February 1, 1968 - “Classical Gas” by Mason Williams is one of the most influential instrumentals of all-time and was on William’s album, The Mason Williams Phonograph Album released on Warner Brothers records. At the time, Williams was a writer for the Smothers Brothers show. The instrumental won three Grammy awards: Best Instrumental Composition, Best […]

Alice Cooper did it, so did David Bowie and the New York Dolls. But compared to the band Kiss, those rockers applied make-up with a light touch. Kiss emerged in character in 1973 - Gene Simmons was the Demon, Peter Criss a Cat, Ace Frehey “The Spaceman”, and Paul Stanley “The Starchild”. And whether it […]

Released during the holiday season in 1977, Saturday Night Fever was the disco era’s great flick. In the film, disco dancing would be the way to a better life for Tony and Stephanie, played by John Travolta and Karen Lynn-Gorney. The film established Travolta’s star status and marked the transformation of the Bee Gees, from […]

May 21, 1971 - What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye’s magnum opus, is released. It is the first Motown album to include printed lyrics and to credit Motown’s house musicians by name.

July 4, 1970 - American Top 40, a syndicated radio show that counts down the top 40 hits each week from the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart debuts with host Casey Kasem. The creators of the show were unsure about its chances for success initially. However, the show soon became very popular and by the […]

New York City’s Paramount Theatre was a movie theatre as well as the scene of musical performances in its heyday of the 1930’s-40’s. Bobby-soxers lined up for hours to swoon for Sinatra when he played there in the ‘40s (hey….people used to talk like that). The building, built in 1926 in New York’s Times Square, […]

The 60s counter-culture was in full bloom in 1967 when Jann Wenner founded Rolling Stone Magazine with music critic Ralph Gleason. Rolling Stone was the first great journal of the emerging rock music. The magazine covered the music and the culture surrounding it, from a left-of-center, perspective. A photo of John Lennon graced the first […]

March 17, 1967 - The Grateful Dead release their debut album on Warner Brothers Records. It includes live performance favorites like “Cold Rain And Snow,” “(Walk Me Out In The) Morning Dew,” and “The New New Minglewood Blues.”
The Grateful Dead
The First Album By The Grateful Dead

Former Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford didn’t totally shock the rock world when he came out in an MTV interview. Like Queen’s Freddie Mercury, Halford’s sexual orientation was known by his bandmates and some metal fans. Still, the story was circulated widely in the mainstream press and became fodder for late night television monologues. Halford […]

July 15, 1953 - Elvis Presley records his first two sided single at Sun Studios in Memphis. He paid $3.98 to record the first of two double-sided ‘demo’; “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” Presley reportedly gave the acetate to his mother as a much-belated extra birthday present.
Elvis Presley’s Sun Recordings
All About Elvis […]