Bowie Banned...Cher Spoofed...Gift Sermonizes
This is the week that was in matters musical...
Bill Haley and The
Comets turn down an offer to do an Australian 15-date tour in 1955
citing a fear of flying...the proto rockers are offered a magnanimous
$2,000 for the 15 shows...
1958, 15-year-old George Harrison makes his
performance debut with The Quarry Men alongside John Lennon, Paul
McCartney, and Ken Brown on drums...this same week in '64, The
Beatles are introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan in his New York
hotel room...also in '64, Billboard reports a spike in guitar sales
in the U.S. and U.K. provoked by The Fab Four...a similar boom had
been attributed to Elvis in 1957...another music-inspired trend
emerges in 1987 when Brass Monkey cocktail mix sales skyrocket thanks
to the Beasty Boys' hit "Brass Monkey"...
in a 1965 Rolling Stones
appearance on the British pop music show "Ready, Steady, Go!" Mick
Jagger and Andrew Loog Oldham perform a parody of Sonny & Cher's "I
Got You Babe"......1980, Cher makes an unannounced appearance with Black
Rose at a Central Park concert...
1968, Cream releases the album
"Fresh Cream" with the hit song "Sunshine of Your Love" featuring
the Clapton guitar riff that becomes a staple of budding guitarists'
repertoires everywhere...
1970, The Kinks' "Lola" is released and
causes a stir due to the song's preoccupation with cross-dressing...
in 1972, David Bowie's track "John, I'm Only Dancing" is a hit in
England but isn't released in the U.S. due to its ostensibly
gay-oriented lyrics...in '92, The White Duke turns up on the cover of
Architectural Digest-he's the first human to appear in that spot in
four years...he tells the mag that "my ambition is to make music so
uncompromising that I will have no audience left"...
1971, The
Grateful Dead's second live album is given the prosaic title
"Grateful Dead"...Rolling Stone reports Jerry Garcia wanted it to be
named "Starf**k"...
1976, the president of Ode Records, Lou Adler and
employee Neil Silver are kidnapped...the pair are released upon
payment of a $25,000 ransom...
1978, at a Teddy Pendergrass show in
New York called "For Women Only," female concertgoers are given
white chocolate lollipops in the shape of a teddy bear...
1988,
Michelle Shocked's album "Short Sharp Shocked" is released with an
authentic cover shot of the artist being carted off by a pair of L.A.
cops...her label, Cooking Vinyl, overprints sunglasses on a
policeman's face and obscures a badge number to protect the innocent...
1989, Fine Young Cannibals vocalist Roland Gift urges Scottish
citizens to burn down holiday homes belonging to Brits...quoted in
the magazine "Time Out," the singer, who owns a posh flat in London
and a rambling estate in New Zealand, says it is immoral to own more
than one home when there are others who are homeless...
1990, The Cure
launch a pirate radio station beamed at London...but the station soon
goes off the air after being beset by technical difficulties and
having a powerful BBC signal cover up its broadcasts...also in '90,
a memorial service for Stevie Ray Vaughan draws 25,000 fans...
1995,
James Taylor is joined onstage by former missus Carly Simon at the
Livestock '95 festival in Massachusetts...it's the couple's first
joint appearance in 16 years...
1998, Madonna files suit against the
New York City YMCA seeking to block its erection of a high-rise
residence building claiming that it "creates a hazard for me and my
daughter"-a curious charge given the singer is then living in Miami...
and that was the week that was.
Birthdays
August 28: John Perkins of The Crew Cuts (1931), David Soul (1943),
Daniel Seraphine of Chicago (1948), Wayne Osmond (1951), Shania
Twain (1965), LeAnn Rimes (1982)
August 29: bluesman Jimmy Bell (1910), Charlie Parker (1920), Dinah
Washington (1924), Dick Halligan of Blood, Sweat & Tears (1943),
Sterling Morrison of the Velvet Underground (1944), Chris Copping of
Procol Harum (1945), Dave Jenkins of Pablo Cruise (1949), Rick Downey
of Blue Oyster Cult (1953), Michael Jackson and Cocteau Twins'
Elizabeth Frazer (1958), Me'shell NdegeOcello (1969), Kyle Cook of
Matchbox 20 (1970)
August 30: blues pianist Mercy Dee Walton (1915), Kitty Wells (1919),
vaudeville-blues singer Olive Brown (1922), John McNally of the
Searchers (1931), bluesman Luther "Georgia Snake Boy" Johnson (1934),
John Phillips of The Mamas and The Papas (1935), Mick Moody of
Whitesnake (1950), Sir Horace Gentleman of The Specials (1954)
August 31: tunesmith Alan Jay Lerner (1918), "Spider" John Koerner
(1938), Jerry Allison of The Crickets (1939), Wilton Felder of The
Crusaders (1940), Van Morrison (1945), Rudolf Schenker of the
Scorpions (1948), reggae singer Al Campbell (1954), Gina Schock of
The Go-Go's (1957), Chris Whitley (1960), Debbie Gibson (1970)
September 1: Conway Twitty (1933), Barry Gibb (1946), The Jam's Bruce
Foxton (1955), Gloria Estefan (1957)
September 2: Bobby Purify (1939), Rosalind Ashworth of Martha and The
Vandellas (1943), Joe Simon (1943), Steve Porcaro of Toto (1957)
September 3: bluesman Memphis Slim born Peter Chatman (1915), Hank
Thompson (1925), Al Jardine of The Beach Boys (1943), George Bondio
of Steppenwolf (1945), Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad (1948)
Departures
August 29: Wee Willie Williams (1999), Charlie Feathers (1998),
country star Archie Campbell (1987), blues legend Jimmy Reed (1976)
August 30: Swedish producer Denniz Pop aka Dag Volle (1998), Sterling
Morrison of The Velvet Underground (1995), Thomas Sylvester aka
"Papa" Dee Allen of War (1988)
August 31: bluesman Son Bonds (1947)
September 1: composer Vagn Holmboe (1996)
September 2: composer Otto Luening and violinist Cyril Reuben (1996)
September 3: Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson (1970)
