Rock 'n' Roll History for
October 22


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1961 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Helen Shapiro was at the top of the UK singles chart with "Walkin' Back To Happiness", her second and final British chart topper. It will stay at the top in England for three weeks, but only reached #100 on the Billboard singles chart.

October 22
Chubby Checker sings a medley of "The Twist" and "Let's Twist Again" on The Ed Sullivan Show. The performance sparks interest in the original song that will push it back to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 next January.


1963 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
24-year-old Kenny Rogers marries for the third time, to Margo Gladys Anderson. They would have one child and divorce in 1976.

1964 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
The Who, then known as the High Numbers, audition for the British record label, EMI, who turned them down.

1965 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
The Kingston Trio guest star on the NBC, World War II drama, Convoy.

October 22
The Rolling Stones release "Get Off My Cloud" in the UK. Two weeks later, it will be number one.

1966 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" made its debut on the US singles chart. It was a song that Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote and Brian spent six months working on. The tracks were recorded in seventeen different sessions in four Los Angeles studios, at a cost of over sixteen thousand dollars. The recording engineer would later say that the last take sounded exactly like the first, six months earlier. The record would reach number one on December 10th, 1966 and be nominated for Song Of The Year at The Grammy Awards, but lost to "Winchester Cathedral" by The New Vaudeville Band.

October 22
According to Cashbox magazine, ? And The Mysterians had the best selling tune in America with "96 Tears". The song has since been ranked #210 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

October 22
The Supremes became the first female group to have a number one album on the US chart when the LP "Supremes A-Go-Go" reached the top. It knocked The Beatles' "Revolver" from the head of the list.

October 22
The Pozo Seco Singers attain their first Billboard Top 40 hit when "I Can Make It With You" peaks at #32. The following year, another of their songs called "Look What You've Done" reached the same chart position. The group would dis-band in 1970, but vocalist Don Williams would go on to amass seventeen number one hits on the Country charts and was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 2010.

1967 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
The day after it hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Lulu performs "To Sir With Love" on The Ed Sullivan Show. Also on the program were singers Eddie Fisher, The McGuire Sisters, and comedians Stiller and Meara.


1969 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Paul McCartney publicly denies rumors that he is dead. The most recent of many "clues" of this Death Hoax was the fact that he was the only barefoot Beatle on the newly released "Abby Road" LP cover. The story was actually started as a prank by Fred La Bour, a sports and arts writer for the student paper, The Michigan Daily at the University of Michigan.

1971 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Joan Baez received a Gold record for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". It turned out to be her biggest hit, peaking at #3 in the US and #6 in the UK.

1974 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Carl Carlton's rendition of "Everlasting Love" enters the Billboard Top 40, where it will reach #6. The song's co-writer, Buzz Cason, would later say that when he and Mac Gayden wrote it for Robert Knight in 1967, the song was intended as a B-side, written in about twenty-five minutes. Carlton's version has since been played over four million times on the radio.

1988 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Elton John sold out Madison Square Garden for a record 26th time.

October 22
Phil Collins's cover version of "Groovy Kind Of Love" topped the Billboard singles chart. The song had also been a US number one hit for The Mindbenders in 1966.

1991 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Neil Young and Crazy Horse release the live album, "Weld". It was a success in the UK where it went to #20 on the Official Albums Chart. In America it stalled at #154.

1992 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Members of Boyz II Men receive awards for having the longest running #1 song of the Rock era. "End Of the Road" broke Elvis' record of 11 weeks, previously held by "Don't Be Cruel / Hound Dog".

1996 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Sales figures were released that showed that The Beatles sold 6,000,000 albums from their back catalog and a combined total of 13,000,000 copies of "The Beatles Anthology 1" and "The Beatles Anthology 2". A poll revealed that 41% of sales were to teenagers who were not even born when The Beatles split up in 1970.

1998 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Bob Dylan played in his hometown of Duluth, Minnesota for the first time since the '60s. The show sold out in just five hours.

2000 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
The Beatles' official autobiography Anthology hits #1 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. It would stay there for three straight weeks.


2003 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Rick "Tim Tam" Wiesend, lead singer of Tim Tam And The Turn-Ons, died of cancer at the age of 60. Rick and his brother Dan joined with four other Detroit-area musicians to form the group in 1965. Their only US chart appearance was the garage-band classic "Wait A Minute" the following year.

2009 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Former KISS drummer Peter Criss revealed that he had been diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2007. Now a cancer survivor, he kept his condition a secret, telling only his wife, fearing ridicule in the press.

2016 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
75-year-old Paul Anka wed his girlfriend of six years, Lisa Pemberton, in a sunset ceremony at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. It was the third trip down the aisle for the Canadian born singer.

2017 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
George Young, a guitarist for the Australian based group, The Easybeats, who reached Billboard's #16 spot in 1967 with "Friday On My Mind", passed away at the age of 70. After that band broke up, Young went on to co-produce AC/DC's first five albums.

2020 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
78-year-old Derek Quinn, lead guitarist for the British Invasion group Freddie And The Dreamers, passed away shortly after being diagnosed with COVID-19. The band placed four songs on the Billboard Top 40 in 1965, including the number one hit, "I'm Telling You Now".

2021 - ClassicBands.com

October 22
Jay Black, lead singer of Jay And The Americans, passed away of complications from pneumonia at the age of 82. After taking over from John Traynor in 1963, Black, whose real name was David Blatt, led the band to nine Billboard Top 40 hits, including "Come A Little Bit Closer" (#3 in 1964), "Cara Mia" (#4 in 1965) and "This Magic Moment" (#6 in 1969).




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