When The Guess Who performed at the White House in 1970, First Lady Pat Nixon, undoubtedly breifed as to the scathing anti-US sentiment of the band's hit "American Woman", asked that the band delete the song from their show.
Franki Valli's 1975 number one hit "My Eyes Adored You" was originally titled "Blue Eyes In Georgia", but was altered by Valli when he recorded it.
After "Good Lovin'" became Billboard's number one song in April, 1966, organist Felix Cavaliere admitted, "We weren't too pleased with our performance. It was a shock to us when it went to the top of the charts."
On the Mamas and Papas 1966 album "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears", the group's name was spelled with an apostrophe before the "s" - The Mama's and Papa's. Subsequent albums opted for grammatical correctness and the apostrophes were dropped.
According to songwriter Burt Bacharach, his first choice of artist to record "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" was Ray Stevens. Fortunately for BJ Thomas, Stevens didn't like the song and passed on the opportunity.
Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde were a popular English duo during the British Invasion and scored two US Top Ten hits in 1964 with "Yesterday's Gone" and "A Summer Song". After the pair had gone their seperate ways, Stuart served as the musical director for the US television show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
The Beach Boys concert contract states that any sell-outs must be reported to all industry related newspapers and magazines.
The break up of Simon and Garfunkle came about when Art refused to record Paul's song "Cuba Si, Nixon No" for their 1969 "Bridge Over Troubled Water" LP.
"Bye Bye Love" was turned down by Elvis Presley and thirty other artists before The Everly Brothers recorded it. Their version rose to #2 in the US and stayed on the charts for 22 weeks.
The Flamingos 1959 smash, "I Only Have Eyes For You" was first performed by actor Dick Powell in the 1934 movie, Dames.
Gramophone was a U.S. brand name that referred to a specific brand of sound reproducing machine in the late 1800s. The name fell out of use around 1901, though it has survived in its nickname form, Grammy, as the title of the Grammy Awards. The Grammy trophy itself is a small rendering of a gramophone.
The inclusion of "Louie Louie" in the John Belushi movie National Lampoon's Animal House, is in fact, historically incorrect. The film is set in 1962, one year prior to the Kingsmen's release.
When Little Richard (Penniman) was a teenager, he ran away from home and joined a medicine show. By the time he was 15, he was adopted by Ann and Johnny Johnson, a white family from Macon, Georgia.
On the recording session for Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone", future Blood, Sweat and Tears founder Al Kooper played organ and The Electric Flag's Mike Bloomfield played guitar.
The song title of the Beatles' "Penny Lane" is derived from the name of a street in the Beatle's hometown of Liverpool. Locally the term "Penny Lane" was the name given to Allerton Road and Smithdown Road and its busy shopping area and is named after James Penny, an 18th century slave trader.
After recording her first record, Oasis records made a spelling mistake on the label and Donna Sommer became Donna Summer for the rest of her career.
Songwriter Jimmy Webb got the inspiration to write The Fifth Dimension's hit "Up, Up and Away" from a hot air balloon that a friend flew on promotions for radio station KMEN.
The Dovells, who scored a number two hit in the U.S. in 1961 with "Bristol Stomp", also appeared as Chubby Checker's backing band on "Let's Twist Again" and accompanied Jean Hillery on the 1968 novelty tune, "Here Comes The Judge".
The Sir Douglas Quintet were playing in a club one night and noticed a couple dancing. Lead singer Doug Sahm said "She's a body mover!", which gave him an idea for a song. Back in those days you couldn't say "body mover" on a record, so he changed the lyrics to "She's About A Mover" and achieved a US Top 20 hit.
The blistering guitar lead in George Harrison's song, "Taxman" is the exact same guitar part heard at the ending fade of the song. It was copied and re-recorded onto the end.
The song "Summertime Blues" was a US Top 40 hit in three different decades - in the fifties by Eddie Cochran (#8), the sixties by Blue Cheer (#14) and the seventies by The Who (#27).
The Mothers Of Invention are believed to have released the first double album with "Freak Out!" in early 1967.
In 1962, Gene Pitney recorded "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" for the movie of the same name, starring John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. Although the song reached #4 on the Billboard singles chart, it was never included in the film.
When the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, 1964, producers received over 50,000 applications for the 728 seats in the TV studio.
Alan Gordon, the co-writer of The Turtles' hit "Happy Together" said that he wrote the melody to the song based on an open string pattern used by a bandmate to tune his guitar.
Jerry Lee Lewis' parents mortgaged their house in order to buy him a piano.
Johnny Preston's 1960 number one hit, "Running Bear" was written by J.P. Richardson, The Big Bopper.
The double entendre title of the Bellamy Brother's hit "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me" was derived from a quote by Groucho Marx.
With some left over studio time on their hands, a group of musicians recorded an instrumental intended to be a throw-a-way album track. The song ended up on the flip side of a single release called "Train To Nowhere", which was virtually ignored by US radio stations. Finally, someone flipped the disc over and discovered "Tequila", which went to number one on both the Pop and R&B charts for The Champs.
Kenny Loggins joined The Electric Prunes during their final tour in 1969, two years after the band had scored a hit with "I Had Too Much Too Dream". When the tour was over, the band split up for good and Loggins went on to team up with Jim Messina in 1971 and later had several solo hits.
The distinct horse logo that appeared on most of Poco's albums was designed by Saturday Night Live star, Phil Hartman.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in the basement of Jane Asher's house. She was Paul's girlfriend, to whom he would later become engaged to, but never married.
One day while out riding with her dad, Stella McCartney stopped to stare at him. It had just come to her at that moment. She said, "You're Paul McCartney."
While the title of the song is often shown with a comma ("Louie, Louie"), writer Richard Berry told Esquire magazine in 1988 that the correct title of the song was "Louie Louie", with no comma.
When The Supremes' Mary Wilson was contacted for an interview by the television show Romance of The Rich and Famous, she moved some of her personal belongings into a freinds' mansion and let on it was hers, instead of revealing her true residence, a tiny, two bedroom bungalow in Studio City, California.
Little Richard's recording career had just gotten off the ground when his father was murdered in the winter of 1952. To support his family, Richard took a job washing dishes at a Greyhound bus station in Macon, Georgia.
Reginald Kenneth Dwight changed his stage name to Elton John, taking his first name from Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and his last from bluesman, Long John Baldry.
When Decca Records first released "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley And His Comets in the Spring of 1954, most people had never heard of Rock And Roll and the company had a hard time describing the song. The label on the single called it a "Novelty Foxtrot."
On December 17th, 1977, David Ackroyd became the first record buyer to receive a Gold Disc when he purchased the one-millionth copy of "Mull Of Kintyre" by Wings.
In December of 1969, Mick Jagger was quoted saying "I don't really like singing very much, I enjoy playing the guitar more than I enjoy singing and I can't play the guitar either."
Ross Bagdasarian (Davis Seville) named The Chipmunks after executives at Liberty records. Alvin was named for Al Bennett, president of the company, Simon was named after Bennett's partner, Si Waronker and Theodore was named for Ted Keep, a recording engineer.
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" was written by Johnny Marks and recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958. Although Decca released it in both that year and again in 1959, it did not catch on until Lee rose to stardom in 1960. That Christmas season, it reached #16 on the Billboard Pop chart and has since become a perennial holiday favourite. The song continues to sell well during the holiday season and rose to #5 on the Christmas chart in 1984.
One of the strangest moments in Pop music history took place on September 11, 1977, when two stars from different generations, David Bowie and Bing Crosby, got together to tape "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Peace On Earth" for Bing's upcoming Christmas TV special. The pair rehearsed for an hour and finished their duet in only three takes, but Bing died a month later having never seen the video.
In October, 2000, George Michael paid over $2 million for the piano that John Lennon used to write "Imagine". It is a simple upright model and not the white piano that appeared on the album cover.
John Lennon often expressed his dislike for Winston Churchill, the former British Prime Minister that he was named after. He felt so strongly that he had his middle name changed from Winston to Ono after he married Yoko.
Andy White, who played drums on The Beatles' track "Love Me Do", which was included on the Beatles Greatest Hits album, did not earn any money in royalties from it. He only received his original session fee of £7 ($14 US), which is not even enough for him to buy his own copy of the album.
Gloucestershire airport in England used to blast Tina Turner songs on its runways to scare birds away.
The much publicized Jerry Lee Lewis pistol-waving episode outside Graceland in 1976 is said to be a misunderstanding. Jerry and Elvis were long time friends and he had been invited to visit. A pistol on the dashboard of Jerry’s car had been given to him earlier that evening as a present and when security guards at the Gracelands gates saw the pistol and asked Jerry if he’d come to shoot Elvis, Jerry just joked: "Sure I have." This led to the arrest and the subsequent press stories.
After Sam Cooke turned down "Travelin' Man", Ricky Nelson recorded the song and had a Billboard chart topping single with it in 1961.
In 1963, the brother and sister team of Nino Tempo and April Stevens took "Deep Purple" to Billboard's number one position. The same song had topped the charts for Larry McClinton in 1939 and would become a #14 hit for Donny and Marie Osmond in 1976.
1950s crooner Perry Como, who scored many hits including "Round and Round", "Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes" and "Hot Diggity", was the seventh son of a seventh son.
The Rigteous Brothers' hit "Unchained Melody" was never intended to be a single. It was recorded as an album cut and later pressed on the "B" side of the 45 "Hung On You". When it was released, DJs flipped the disc over and "Unchained Melody" quickly rose to #4 in the US and #1 in the UK.
Barry Manilow recorded his vocal and piano parts for "Mandy" in just one take.
Bobby "Boris" Pickett, who topped the Billboard Pop chart in 1962 with "The Monster Mash", once had his tour bus break down outside of a town called Frankenstein, Missouri.
When asked about their controversial hit song "One Toke Over The Line" during an interview with Brewer and Shipley, they said that "toke" had nothing to do with marijuana, but meant token or ticket. Hence the line about "sittin' downtown in a railway station."
When The Beatles' single "Ticket To Ride" was first issued, the fine print under the title said "From the United Artists Release Eight Arms To Hold You", which was the original name for the film Help!.
Cher was a background vocalist on the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling".
When Stu Cook and Doug Clifford reformed CCR as Creedence Clearwater Revisited in 1995, former band mate John Fogerty won a court injunction to prevent the use of the name and the live performance of CCR's hits. The pair toured as Cosmo's Factory until the injunction was overturned on appeal.
Pat Boone spent a total of 21 weeks at the top of the Billboard Pop chart with six different number one hits spread out between 1955 and 1961. His daughter Debby had only one hit, "You Light Up My Life" in 1977, but it stayed number one for 10 straight weeks.
"Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Darin was based on a song called "Le Mer", written by Louis Charles Augustin Georges Trenet in 1945. Bobby used the same melody, but the English words are not a translation of the original French lyrics.
When United Artists was preparing to release Electric Light Orchestra's debut album, a company representative tried to place a call to someone connected with the band to find out what the LP should be titled. The caller, having failed to reach the desired party, jotted down the notation "no answer," a phrase which was mistaken for an album title and assigned to the U.S. version of the LP.
Al Kooper, founder of Blood, Sweat and Tears was a co-writer of the Gary Lewis and The Playboys' hit "This Diamond Ring". Although the song was a US number one smash, Kooper has said he was very disappointed at how the Playboys version sounded, and sheepish that it became such a hit. None of the Playboys actually played their instruments on the recording and Lewis' vocals were heavily supported by Ron Hicklin's overdubs.
The Academy Award winning score for the movie Fame was written by Leslie Gore's brother, Michael.
From 1969 to 1970, Jimmy Buffett was a staff writer for Billboard magazine in Nashville.
The Temptations 1964 classic hit "My Girl" was written by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White of The Miracles. Robinson wrote the lyrics, which he later said were inspired by his wife, Claudette. They divorced in 1986.
Two of Jim Croce's biggest hit songs were inspired by real people. Leroy Brown was a fellow member of the Air National Guard who had gone AWOL and Big Jim Walker ("You Don't Mess Around With Jim") was a pool shootin son-of-a-gun from south Philadelphia.
Brenda Lee's 1960, US number one hit, "I'm Sorry", was recorded at the tail end of a recording session with just five minutes of studio time left. It was intended to be the "B" side of a 45 that featured "That's All You Gotta Do", but disc jockeys flipped the platter over and "I'm Sorry" soon shot to the top of Billboard's Hot 100.
Jim McGuinn of The Byrds changed his middle name to Roger and began using it as a stage name after becoming interested in Eastern religion. A guru had told him that names starting with the letter "R" would vibrate better with the universe.
Roy Orbison's highest charting album did not come about until after his untimely death in 1989. "Mystery Girl" reached #5 and was eventually certified platinum.
"House Of The Rising Sun" is a traditional Folk song that was first recorded in 1920 and tells a story about a brothel in New Orleans named after Madame Marianne Le Soleil Levant (which means "Rising Sun" in French). It was open for business from 1862, when Union Troops occupied the town, until 1874, when it was closed due to complaints by neighbors.
After the death of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham in 1980, guitarist Jimmy Page refuesed to even pick up a guitar for nearly nine months.
Monkees guitarist Mike Nesmith wrote Linda Ronstadt's 1968 hit, "Different Drum".
Gene Chandler, who reached number one in the US in 1962 with "The Duke Of Earl", was the producer of "Backfield In Motion", a 1969 Top Ten hit by Mel And Tim.
Tommy Roe wrote and recorded a song called "Sheila" when he was just 14 years old. The effort went nowhere, but six years later, he recorded it again for ABC-Paramount and this time it went to number one in the US.
Peter Noone, better known as Herman of Herman's Hermits, once interviewed Elvis Presley for the UK music paper New Musical Express.
Elvis' girlfriend, Ginger Alden, found him dead, lying on the floor of his bathroom. He had been seated on the toilet reading The Scientific Search For Jesus.
Twenty years after his death, a report showed that Elvis Presley was the world's best selling posthumous entertainer, with world-wide sales of over 1 billion dollars and 480 active fanclubs. He died owing $3 million.
Darlene Love, who sang lead vocals on The Crystals hits "He's A Rebel" and "He's Sure The Boy I Love", played Danny Glover’s wife in all four Lethal Weapon movies.
Harry Elston, co-founder of The Friends Of Distinction, used to work as a limousine driver for The Temptations.
Mercury Records released The Platters' "Twilight Time" on both 78 RPM and 45 RPM discs. The song went to number one in the U.S. in April, 1958 and sold one and a half million copies, of which 98.2 percent were 45s. By that June, Mercury became the first major record label to announce that it would stop producing 78s, effective immediately.
After The Tokens achieved a number one record with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in 1961, follow up recordings failed to sell. The group however continued to perform and sang back up vocals for Connie Francis, Del Shannon and Bob Dylan, as well as recording commercials for Pan Am, Ban Deodorant, Wendys and Sunkist.
In the 1960s, during the height of Beatlemania, there were about 90 records released every week in the UK. Only 2 or 3 ever made the charts.
The Shirelles 1962, US Top 10 hit, "Baby, It's You" was actually recorded with only Shirley Alston Reeves' voice over the instumental demo. The other members of the group don't appear on the record at all, as the original backup vocals, provided by male singers, were left in place.
It took Elvis Presley 31 takes of "Hound Dog" to get the final version that we hear today. In 1988, the song was named the most played record of all time on American juke boxes.
'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' by Wham! was inspired by a note that group member Andrew Ridgeley left lying in his bedroom.
Paul Evans, who sang the US Top Ten hits "Seven Little Girls" and "Happy-Go-Lucky Me", wrote the music for Bobby Vinton's hit, "Roses Are Red" in 3 minutes, just after seeing Al Byron's lyrics for the first time. After Vinton recorded it, the song went to #1 in the US and sold over 4 million copies.
Tommy James and the Shondells' "It's Only Love" album cover was the first professional photo shoot by Paul McCartney's wife, Linda Eastman.
Robert Todd Storz is credited with being the father of the Top 40 radio format. In the early 1950s, he noticed that people would play the same juke box selections over and over, and gradually converted his stable of radio stations from playing dramas and variety shows to an all-hits format. He dubbed the result "Top 40". Storz also pioneered the practice of surveying record stores to determine which singles were the most popular each week. Ironically, he died of a stroke in 1964, in his 40th year.
John Hall, co-founder of the Rock band Orleans, was elected to US Congress in November, 2006, representing New York's 19th congressional district. That's him you hear doing the slick guitar work on "Still The One" and "Dance With Me".
Before they formed The Lovin' Spoonful, John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky were in a group called The Mugwumps, whose other members included Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty, who would rise to fame in The Mamas and The Papas.
The Barry Manilow hit "I Write The Songs", written by The Beach Boys' Bruce Johnson, has been recorded by over two hundred artists and has a cumulative, worldwide sales figure of twenty-five million copies.
At the same time as "Love Will Keep Us Together" was starting to fade from the Billboard Hot 100, The Captain and Tennille had a Spanish version of the same song ("Por Amor Viviremos") enter the chart. It was the only time in Rock history that an act had two versions of the same song in different languages and on different singles, appear simultaneously on the Hot 100.
While Ernie K-Doe's hit "Mother-In-Law" was at the top of the US charts in 1961, Dick Clark decided he would not have K-Doe on American Bandstand because he felt the song was disrespectful towards his Mother-in-Law.
The line from Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode, "That little country boy could play" was originally written as, "That little colored boy can play." Berry knew that in order to get the song played on the radio, he would have to change that lyric.
Janis Ian got the inspiration for her hit "At Seventeen" while sitting at the kitchen table reading a New York Times article about a debutante. The opening line of the story was "I learned the truth at 18." Janis wrote the lyrics as "at seventeen" because it flowed better.
Five different record companies, including Decca, Roulette, Columbia, RCA and Atlantic turned down "That'll Be The Day" by Buddy Holly. Finally, Bob Thiele at Coral / Brunswick Records heard the demo and signed Holly to a contract.
In order to give fans a "gold record", the first 100,000 copies of "We're An American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad were stamped out of gold colored vinyl.
Lesley Gore appeared in two episodes of the TV show Batman in 1966. She played the role of "Pussycat", one of Catwoman's henchwomen. She may have had a little help landing the role, as Howie Horwitz, one of the show's producers, is her uncle.
Even though they have such strange names as Moon Unit, Diva, Dweezil and Ahmet Rodan, Frank Zappa once said that he believed that his kids would always have more trouble because of their last name.
Years before scoring 1972's number one smash "I Can See Clearly Now", Johnny Nash entered a talent show in Houston Texas. He lost to a young Soul singer named Joe Tex, who would have a chart topping hit of his own in 1968 with "Skinny Legs and All".
Jimi Hendrix was hired as the Monkees opening act for their 1967 Summer tour. Unfortunately, US audiences had never seen anything like Hendrix before and booed him off of the stage. He quit the tour after two weeks.
While talking on the phone with his mother, Disc Jockey Murray The K mentioned that he and Bobby Darin were soaking their feet after playing a game of softball in Central Park. A few minutes later, she called back to say that she had an idea for a song - "Splish, Splash, take a bath..." Murray and Bobby began sorting out some lyrics while Murray's mother, Jean, who had been a vaudeville piano player, finished the melody. It became the first of Bobby's 22 US Top 40 hits when it reached #3 in the Summer of 1958.
The Beatles recorded two different versions of the song "Strawberry Fields Forever". One was a half-tone higher and slightly faster than the other. The group couldn't decide which rendition they liked better and finally asked producer George Martin if he could put them together somehow. When one was slowed down, it fit perfectly with the other, resulting in the song we know today.
The Guess Who performed at The White House during the Nixon administration, but were asked not to perform their #1 hit "American Woman" because of its' anti-U.S. establishment lyrics.
Fats Domino's 1956, US #2 hit, "Blueberry Hill" was originally a number one hit for big band leader Glen Miller in 1940.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, The Young Rascals were surprised by the success of "Good Lovin". Felix Cavaliere admitted, "We weren't too pleased with our performance. It was a shock to us when it went to the top of the charts."
Although Jerry Lee Lewis received a lot of bad press for marrying his 13 year old second cousin, Jerry's sister Linda Gail first married at 14 and another sister, Frankie Jean, first married at age 12.
When song writer Burt Bacharach asked B.J. Thomas to sing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" for the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he neglected to tell Thomas that the song had already been turned down by Bob Dylan and Ray Stevens.
Buddy Holly's drummer, Jerry Allison played drums on The Everly Brothers 1959 hit "Til I Kissed You".
Songwriter Hoyt Axton once revealed that the first line of "Joy To The World", Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was never intended to be in the song. It was just a fill-in line he used until he could come up with better lyrics. He pitched the tune to Three Dog Night when they toured together and they ended up recording it "as is."
George Harrison expressed his feelings about the break-up of The Beatles by saying: "The saddest thing was actually getting fed up with one another."
A race running the route described in the song "Dead Man's Curve", from Hollywood and Vine to Sunset and Doheny, would have covered 4.5 miles. If it were extended to the real "dead man's curve" near UCLA, it would have been a drag race of 8.7 miles.
Producer Terry Melcher called upon song writers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to come up with something for Paul Revere And The Raiders. They sent him a song called "Kicks", which they had originally written hoping it would help get a friend of theirs off drugs.
In 1962, Mersyside Newspaper held a contest to see who was the most popular band in Liverpool. The Beatles were the winners, partly because they called in posing as different people, voting for themselves.
The Four Tops recorded their first Motown hit, 1964's "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" in the wee hours of the morning, shortly after songwriter Eddie Holland had sang it for them for the first time.
Connie Francis was on the comeback trail in 1981 when her brother, George, was brutally murdered, allegedly by members of organized crime.
Pat Boone, who is a very religious man, once claimed to use his own surname in lieu of curse words when he is upset.
When Janis Joplin was in college in 1963, a local fraternity voted her "The Ugliest Man on Campus."
Mark Dinning scored a number one hit in the U.S. in 1960 with "Teen Angel". While he was growing up in Olkahoma, one of his babysitters was a girl named Clara Ann Fowler, who would go on to have a recording career of her own as Patti Page.
Bert Kaempfert, who lead his orchestra on the January, 1961, number one US hit, "Wonderland By Night", would go on to produce the first recording session that The Beatles ever had. At the time, the boys were backing Tony Sheridan on "My Bonnie" and "When The Saints Go Marching In".
Although many fans assumed that the Shirelles were named for their lead singer Shirley Owens, the members of the group say that this is not true. The girls came up with the name while they were still in high school and Doris Kenner was singing most of the lead vocals.
The next time you see the movie Back To The Future III, be sure to look for ZZ Top in a cameo roll. They play in the band that is performing in the Hill Valley party scene where Doc asks Clara to dance. That's drummer Frank Beard who twirls his snare drum around as the band breaks into song.
Due to his horrible singing voice, drummer Keith Moon was banned from the studio while the rest of The Who were recording vocals.
When Diane Renay's mother was pregnant with her, a gypsy fortune teller told her, "you're gonna have a daughter and your daughter one day is going to be a star." That prediction came true in 1964 when 17 year old Diane reached #6 on the Billboard chart with "Navy Blue".
James Brown placed 99 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 Pop chart. 44 of them made the Top 40, but none ever reached number one.
In 1959, Tommy Dee reached #11 on the Billboard chart with a record called "Three Stars", a tune dedicated to the memory or Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. The song was meant for Eddie Cochran, but he was unable to complete the recording because of the overwhelming sadness caused by the death of his friends.
After enjoying a hit with "Red Rubber Ball", Tom Dawes of The Cyrkle wrote the famous "plop plop fizz fizz" jingle for Alka-Seltzer.
On September 7, 1976, Eric Clapton wrote his hit song "Wonderful Tonight" for his wife, the former Pattie Boyd Harrison, while waiting for her to get ready to go out to Paul and Linda McCartney's annual Buddy Holly party.
In April 1909 Charles David Herrold, an electronics instructor in San Jose, California, constructed an early radio station. He coined the terms "narrowcasting" and "broadcasting" respectively to identify transmissions destined for a single receiver such as that on board a ship, and those transmissions destined for a general audience.
Although there is some debate among collectors about what was the last commercially released 8-track tape by a major label, many agree it was "Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits" in November 1988. There are reports of bootleg 8-track tapes being produced in Mexico as late as 1995 and some independent artists have released 8-track tapes as late as 2006.
Paul McCartney wrote the song "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid" for the album "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" after getting a parking ticket from a female warden in Abbey Road.
After seeing the 1978 movie, The Buddy Holly Story, Crickets drummer Jerry Allison said he thought it "was a horrible movie." He went on to say "the only thing I saw about it that was real was they spelled Buddy's name right."
The all-time most nominated Grammy artist is Quincy Jones with 77 nominations.
Iwao Takamoto, the animator who created the cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, said that he got the inspiration to name his character from the closing scat to Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In The Night". (Dooby-dooby-doo...)
The song "Bye, Bye Love" had been turned down by 30 other artists before The Everly Brothers recorded it. It became their first big hit, rising to number 2 in the US in 1957.
After recording a number of demo songs on January 1st, 1962, The Beatles received a rejection letter from the Decca Recording Company that said "We don't like their sound and guitar music is on the way out."
Although The Ed Sullivan Show was the first TV program in America to host the Beatles, it was not their first US TV appearance. On December 7, 1963, The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite featured footage of Beatles fans at a concert. The Beatles' first US television appearance was on The Jack Parr Show on January 4th, 1964 when Parr showed a film of the band playing "She Loves You". Before showing the performance, one of Parr's comments was "I understand science is working on a cure for this."
"The Twist" by Chubby Checker is the only song to climb to number one on Billboard's Hot 100 in two seperate chart runs. The first was in September, 1960 and the second in January, 1962. The hit version is take number three in a 35 minute recording session.
The only US number one single to be re-recorded by the same artist and become a Top Ten hit all over again is "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" by Neil Sedaka. The original, up-tempo version topped the Billboard chart in 1962, while a ballad rendition reached number 8 in 1975. Other songs have made a second appearence on Billboard's Hot 100, but it was the original version that came back.
Drummer John Peterson played for The Beau Brummels on their 1965 hits "Laugh Laugh" and "Just A Little" before leaving in 1966 to join Harpers Bizarre in time to record their 1967 hit "Feelin' Groovy".
Rocky Burnette's "Tired Of Toein' The Line" was written in half an hour and was originally released as the "B" side of a single called "Clowns From Outerspace". After EMI Records re-released it as an "A" side, the song became a #8 hit in the US.
The inspiration for Tommy Tutone's 1982 hit "867-5309 / Jenny" came from a girl named Jenny whose parent's phone number really was 867-5309.
Danny and The Juniors got their big break when they were called to fill in for a group that failed to show up for Dick Clark’s American Bandstand show in Philadelphia. They lip-synced "At The Hop", which then took off like a rocket to #1 in the US. A few years later, Chubby Checker was invited to make his first TV appearance on Bandstand when Danny and The Juniors didn't show.
Vocalist David Dee of the British rock group Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, was a former policeman who was at the scene of the automobile accident that took the life of American rocker Eddie Cochran and injured Gene Vincent in April 1960. Dee rescued Cochran's guitar from the wreck and held it until it could be returned, undamaged, to Cochran's family.
Early manufacturers of Jukeboxes never referred to them as "jukeboxes", they called them Automatic Coin-Operated Phonographs. The term "juke" is Southern US slang for dancing.
In December, 1962, The Four Season's version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" reached number 23 on the Billboard singles chart. The song was originally a hit for George Hall in 1934.
"I'm A Beliver", the Monkees follow-up to their number one hit, "Last Train To Clarksville" was a million seller before it was even released, due to over 1 million advance orders.
Although many fans thought that the Beatles "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was about LSD, John Lennon would later say that he got the inspiration for the song from a picture that his son Julian had painted at school.
John Lennon deliberately wrote nonsense words to "I Am The Walrus" to throw off listeners who tried to find hidden meanings in his lyrics.
In 1956, Micky and Sylvia recorded the million selling "Love Is Strange". After the duo split in 1961, Micky Baker would write several guitar insturction books, including the best seller "Jazz Guitar". Sylvia Vanderpool co-founded All Platinum Records and co-worte The Moments 1970 gold record "Love On A Two Way Street".
Rocker John Mellencamp was born with spina bifida, a potentially crippling neural tube defect that required surgery and a lengthy hospitalization.
Despite having a long list of hit records to her credit, there were two more that Cher could have had. In 1973 she was offered "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia", but turned it down. Vicki Lawrence took it to number one. She also had first crack at "Angie Baby" in 1974, but again felt it wasn't her kind of song. Helen Reddy's version would top the US chart.
The Strawberry Alarm Clock had a 1967, number one hit with "Incense and Peppermints". As a part of their live act, drummer Randy Seol played the bongos with his hands on fire.
After Nino Tempo and April Stevens hastily recorded a song called "Deep Purple", the master tape was sent to Atlantic Records producer Ahmet Ertegun, who said that the effort was not only embarrassing, but the worst thing Nino and April had ever done. After some pressure from Nino, Ertegun gave in and released the song as a single. It quickly soared to #1 on the Billboard Pop chart and enjoyed a twelve week run. The following year it won a Grammy Award for the Best Rock and Roll Recording of 1963.
Although she is mostly remembered for her hit "Stand By Your Man", country singer Tammy Wynette has been married five times.
Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote "The Loco-Motion" with the hope that Dee Dee Sharp would record it. For the demo, they asked their infant daughter's baby sitter, Eva Boyd to sing the song. Sharp's producers turned it down, but their publishing firm liked the demo so much, they released it as a single, giving Little Eva a number one record.
In the Fall of 1958, Neil Diamond entered New York University on a fencing scholarship.
Bobby Vinton found his biggest hit, "Roses Are Red" in a pile of reject demo records while he was waiting to be told of his release from his recording contract. He talked Epic Records management into letting him record the song and soon after, he and the label had their first million selling, number one smash.
Gale Garnett, who sang the Top 40 song, "We'll Sing In The Sunshine", appeared in a number of episodes of the TV show Bonanza.
Before Neil Young joined Crosby, Stills and Nash, the original trio had already asked George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood to become the fourth member of their group.
Paul Simon took the title of his song "Mother and Child Reunion" from the name of a chicken-and-egg dish he saw on a Chinese restaurant's menu.
If you listen carefully to Marvin Gaye's 1971 smash "What's Going On", you can hear former Detroit Lions Mel Farr and Lem Barney talking and singing in the background.
During the recording of Ted Nugent's 1976 album "Free For All", singer / guitarist Derek St. Holmes left the band for personal reasons. A singer named Marvin Aday, who would one day be known as Meat Loaf, replaced him on five songs.
None of The Beatles played instruments on "Eleanor Rigby", though John Lennon and George Harrison did contribute harmony and backing vocals. Instead, Paul McCartney used a string octet of studio musicians, composed of four violins, two cellos, and two violas all working off a score written by producer George Martin.
The song "Happy Birthday" brings in about $2 million a year in licensing revenue to Warner Communications, who hold the copyright to the song.
The harmonica that John Lennon used to record The Beatles "Love Me Do" was one that he shoplifted from a store in Arnhem, Holland.
Even though Barry Manilow wrote many of his chart makers, he did not write three of his most popular hits. "Mandy" was written by Scott English and Richard Kerr, "Looks Like We Made It", was penned by Will Jennings and Richard Kerr, and "I Write The Songs" was composed by Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys.
For the recording of "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", Procol Harum's producer Denny Cordell chose to replace the band's regular drummer, Bobby Harrison, with session man Bill Eyden. Even though the song went to the top of the charts world wide, Eyden was paid the Musicians' Union rate of 15 pounds and 15 shillings. Harrison received, like all the other members of the band, 10,000 pounds, despite admitting he had taken no part in the recording. He later left the band and was replaced by B.J. Wilson.
The Bellemy Brothers hit "Let Your Love Flow" was written by Larry Williams, a roadie for Neil Diamond. It was the only song that he wrote that was ever recorded, but it sold over four million copies.
The Standells' drummer, Larry Tamblyn is the brother of Russ Tamblyn (star of West Side Story) and uncle of Amber Tamblyn (star of Joan of Arcadia and Grudge 2).
Michael Jackson owns the rights to the South Carolina State anthem.
The world's first cassette player was made available to the public at an electronics show in August 1965.
In 1980, former Amboy Dukes guitarist Ted Nugent, known as "the Motor City Madman", was made a deputy sheriff near his home in southern Michigan.
The Beatles' last concert tour appearance was a 33-minute performance at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on Monday August 29th, 1966. The Park's capacity was 42,500 but the Beatles only filled 25,000 seats, leaving entire sections unsold. The last song they played was not even one of their own tunes. It was Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally".
Gus Cannon had written and recorded a song called "Walk Right In" in 1930. Erik Darling heard the record over 30 years later and along with some friends, recorded it as The Rooftop Singers. Cannon was 79 years old at the time and had been living in a tiny trackside house, heated by coal. His financial situation improved dramatically when newly recorded song caught on across America and went to number one in January, 1963.
Barry McGuire, who recorded the number one smash "Eve Of Destruction" in 1965, never had another US Top 40 hit. He did however become a born again Christian in the 1970s and sold hundreds of thousands of Gospel records.
While still in the Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald sang backup vocals on Christopher Cross' 1980, number two hit, "Ride Like The Wind".
The last time all four Beatles were ever together was in a recording studio during a mixing session for "Abbey Road" on August 20th, 1969.
Faced with the Beatles' breakup, Paul McCartney told the others he wanted the band to get back to its roots and tour little clubs. John Lennon said he was nuts.
During the last years that Elvis Presley performed live, he opened his shows with "The Theme From 2001". When asked about it, Presley said that he felt the number 2001 had a special significance in his life that he couldn't explain. Elvis died August, 16, 1977, which numerically is 8-16-1977. When these numbers are added up, they equal 2001.
The day after Elvis died, Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD) reported that in one day, the number of orders for flowers to be delivered to Graceland had surpassed the number for any other event in the company's history.
Paul McCartney wrote "Hey Jude" for Julian Lennon after John's divorce from his first wife, Cynthia. The song's original name was "Hey Julian", then changed to "Hey Jules" before settling on the final title.
The members of Exile, who scored a US number one hit in 1978 with "Kiss You All Over", toured with the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars in 1965 as back-up band for artists including Brian Hyland and Tommy Roe.
Billboard Magazine printed the first Hot 100 singles chart in August, 1958. Their first number 1 hit was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson.
When he was a boy, David Bowie took art lessons from Peter Frampton's father, Owen.
In 1963, artists managed by Brian Epstein placed 85 songs in the Top Ten of the British record charts.
A popular fad of the 50's, the jukebox used to be known as 'the nickel in the slot machine'. The first of these were created when a coin operated slot was added to an Edison phonograph in San Francisco in 1889. In its first six months of service, the Nickel-in-the-Slot earned over $1000.
One night in 1968, while Gary U.S. Bonds was playing at a club in New Jersey, he thought he'd give a local kid a break and invite him up onstage to do a number. That kid turned out to be rock superstar Bruce Springsteen.
Elvis Presley's 1958, number one smash, "I Beg Of You" took 34 takes to get it right.
In 1970, Jeff Christie offered his composition "Yellow River" to the Tremeloes. They recorded it to release as a single, but when they changed their minds, they allowed Jeff's own band to use the backing track themselves. The result was a UK number one hit in May 1970 and subsequently #23 in the US.
Before joing the Monkees, Davy Jones was both a stage actor and a racehorse jockey.
Joey Dee, who had a US number one hit in January, 1962 with "Peppermint Twist" was surounded by future recording stars at various stages of his life. He attended Passaic Highschool in New Jersey at the same time as the Shirelles. A female trio that was part of his act at the Peppermint Lounge went on to become The Ronettes. When he opened his own club, his backup band included Felix Cavaliere, Gene Cornish and Eddie Brigati, who would form the Young Rascals. After Joey sold the club and went on the road, his guitar player was Jimi Hendrix.
When Vernon Presley re-married on July 3rd, 1960, Elvis did not attend the ceremony.
Elton John wrote his US number one hit, "Philadelphia Freedom" after watching Billie Jean King play a tennis match with her World Tennis League team, the Philadelphia Freedoms.
In 1951, when Brenda Lee was only 6 years old, she auditioned for a local Atlanta television show called TV Ranch. An hour and a half after singing "Hey, Good Lookin'" for the producer, she appeared on the program.
In the early fifties, Neil Sedaka teamed up with some high school friends to form a vocal group. They had a local hit in New York, but then parted ways. The group later went on to record as The Tokens and in 1962, scored a Billboard number one smash with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
In 1961 Ricky Nelson's father, Ozzie Nelson, filmed a video for the hit "Travelin Man", featuring pictures of places mentioned in the song. This film is often called the world's first rock video. This is disputed however by Jay Perry Richardson, the son of J.P. Richardson, better known as The Big Bopper, claiming that his father made a video in 1958 for "Chantilly Lace" and actually coined the term 'music video' in 1959.
The drummer who played on the Marvelettes 1961, number one hit, "Please Mr. Postman" was 22 year old Marvin Gaye.
In 1966, songwriter Tommy Boyce asked Del Shannon to record the theme for Dick Clark's upcoming TV show Where The Action Is. Shannon didn't like the song and turned it down. It was then offered to Freddy Cannon, who had a #3 US hit with it.
Mary McGregor recorded her 1977, number one hit, "Torn Between Two Lovers" while standing in a bathroom, to take advantage of the room's natural echo.
The world's most expensive record has an estimated value of $180,000 and is in the possession of Paul McCartney. The disc is the first pressing of "That'll Be The Day", recorded in 1958 by the Quarry Men, made up of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Colin Hanton and John Duff Lowe.
It was Paul Simon who actually wrote The Cyrkle's 1966 hit "Red Rubber Ball" under the assumed name of Jerry Landis.
The studio group who helped Boz Scaggs record the bulk of his hits in the 1970s, including "Lido Shuffle" and "Lowdown" would go on to form the nucleus of the band Toto. Jeff Porcaro, David Hungate and David Paich scored four Top Ten hits of their own with "I Won't Hold Back" (#10), "Hold The Line" (#5), "Rosanna" (#2) and "Africa" (#1).
In 1984, former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page founded a new band called The Firm with ex Bad Company and Free vocalist Paul Rodgers. Page said the group was to be a vehicle to show people that he was not a washed up drug user. In the fall of the same year, he was arrested for possession of cocaine.
When RCA released 55 albums in stereo in May of 1958, executives at other record companies decleared stereo a passing fad and predicted that mono would always be around.
After Prince converted to being a Jehovah's Witness in May of 2001, fans could count at least 50 songs the artist can no longer perform due to their explicit content, including hits such as "Little Red Corvette" and "Cream".
Ernie K-Doe found a tune called "Mother-In-Law" in songwriter Allen Toussaint's discarded song pile and immediatley wanted to record it, as he was having marital problems and blamed his wife's mother for much of them. The result was a surprising number one hit in May of 1961.
The first pressings of John Sebastian's May, 1976 solo hit, "Welcome Back", were entitled "Welcome Back Kotter" to make sure that the public identified the record as the theme song to the TV show of the same name.
When Elvis Presley married his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Beaulieu on May 1, 1967, they danced to the Elvis song she heard when they met in 1959, "Love Me Tender".
Keyboard player Billy Preston is the only studio musician to ever get credit on a Beatles' record.
The only artist in rock and roll history to record Billboard's number one single of the year for two years in a row was Elvis Presley, with "Heartbreak Hotel" in 1956 and "All Shook Up" in 1957. Both records held the top spot for 25 weeks in those years.
The drum sound on Buddy Knox's 1957 hit, "Party Doll" was actually made by a cardboard box filled with cotton.
Lawrence Welk is the only US recording artist to have more appearances on network television than Paul Revere and The Raiders.
Gene Pitney started his mucic career in the early 1960s as a song writer, penning Rick Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou", Bobby Vee's "Rubber Ball" and the Crystals' "He's a Rebel".
The first known million selling recording was by Ben Selvin and his Orchestra. It was a two sided hit featuring "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" and "Darandella", recorded in 1919.
Guitarist Henry Gross, who hit the US charts in 1976 with "Shannon", was one of the founding members of the rock and roll revival group, Sha Na Na.
For the year 2005, the top earning dead celebrity in the US was Elvis Presley, who still generated $45 million worth of business. John Lennon was third with $22 million.
The Beatles 4th UK #1 single, "Can't Buy Me Love", had advanced sales of over 2.1 million, setting the record for the greatest advanced orders in the UK.
The most expensive guitar in the world is a Fender Stratocaster once owned by Eric Clapton. Nicknamed "Blackie", it sold at auction for $959,500. on June 25th, 2004.
In early 1957, RCA Records released two versions of a song called "Young Love", one by Tab Hunter, the other by Sonny James. Both records caught on and by the first week of March, Hunter's rendition was number one in the US, while James' version was number 4.
When Cher topped the Billboard Hot 100 with "Believe" in March, 1999, she became the first female over the age of 50 to have a chart topping record.
When Elvis was drafted into the US Army in March, 1958, his monthly pay went from $100,000 to $78.
The bass drum head with the Beatles logo that Ringo Starr used during the band's first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show was bought by a memorabilia collector in the mid-1990s for around $50,000. By 2006, it's estimated value had risen to half-a-million dollars.
Jethro Tull's 1968 debut single, "Sunshine Day" was erroneously credited to Jethro Toe.
When Roberta Flack was awarded a gold record for her 1973, number one hit, "Killing Me Softly With His Song", she wanted to listen to her song etched in gold. She removed the disc from its frame and placed it on a turntable, only to hear "Come Softly to Me" by The Fleetwoods.
The studio musicians who recorded the music for many "bubblegum" hits credited to The 1910 Fruitgum Company, The Ohio Express and many others, were actually former members of The Shadows of Knight, who had a hit of their own with "Gloria".
In February and March, 1964, The Beatles sold 60% of all the records sold in the U.S.
The first recording that Ray Charles made was called "Confession Blues", but at the time of the session, the American Federation Of Musicians was on strike. The violation cost Ray $600 and left him penniless.
For their first two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles were paid just $3500 per show. The expenses alone to bring them to America totalled over $50,000, which was paid for by their manager, Brian Epstein.
When record executives at RCA gave a song called "Rock and Roll Waltz" to Kay Starr, she thought they must have been kidding, as rock and roll was still frowned upon by serious musicians. After many arguments, RCA still insisted that she record the song. Their hunch proved to be a good one as the record went to number 1 in the US in February, 1956.
Carl Perkins, the rockabilly pioneer who wrote Elvis Presley's hit, "Blue Suede Shoes", was a sharecropper's son who learned to play music on a guitar fashioned from a cigar box and broomstick.
The Odeon label was created in Germany in 1904 by the International Talking Machine Company.
Odeon pioneered something they called the "album" in 1909 when it released the "Nutcracker Suite" by Tchaikovsky on four double-sided discs in a specially designed package.
Dion DiMucci of Dion and The Belmonts was a part of 1959's Winter Dance Party with Buddy Holly. When Buddy suggested that Dion fly with him after their show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2nd, Dion declined because he didn't want to spend the extra money. It was a decision that saved his life.
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