 100 next January and reach #4.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
With a signing bonus of one dollar, Jimi Hendrix inked his first recording contract. He agreed on a 1% royalty on all of his recordings.

October 15
The Beach Boys' vocalist Mike Love married his second wife, Suzanne Celeste Belcher, in Las Vegas. The union would produce two children, but would end in divorce in December, 1968.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Although they would continue to crank out the hits into the 1980s, The Four Tops enjoyed their last US number 1 song with "Reach Out I'll Be There". It also topped the UK chart.

October 15
Grace Slick quits the local San Francisco band The Great Society to join Jefferson Airplane. She replaces Signe Toly Anderson, who left the band to have a baby.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
It was a blessing in disguise when Rick Nelson played the seventh annual Rock 'n' Roll Revival Show in New York. He thought he was being booed for not playing his old hits and came away with the inspiration to write what would be his last Top Ten hit, "Garden Party", which would climb to number six in 1972. It was later revealed that the crowd was booing some trouble makers who had started a fight and were being escorted out of the building.


1973 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
The US Supreme Court decides by a 7-2 vote to refuse to review a 1971 Federal Communications directive that broadcasters, in effect, censor songs with drug-oriented lyrics. The two dissenting votes are cast by Justices William J. Brennan and William O. Douglas, who say, "The government cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, require a broadcaster to censor its music."

October 15
Elvis Presley is hospitalized in Memphis for two weeks, suffering from pneumonia.

October 15
A court in Nice, France finds The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards guilty of using, supplying and trafficking in marijuana and heroin. The penalty is a 5,000-franc fine, a one-year suspended sentence and he is barred from entering France for two years.

October 15
Neil Young releases the live album, "Time Fades Away". It would reach #22 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, and achieved Gold status, selling over 500,000 copies in the US.

1976 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Ike and Tina Turner announce that they have split as a musical act. Their marriage had broken down the previous July and their divorce would become final on March 29th, 1978.

1977 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Debbie Boone's first single, "You Light Up My Life", reaches #1 on the Billboard Pop chart, where it will stay for 10 weeks. It would go on to win a Grammy Award for Best Song and 21-year-old Debbie is named Best New Artist. The record only made it to #48 in the UK. In the 1980s she focused on Country music, resulting in the #1 hit, "Are You on the Road to Lovin' Me Again". She later recorded Christian music, which garnered her four Top 10 Contemporary Christian albums as well as two more Grammys.

1982 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" enters the Billboard R&B singles chart on its way to number one. The song would also make the Top 10 in the UK and later win a Grammy as Best R&B Male Vocal Performance of the Year.

1983 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Genesis' self titled LP became their third consecutive number one album in the UK. It included the single "Mama", the band's biggest commercial UK success, which reached #4, but was less popular in the US where it climbed to #73.

1988 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
UB40 was enjoying the top tune in America with a reggae version of Neil Diamond's "Red, Red Wine". Diamond's 1968 rendition only made it to #62.


1995 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Paul and Linda McCartney are the guest voices on Fox-TV's The Simpsons in an episode called "Lisa the Vegetarian". Macca's stipulation for appearing was that Lisa's decision to become a vegetarian would be a permanent character change, to which producer David Mirkin agreed.

1996 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is charged with assault for attacking a cameraman who was trying to take pictures of Lee and his wife Pamela Anderson Lee outside an L.A. club. After pleading no contest, Lee was sentenced to four months in prison.

October 15
Ralph Middlebrooks, trumpeter for The Ohio Players died at the age of 57. The band reached Billboard's Top 40 eight times between 1973 and 1976, including two number ones, "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster" in 1975.

2003 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Mike Smith, the former lead singer of The Dave Clark Five, suffered a fall at his home in Spain that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Smith would die of pneumonia on February 28th, 2008, less than two weeks before the band was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

2004 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Bill Eyden, the session drummer hired to play on Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", passed away after a lengthy illness at the age of 74.

2014 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
New York real estate firm Saunders & Associates confirmed that Billy Joel recently sold his 5,500-square-foot beachfront mansion in the village of Sagaponack on Long Island. Sagaponack is known as the most expensive small village in the U.S.

2018 - ClassicBands.com

October 15
Britain's Official Charts Company named The Beatles' masterpiece "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" as the most popular British album of all time. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon", Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" also made it to the Top 10.




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