This Date in Rock Music History: June 7

1964: Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas made their live debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1964:  During their first U.S. tour, the Rolling Stones were booed off stage in San Antonio, Texas and the Marquis Chimps, world-famous monkeys, had to be brought back on stage to perform.  (Note:  some websites state that the group the Monkees replaced the Stones on stage.  According to 'Expressnews.com', the act brought on to replace the Stones was the Marquis Chips, not the musical group the Monkees.)




1969:  Blind Faith (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood and Rick Grech) gave a concert in Hyde Park in London before 100,000 people in their British debut.
1969:  Blood, Sweat & Tears had a big hit on their hands with "Spinning Wheel", up from 78 to 33 this week.
1969:  The Beatles made it three straight weeks at #1 with "Get Back".  There were two big movers within the Top 10--"Grazing in the Grass" from the Friends of Distinction moved form 10-3 and CCR climbed up nine from 14-5 with "Bad Moon Rising".





                                  The Cowsills' title smash helped "Hair" to the #1 spot...


1969:  Everyone was into hair, specifically the Soundtrack to "Hair".  It held down #1 on the Album chart for the seventh consecutive week.  The monumental Blood, Sweat & Tears album spent a seventh straight week at #2 after being #1 for three weeks prior to Hair.  Bob Dylan remained at #3 with Nashville Skyline while Galveston by Glen Campbell came in fourth.  The rest of the Top 10:  The Soundtrack to "Romeo & Juliet" was #5, Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was #6, CCR's great album Bayou Country was #7, the 5th Dimension shot up from 32 to 8 with The Age of Aquarius, Donovan's Greatest Hits was #9 and Happy Heart from Andy Williams rounded out the list.
1970:  The Who played the entire opera Tommy at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
1972:  The musical Grease opened on Broadway after four months of off-Broadway performances.  Richard Gere was among those playing "Danny" during the monumental run while John Travolta played the character Doody at the age of 17.
1974:  The Kinks were hosts on The Midnight Special with ELO performing.
1975:  "Love Will Keep Us Together" was #1 on a second format as the Captain & Tennille ruled the Adult Contemporary chart on this date.

1975:  "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" by John Denver was the new #1 song on the Popular chart.  It was Denver's third #1 (following "Sunshine On My Shoulders" and "Annie's Song") and his sixth top 10.  "Sister Golden Hair" moved strongly from 5-2 for America while "How Long" by Ace was #3, Grand Funk moved up to #4 with "Bad Time" and Chicago's "Old Days" was fifth in a pretty solid Top Five.
  1975:  Elton John's album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, which came in #85 in the Top 100 Albums of All-Time in the Rock Era*, came out this week and debuted at #1, the first album in history to accomplish the feat and one of a select few in the Rock Era.  Elton toppled Earth, Wind & Fire's album That's the Way of the World while the Soundtrack to "Tommy" fell to #3.  Jeff Beck was #4 with Blow By Blow and America reached #5 with Hearts".  The rest of the Top 10:  Alice Cooper with Welcome To My Nightmare, Chicago VIII was at #7, Bad Company fell to #8 with Straight Shooter, Nuthin' Fancy from Lynyrd Skynyrd was #9 and Carly Simon had the #10 album with Playing Possum.
1976:  Capitol Records released "Got To Get You Into My Life" by the Beatles.  It would become the first hit  of the Beatles since their breakup in 1970.
1977:  Led Zeppelin played the first of six sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1979:  Chuck Berry was charged with three counts of tax evasion.
1979:  Blondie performed "Sunday Girl" on the British television show Top of the Pops.

T                             his song was kept from #1 by "Funkytown"?  Really?

1980:  "Funkytown" continued to ride the #1 position for Lipps, Inc. with "Coming Up" from Paul McCartney & Wings in the backup spot.  Ambrosia's smash "Biggest Part Of Me" was up to #3.  The rest of a pretty good Top 10--"Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer" from Kenny Rogers with Kim Carnes, "Call Me" from Blondie was on its way down after spending six weeks at #1, "The Rose" from Bette Midler was up from 11 to 6, Bob Seger had song #7 with "Against The Wind", "Hurt So Bad" from Linda Ronstadt was #8, Gary Numan's one and only hit "Cars" drove up to #9 and Elton John's 29th career hit "Little Jeannie" rounded out the impressive list.
1980:  "The Rose" spent a fifth week at #1 for Bette Midler on the Adult Contemporary chart.

1980:  Against the Wind, the Bob Seger album that had the distinction of knocking off Pink Floyd's The Wall from the #1 spot, continued to set the pace for a seventh week.  Billy Joel waited his turn at #2 with Glass Houses while Pink Floyd hung in there at #3.  Just One Night from Eric Clapton was #4.  The rest of the Top 10:  Lipps, Inc. had Mouth To Mouth, Van Halen's newest album Women and Children First was #6, the debut from Christopher Cross held steady at 7, the Isley Brothers were at #8 with Go All the Way, the Pretenders' debut was ninth and Boz Scaggs moved into the Top 10 with Middle Man.
1982:  Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion was opened to the public.
1986:  The album Whitney Houston spent its 11th week at #1 and 36th in the Top 10 and 63rd week on the Album chart.

1986:  Madonna had the new #1 with "Live To Tell" but it would be short-lived as Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald's "On My Own" was closing fast.  Whitney Houston fell to 3 after three weeks at #1 with "Greatest Love Of All".
1988:  Bob Dylan began a tour at the Concord Pavilion in Concord, California.  Neil Young played guitar on that date.
1991:  Jimmy Osmond of the Osmonds married Michelle Larson in Salt Lake City.
1993:  Mysteriously, Prince changed his name to .  The name change reflected an ongoing battle with Warner Brothers Records over ownership and direction of his music.
2000:  By this time, we had finally found out why Prince had changed his name to a symbol.  On this date, Prince celebrated reclaiming his name of "Prince" after a seven-year battle with Warner Brothers, who refused to let him record under that name.  If there's a problem, a corporation is usually at the bottom of it.

1993:  Groundbreaking began for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
1994:  Boston released their fourth album in 18 years, Walk On.  It was eight years after Third Stage.  We all understood about being meticulous and wanting to get it right.  For an album like their debut, it was fine to take their time.  But if you're going to take eight years to release an album, it had better be a classic.
1997:  Gary Barlow had the #1 album in the U.K. with Open Road.

1997:  The Bee Gees had hit #43 of their careers ("Alone") and it was the highest debuting song of the week--position #34.
1997:  Yes, it's true.  Hanson remained at #1 for a third week with "MMMBop".  Hey, everyone has to have their moment in the sun, and this was their time.  
1998:  Wally Gold, a member of the Four Esquires in the late'50's and also a prolific songwriter, died from colitis in Teaneck, New Jersey at the age of 70.  Gold wrote "It's Now Or Never" for Elvis Presley and "It's My Party" for Lesley Gore.  He also produced Gene Pitney and Kansas.
1999:  Rod Stewart was supposed to ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange but arrived late and threw some soccer balls onto the floor instead.  He didn't quite understand the principle that no one was going to wait for him to open Wall Street.
2002:  The Eagles appeared in concert at the Idaho Center in Nampa, Idaho.
2002:  Research what kind of people you support with your $.  On this date, R. Kelly was taken into custody on child pornography charges.
2006:  The Dixie Chicks had the #1 album with Taking the Long Way.  It was the third #1 album of their career, following Fly and Home.
2007:  The city of Rancho Mirage, California named a street after Dean Martin.

2008:  The funeral of guitar great Bo Diddley was held in Gainseville, Florida.  (Note:  some websites err in saying the funeral was on June 7, 2007.  That would be tough to pull off, since Diddley did not die until June 2, 2008.)

2009:  Elton John's musical Billy Elliot won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
2012:  Bob Welch, guitarist for Fleetwood Mac in the early 1970's and a solo artist, died at age 66 in Nashville, Tennessee from a self-inflicted gunshot.

Born This Day:

1917:  The great Dean Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio; died December 25, 1995 at his home in Beverly Hills, California from respiratory failure resulting from emphysema.

1940:  Tom Jones (Sir Thomas John Woodward) was born in Treforest, Glamorgan, South Wales and women would be swooning all over him soon.
1944:  Clarence White (real name Clarence LeBlanc), guitarist of the Byrds, was born in Lewiston, Maine; died July 15, 1973 after being hit by a drunk driver.  (Note:  some websites report White's death as July 14.  Unfortunately, there are no credible sources for either date, but since 'Allmusic' says it was on July 15, one has to assume it was on July 14.)
1955:  Joey Scarbury ("Theme From 'The Greatest American Hero'") was born in Ontario, California.

1958:  Prince was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1966:  Eric Kretz, drummer of Stone Temple Pilots, was born in Santa Cruz, California.  (Note:  some websites claim Kretz was born in San Jose, but according to the newspaper 'The San Diego Reader', he was born in Santa Cruz.)
1967:  David Navarro, lead guitarist of Jane's Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, was born in Santa Monica, California.
1974:  T-Low (real name Terrance Brown) of Next ("Too Close") was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.