This Week In Music: 4/11 - 4/17

 This Week In Music

 April 11 – April 17

Tornado In Nashville … Marley Plays Africa … The Beatles Granted Forgiveness

This is the week that was in matters musical…

1933: Bell engineers demonstrate the realism of stereo soundstage instrument placement before an audience of 300 guests at New York City’s Academy of Music who had come to listen the Philadelphia Orchestra … from a darkened stage the audience listens to Wagner’s Gotterdammerung … when the lights come up, the stage is empty and engineer Harvey Fletcher explain the orchestra is performing in the soundproof basement and the performance they heard was reproduced by loudspeakers onstage …

1940: the number-one hit is "In The Mood" by the Glenn Miller Orchestra …

1954: Bill Haley & His Comets’ first recording session for Decca at the Pythian Temple studio (formerly a dance club) on West 80th Street in New York City produces the track "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" … the track, which melds hillbilly and R&B ingredients, will own the top spot on the Billboard chart for eight weeks and be considered by many to mark the beginning of rock 'n' roll …

1956: later to become known as Soul Brother Number One, James Brown charts for the first time with "Please, Please, Please" … following Elvis' show at the Memorial Coliseum in Corpus Christi, Texas, the venue's manager vows that'll be the last rock 'n' roll show to besmirch his stage … he is reacting to complaints from fans and parents who condemn the performance as "vulgar" … Buddy Holly’s first single, “Blue Days, Black Nights” is released …

1961: Bob Dylan makes his professional singing debut in Greenwich Village at Gerde’s Folk City, opening for John Lee Hooker … he performs “House of the Rising Sun” and “Song to Woody” … Joan Baez joins him for the second number …

1963: The Drifters cut a topical Lieber-Stoller song titled "Only in America" … due to lyrics which obliquely refer to race issues, it is deemed a hot potato … the black group's vocals are edited off the track and are replaced with those of Jay & the Americans, a white group … thought to be lost, the Drifters' version turns up as a bonus track on a Jay & The Americans CD in 1983 …

1964: The Beatles occupy a record-breaking fourteen spots on the U.S. charts ranging from #1 down to #81 … “Can't Buy Me Love” (1), “Twist and Shout” (2), “She Loves You” (4), “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (7), “Please Please Me” (9), “Do You Want to Know a Secret” (14), “I Saw Her Standing There” (38), “You Can't Do That” (48), “All My Loving” (50), “From Me to You” (52), “Thank You Girl” (61), “There's a Place” (74), “Roll Over Beethoven” (78) and “Love Me Do” (81) …

1965: it is announced that the upcoming Beatles movie with the working title Eight Arms to Hold You will be titled Help! instead …

1966: Jan Berry, half of the duo Jan & Dean notable for their many car-related hit songs, wipes out his Corvette and suffers major head injuries that lead to paralysis and a long hard road to recovery …

1967: proving that capitalists will always be hot on the heels of revolutionaries, Gray Line Tours begins busing people through the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco on a guided tour of Hippieland …

1968: Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention perform at the National Academy of Arts and Sciences Dinner in New York … Zappa makes some cutting remarks, terming the event, "a load of pompous hokum … All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!" … recalling the event later, Zappa says, "We played the ugliest sh*t we could … that's what they expected us to play" …

1969: Desmond Dekker & The Aces move into the #1 spot on the UK singles chart with "The Israelites" … he's the first Jamaican act to enjoy that spot …

1970: Johnny Cash drops in on Richard Nixon at the White House and performs "A Boy Named Sue" at the president's special request …

1971: Carly Simon charts for the first time with "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" ... it is the first of 23 hits she will have...

1972: Electric Light Orchestra plays live for the first time at the Greyhound Club in Surrey, England ... they will go on to have seven top 10 hits...

1980: Bob Marley and The Wailers play in Salisbury, Zimbabwe, for the Independence Day festivities...

1982: in keeping with his celebrated inclination toward vehicular mishaps, Billy Joel crashes into a car with his motorcycle … he is hospitalized and has surgery on a broken wrist...

1989: Roy Orbison reaches the top 10 this week with "You Got It" … unfortunately, having died four months earlier he is unable to enjoy his first top 10 appearance in over 24 years …

1993: Elton John’s single “A Simple Life” climbs to #30 on the pop chart … it will ultimately top out at #10 and give the British rocker the distinction of being the only artist to enjoy Top 40 hits for 24 years straight while surpassing Elvis’ 23 …

1994: just days after singer Kurt Cobain is found dead, Nirvana’s third LP, In Utero, is certified double platinum …  

1998: Paul loses Linda to cancer … a tornado roars through downtown Nashville, forcing a video shoot for country singer David Kersh to a halt as everyone runs for cover …

1999: Yoko Ono and Capitol Records sue Frederic Seaman, a former John Lennon assistant, claiming that he had stolen personal and sentimental items of Lennon's with plans to exploit the rocker's death … also this week, after a year in the grave, the body of Tammy Wynette is exhumed and autopsied at the request of her daughters, who are pursuing a case against her physician claiming that his irresponsible prescription of drugs contributed to her death …

2000: Metallica declares war on peer-to-peer file sharing by bringing suit against Napster, Inc. and several U.S. universities alleging copyright infringement … George Lucas’ Lucasfilm Ltd. sues Dr. Dre … the company claims the artist used their trademarked “THX Deep Note” sound on his 2001 album without permission …

2001: legendary frontman Joey Ramone succumbs to lymphoma at the age of 49 … a private funeral for the Ramones singer is held at a chapel in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, where he grew up …

2005: hip-hop duo Outkast and civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks settle a lawsuit she filed in 1999…Parks' suit alleged defamation and trademark infringement over the Outkast song "Rosa Parks"… Mariah Carey makes stages a major comeback with the release of her new album The Emancipation of Mimi … it debuts at number one, goes six times platinum in less than a year, and becomes the most successful album of 2005 …

2006: Eminem cohort Proof, born DeShaun Holton, is shot dead in a Detroit nightclub after he shot and seriously wounded another man … former assistant to producer Phil Spector, Michelle Blaine, sues her former boss for $5 million contending that he badgered her to marry him so that she could not be forced to testify at his pending trial for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson … Spector will win a judgment in 2007 against Blaine for embezzlement of $900,000 from his pension fund … A 10-page notebook that 10-year-old John Lennon used to scribble poems, journal entries and drawings is auctioned for $226,150 … among the art is an illustration of Lewis Carroll’s poem, “The Walrus and the Carpenter” that later serves as inspiration for “I Am the Walrus” …

2007: Madonna makes a return trip to the impoverished African nation of Malawi to continue her charitable efforts there … she is accompanied by David Banda, the one-year-old Malawian orphan she is in the process of adopting …

2008: Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello hits the road with friends including Slash, Perry Farrell and Maynard James Keenan of Tool on a seven-date Justice Tour that raises money for local charities … commenting on the thrust of the shows he says, “Politics are going to be discussed, but this is not a college lecture. They are freedom parties, where we’re not  going to only fight the power but the rock the f**k out.” …

2009: Phil Spector is convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend Lana Clarkson in 2003 …

2010: The Vatican officially forgives the Beatles for their sins, four decades after John Lennon said, "We're more popular than Jesus now." … Hank Williams is awarded the lifetime achievement Pulitzer Prize in music …  considered one of the greatest country music singers of all time, he had several number hits during his time, and many of his songs have been re-recorded since …

2012: despite being dead since 1978, former Who drummer Keith Moon received an official invitation from the organizers of the 2012 London Olympic Games to play in the closing ceremonies as part of the “Symphony of Rock,” a celebration of British pop culture. Who manager, Bill Curbishley politely declined, while saying that if they had “a round table, some glasses and candles,” they might be able to ask him directly …

And that was the week that was.

Arrivals

April 11: Dominic LaRocca (1889), “Louie Louie” composer Richard Berry (1935), Mark Stein of Vanilla Fudge (1947), Skip Allen (1948), Tom Hill (1950), Paul Fox (1952), Chris Difford of Squeeze (1954), Neville Staples (1956), Big Country’s Stuart Adamson (1958), Douglas Hopkins (1961), Nigel Pulsford (1963), Lisa Stansfield (1966), Dylan Keefe (1970), Joss Stone (1987)

April 12: Hound Dog Taylor (1915), Billy Vaughn (1919), Tiny Tim (1930), Herbie Hancock (1940), John Kay of Steppenwolf (1944), David Cassidy (1950), Alexander Briley of The Village People (1951), Vince Gill (1957), Will Sergeant (1958), Art Alexakis (1962), Amy Ray (1964), Nick Hexum (1970)

April 13: violinist Olga Rudge (1895), Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane (1944), Lowell George (1945), Al Green (1946), Roy Loney of the Flamin' Groovies (1946), Jim Pons of the Turtles and The Mothers of Invention (1946), Peabo Bryson (1951), Max Weinberg of the E Street Band (1951), Jimmy Destri of Blondie (1954), Louis Johnson of The Brothers Johnson (1955), Wayne Lewis of Atlantic Starr (1957), Tony James of Generation X (1958), Hillel Slovak of Red Hot Chili Peppers (1962), Marc Ford of the Black Crowes (1966), Aaron Lewis of Staind (1972), Lou Bega (1975)

April 14: Willie Harris (1925), Buddy Knox of Buddy Knox and the Rhythm Orchids (1933), Loretta Lynn (1935), Ritchie Blackmore (1945), Matima Kinuani Mpiosso (1951), Joey Pesce of 'Til Tuesday (1962), Carl Hunter of The Farm (1965)

April 15: Bessie Smith (1894), Roy Clark (1932), Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant (1934), rockabilly Bob Luman (1937), Clarence G. Satchell of The Ohio Players (1940), Allan Clarke of The Hollies (1942), Dave Edmunds (1944), Samantha Fox (1966), Ed O'Brien of Radiohead (1968), Bobby Del Din of The Earls (1992)

April 16: Henry Mancini (1924), Rudy Pompilli of Bill Haley's Comets (1924), Roy Hamilton (1929), Herbie Mann (1930), Johnny Littlejohn (1931), Bobby Vinton (1935), Dusty Springfield born Mary O'Brien (1939), Stefan Grossman (1945), Gerry Rafferty (1947), Jimmy Osmond (1963), Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum (1964), Selena (1971)

April 17: rock promoter Don Kirshner (1934), Billy Fury (1941), Jan Hammer (1948), Michael Sembello (1954), The Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley (1955), Stephen Singleton of ABC (1959), Maynard James Keenan of Tool (1964), Liz Phair (1967)

Departures

April 11: Pointer Sister June Pointer (2006), Jerry Byrd (2005), Sandy Bull (2001), Lillian Briggs (1998), Samie “Sticks” Evans (1994)

April 12: singer Peppermint Harris (1999), Boxcar Willie (1999), Herbert Mills (1989), Josephine Baker (1975)

April 13: Ritchie Cordell (2004), Todd Storz creator of the first Top-40 format radio station (1964)

April 14: Burl Ives (1995), Thurston Harris (1990), Pete Fardon of the Pretenders (1983)

April 15: Joey Ramone of the Ramones (2001), country music legend Rose Maddox (1998), George Goldner (1974)

April 16: Skip Spence (1999), Brook Benton (1988)

April 17: Linda McCartney (1998), lyricist Jack Yellen, famous for "Happy Days Are Here Again" (1991), Felix Pappalardi (1983), Eddie Cochran (1960)