Category: Flashbacks

FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: JULY 20

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: JULY 20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1940: Billboard magazine publishes their first combined record sales chart, ranking the hits of all major labels. Sitting atop the ten entries is Tommy Dorsey’s “I’ll Never Smile Again,” by lead singer Frank Sinatra.

Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley and Bill Black in 1954.

1954: Taking their name from their local hit recording of “Blue Moon Over Kentucky,” Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black perform a concert as the Blue Moon Boys on the back of a flatbed truck outside the grand opening of a Memphis drugstore.

1961: British paper Mersey Beat announces that the Beatles — or rather, the Beat Brothers, as they were then known — have just signed their first recording contract. Not with Capitol, but with famed German producer Bert Kaempfert.

1963: The Beatles nab their first UK No. 1 LP with Please Please Me.

1965: Frank Sinatra leaves his hand prints in cement outside Hollywood landmark Grauman’s Chinese Theater at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.

Paul McCartney and Jane Asher in 1964.

1968: Aware of Paul McCartney’s various affairs, his fiancee, Jane Asher, announces on the BBC program Dee Time that she has broken off her engagement with the Beatle: “I haven’t broken it off, but it is broken off, finished… I know it sounds corny, but we still see each other, and love each other, but it hasn’t worked out. Perhaps we’ll be childhood sweethearts and meet again, and get married when we’re around seventy.” Paul, watching at home, is reportedly surprised, but rumors has been swirling for months, so perhaps not.

1970: The Carpenters appear as guest bachelor and bachelorette on ABC-TV’s The Dating Game show.

1975: Steven Van Zandt makes his first appearance in concert with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

1986: Carlos Santana celebrates his 39th birthday, as well as the 20th anniversary of his band, by playing a concert in San Francisco featuring all 17 original members of his group.

 

Deaths: Roy Hamilton; 1969.

Releases: “Judy’s Turn To Cry,” Lesley Gore; 1963. “I’ll Cry Instead,” “And I Lover Her,” The Beatles; 1964. “Do You Believe In Magic,” Lovin’ Spoonful; 1965. “Like A Rolling Stone,” Bob Dylan; 1965.

Recording: “I’m In Love Again,” “Midnight Special,” Paul McCartney; 1987.

Charts: 1963: “Surf City,” Jan and Dean; hits No. 1 on the charts. 1968: “Grazing In The Grass,” Hugh Masekela; hits No. 1 on the charts. 1968: “In The Gada-Da-Vida,” Iron Butterfly; enters the charts.

Certifications: 1963: “Concert In Rhythm,” “Memories Are Made Of This,” Ray Conniff Singers; are both certified gold.

 

 

 

 

And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day….

 

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GORDON MCLENDON: AN OPEN LETTER TO… APRIL 8, 1967

From the MCRFB news archives:

An Open Letter To The Music Industry: April 8, 1967

 

 

 

 

 

Gordon McLendon’s Open Letter To The Music Industry… full page ad; Billboard Magazine April 8, 1967. (Click on image for sharper scan).

 

 

(Information and news source: Billboard; April 8, 1967).

 

Addendum: Gordon McLendon, Top 40 radio pioneer and then-owner of several radio stations across the country, including the legendary KLIF in Dallas, voiced great concern in early 1967 as to which way the recording industry was heading, in allowing “raunchy” and suggestive lyrics in popular music airplay on the radio.

Gordon McLendon.

In this Billboard ad, McLendon went on to attack the recording industry, while advocating of his intent to abolish records on all of his McLendon stations, songs that were not accompanied with a lyric sheet per their review.

McLendon, at the time, strongly felt certain songs were undermining the moral character of the country by their questionable “subliminal” context expressing drug or sexual connotations, whether stated or implied, which the McLendon group would ban unsuitable for any airplay if found to be in question. He also went on in further recommending radio broadcasters across the country follow suit likewise, of the guidelines and steps he imposed in the ad.

In Detroit, it bears to note that just one month after this ad was published, WKNR station owner Nellie Knorr barred Tommy James’ “I Think We’re Alone Now” from airplay on Keener, she found the lyrics too “suggestive.” But that’s how radio was trying to “keep it clean” back in 1967.

And what was the one particular recording which prompted McLendon to state of his resolve to ban records he judged “unfit” for airplay on his stations?

…”Try It,” by the Standells.

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