This Week In Music: 4/18 - 4/24

 This Week In Music

 April 18 – April 24

The King Craps Out In Vegas … Sid Vicious Does It His Way … Faith No More Is No More

This is the week that was in matters musical…

1934: Laurens Hammond patents the pipeless organ … he uses a piano keyboard to activate the electronic circuits of devices called tone wheels … by the 1950s, a descendent of Hammond's invention, the famous B-3 organ, weighing about 400 pounds, ensures that Hammond's name is cursed by musicians forced to lug the heavy piece of furniture up staircases to gigs … by then, Hammond, who is tone deaf, had grown to hate the sound of Leslie speakers so much he refuses service to any B-3 owner's organ …

1941: jazz musician Sidney Bechet records two saxophone parts, clarinet, bass, piano, and drums on a recording of “The Sheik of Araby” … the multi-track performance was achieved in the days before audio tape was in use in the United States … Bechet would record his first instrument on a wax disc, then play his second instrumental part while the first disc was being replayed … both parts were recorded onto a second disc...each successive part required recording onto a new disc … the result was a master disc with the original instrumental track six generations down and barely audible …

1956: Elvis Presley's first gig in Las Vegas is a bust … the young rock 'n' roller is sent packing after the first week of what was to have been a two-week engagement …

1958: the first Flying Vs are shipped to dealers from Gibson's factory in Kalamazoo …

1959: the second of two recording sessions for Miles Davis' Kind of Blue takes place at Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New York City … the group, which includes Cannonball Adderly on alto sax, John Coltrane on tenor, and pianist Bill Evans, records "Flamenco Sketches" and "All Blues" … the album goes on to become a classic, the one jazz album bought by people who normally aren't jazz fans …

1960: Elvis Presley boards a train this week to travel from Memphis to Los Angeles to begin filming a movie ... he is taking the train because he has developed a fear of flying...

1961: a raucous quartet of rockers makes its debut at Liverpool’s Cavern Club … it’ll be another three years before The Beatles become a household name … also on the bill are The Swinging Blue Jeans who will later score a hit with “Hippy Hippy Shake” … Bob Dylan earns $50 playing harmonica for a Harry Belafonte recording session …

1966: British proto-punks The Troggs release "Wild Thing" … the song is later covered to spectacular effect by Jimi Hendrix … and to less-than-spectacular effect by comedian Sam Kinison …

1968: John Lennon and George Harrison, along with their wives, leave Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Indian ashram two weeks before their studies were due to be completed … Paul and Ringo had already split … word later leaks that the Fab Four had grown disenchanted with the roly-poly spiritual advisor …  

1969: John Winston Lennon changes his middle name to Ono … a fire claims the ironically named Ash Grove, a Los Angeles folk-blues club … such performers as Ry Cooder, Canned Heat, the Chambers Brothers, and Taj Mahal played their first gigs there … a who's who of blues performers also were regulars … the Melrose Avenue club reopens after a series of benefits …

1970: Fleetwood Mac's founder and leader Peter Green makes his last concert appearance as a member of the group in London … the singer-guitarist will embark on a low-key solo endeavor before being sidelined for a number of years with mental health problems …

1972: Elvis Presley's LP He Touched Me is released … it reaches #79 on the Top 100 album chart … no small feat for a gospel record …

1976: it's been more than 10 years since Roy Orbison has had a hit when he plays before a crowd of less than 100 at the Van-a-Rama auto show in Cincinnati, Ohio … adding to his misery, it's his birthday … his glory days with the Traveling Wilburys lie far ahead … The Ramones release their first album … while Paul McCartney and John Lennon watch in John's Manhattan apartment, SNL creator Lorne Michaels offers The Beatles $3,000 to perform a couple of songs on the show … the two almost hop in a cab to take up the offer but call it off because it's late and they're too tired …

1978: Sid Vicious records his rendition of the crooners' staple "My Way" for the Sex Pistols' movie The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle … there is no word from composer Paul Anka on the brutal treatment given his song …

1980: vocalist Brian Johnson joins AC/DC after the alcohol-triggered death of Bon Scott …

1981: Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis play a show in West Germany that's later released on the LP The Survivors …

1984: Jerry Lee Lewis gets hitched for the sixth time to 22-year-old Kerrie McCarver … the marriage will end in 2003 …

1990: Roger Waters' road crew discovers an unexploded WWII-era bomb while erecting the set for his Berlin "The Wall" concert …

1991: former Humble Pie and Small Faces vocalist-guitarist Steve Marriot dies from smoke inhalation caused by a fire in his Essex, England home, touched off by an unattended cigarette …

1995: The Beatles score their 70th chart hit on the U.S. Top 100 with "Baby It's You" … the song was recorded 26 years earlier for a live BBC program called Pop Goes The Beatles  …

1998: Faith No More announces that it is no more …

2001: Peter Buck runs amuck on a Seattle-to-London flight … after quaffing 14 glasses of wine, the R.E.M guitarist overturns a food cart, mistakes a stranger for his wife, smashes crockery, and tussles with crew members … in the ensuing British trial, Buck testifies that he has no memory of the events saying, "All I know is, I woke up and I am covered in cream." …

2005: Elton John announces he will marry partner David Furnish … the U.K. legalized civil partnerships the previous December …

2010: Metallica finds alternative ways of touring when volcanic ash attempts to derail their European tour … the band travels by boat and bus to make all the shows when air travel is disrupted …

And that was the week that was.

Arrivals

April 18: Leopold Stokowski (1882), opera singer Sylvia Fisher (1910), bluesman Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (1924), novelty songwriter Dickie Goodman (1934), Mike Vickers of Manfred Mann (1941), Skip Spence (1946), Les Pattinson of Echo & The Bunnymen (1958), Jim Ellison (1964), Everclear's Greg Eklund (1970), Mark Tremonti (1974)

April 19: music school founder Augustus Juilliard (1836), songwriter David Mook (1936), Alexis Korner of Blues Incorporated (1928), Alan Price of the Animals (1942), Mark Volman of The Turtles (1944)

April 20: Johnny Tillotson (1939), Craig Frost of Grand Funk Railroad (1948), Luther Vandross (1951), Mike Portnoy (1967), Mikey Welsh of Weezer (1971)

April 21: songwriter Ernie Maresca (1939), Iggy Pop (1947), Alan Warner (1947), John Weider (1947), Robert Smith of The Cure (1959), Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies (1959), Johnny McElhone (1963)

April 22: violinist Yehudi Menuhin (1916), R&B saxman Bull Moose Jackson (1919), jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus (1922), Glen Campbell (1936), producer-songwriter Jack Nitzche (1937), session drummer Howard Wyeth (1944), Frankie Garcia of Cannibal and the Headhunters (1946), Peter Frampton (1950), Paul Carrack of Squeeze (1951), bassist Craig Logan of Bros (1969), Silverchair’s Daniel Johns (1979)

April 23: composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873), singer-songwriter Roy Orbison (1936), pop singer Ray Peterson (1939), King Crimson violinist David Cross (1949), fusion drummer Narada Michael Walden (1952), Ray Burns, better know as singer-guitarist Captain Sensible of The Damned (1955), Steve Clark of Def Leppard (1960), Stan Frazier of Sugar Ray (1969), rapper Lil Eazy-E (1984)

April 24: Ed Roberts of Ruby and the Romantics (1936), tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson (1937), Barbra Streisand (1942), Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys (1943), Doug Clifford (1945), Jethro Tull bassist Glen Cornick (1947), Preston Ritter of The Electric Prunes (1949), David J. Haskins of Love and Rockets (1957), Boris Williams of The Cure (1958), Billy Gould of Faith No More (1963), Hole's Patty Schemel (1967), Aaron Comess of Spin Doctors (1968), first <em>American Idol</em> winner Kelly Clarkson (1982), Tyson Ritter, lead singer-bassist with All-American Rejects (1984)

Departures

April 18: Storm Thorgerson (2013), Bernard Edwards of Chic (1996), songwriter Bernie Wayne (1993)

April 19: Levon Helm (2012), drummer Stan Levey (2005), jazz bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Petersen(2005), Bryan Ottoson (2005), Larry Davis (1994), saxophonist Steve Douglas (1993), sax man Clifford Scott (1993), Willie Mabon (1985), Savannah Churchill (1974), Vinnie Taylor of Sha Na Na (1974)

April 20: Gerard Smith of TV On The Radio (2011), Andrew Hill (2007), Alan Dale (2002), Giuseppi Sinopoll (2001), Jose Rodriguez (1996), Johnny Shines (1992), Steve Marriott (1991)

April 21: Al Wilson (2008), Lobby Loyde (2007), Nina Simone (2003), George Lanuis (1996), Sandy Denny (1978), Earl Hooker (1970)

April 22: folk icon Richie Havens (2013), soft rock singer Paul Davis (2008), songwriter Felice Bryant (2003), pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (1983), bluesman Walter Vinson (1975)

April 23: gospel singer Rev. Timothy Wright (2009), Capricorn Records co-founder Phil Walden (2006), jazz bassist Jimmy Woode (2005), New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, born John Genzale, Jr. (1991), flamboyant R&B pianist Esquerita (1986), pianist Red Garland (1984), Pete Ham of Badfinger (1975), Motown drummer William "Benny" Benjamin (1969)

April 24: Bo Hansson (2010), singer Al Hibbler (2001)