If you hear thunder today or tonite, it's Bonzo on the kit at his birthday party. If you don't hear thunder, it could because you got to witness him doing it in person.  Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham was born on this day in 1948.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 31 include...

 

1961 Jimi Hendrix enlists in the Army.

1969 The Rolling Stones record Honky Tonk Women.

1969 John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Plastic Ono Band records Give Peace a Chance..

1971 Badfinger records Day After Day.

1976 Who establish a loudest concert sound level at 120db.

1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer open a US tour backed by a 70 piece orchestra.

1977 BBC bands Sex Pistols God Save the Queen.
1982 R.E.M. signs with I.R.S. Records.

1989 David Bowie's Tin Machine band debuts in New York City.
1995 Ted Nugent honored on Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
1996 LSD pioneer Timothy Leary dies of cancer.
2006 Pearl Jam records VH1 Storytellers session in front of a few hundred fans.
2016 Jerry Garcia 'Wolf' guitar purchased for $2.5 million in auction to benefit Southern Poverty Law Center.

 

 

Tom Morello's approach to guitar playing makes him one of the most distinctive players going. His work with Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and as a touring guitarist in the E Street Band is searingly intense, but he does acoustic solo tours.  Morello was born on this day in 1964 in Harlem.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 30 include...

 

1955 Topper Headon of the Clash born.

1966 Jefferson Airplane does a benefit concert for the Haight-Ashbury Legal clinic in San Francisco.

1967 Black Crowes bassist Sven Pipien born.

1968 Beatles start recording the White Album.

1969 The Rolling Stones record Honky Tonk Woman.

1972 Roxy Music makes live debut in Lincolnshire, UK.

1973 George Harrison releases Living In The Material World.

1978 Led Zeppelin sessions for In Through The Out Door start.

1980 Derek & the Dominos bassist Carl Radle dies of kidney failure.

1983 Day three of the US Festival in San Bernadino, California features sets from David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, John Mellencamp, U2, the Pretenders, Missing Persons, Quarterflash, Berlin and Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul.

1987 Ritchie Blackmore breaks a finger and Deep Purple cancels their House of Blue Lights tour.

1987 David Bowie opens his Glass Spiders tour in Rotterdam.

1990 Midnight Oil does a live set outside Exxon Mobil's New York City HQ to protest the Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska.

1992 Paul Simon and Eddie Brickell marry.

1996 Jerry Garcia Band bass player John Kahn dies of an overdose

1997 Neil Young postpones European tour when he slices his finger while slicing a sandwich.

1990 Midnight Oil protests Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska by performing outside Exxon corporate HQ in New York City on a flat bed truck.

1992 Paul Simon & Edie Brickell marry.   

2009 Ozzy Osbourne files suit against Tony Iommi over Black Sabbath royalties.

2015 Bono leaves waitress a $150 tip on a less than $20 meal at the Center Deli in LA and then gives the deli a shout-out on stage at the U2 Forum concert.

2016 Ron Wood a father again at 68 as Sally Humphreys gives birth to twin girls.

 

Crosby, Stills & Nash released their debut album on this day in 1969.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 29 include...

 

1945 Procol Harum's Gary Brooker born.

1955 Toto bassist Mike Porcaro born.

1961 Melissa Etheridge born.

1967 Oasis guitarist/singer Noel Gallagher born.

1969 Blues Traveler's Tad Kinchla born.

1973 Roger McGuinn does his first post Byrds solo concert.

1983 Day two of the US Festival in San Bernadino, California features sets from Van Halen, Scorpions, Triumph,Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Joe Walsh and Motley Crue.

1989 Quicksilver Messenger Service's John Cippollina dies of Emphysemia.

1991 Steve Winwood and band mates escape injury when truck side-swipes a tour bus.

1997 Jeff Buckley drowns while swimming in the Mississippi River near Memphis 2009.

1999 The Rolling Stones open the European leg of their Bridges To Babylon tour.

2001 The Eagles do their first concert set in Russia.

2006 David Bowie makes his last UK concert appearance when he joins David Gilmour for Comfortably Numb and Arnold Layne at Royal Albert Hall in London.

2009 Producer Phil Spector sentenced to 19 - Life in the 2003 murder of actress at his LA estate.

2012 Bob Dylan awarded Medal of Freedom by President Obama during White House Ceremony.

2012 Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker injured in fall, band cancels concert appearances.

2022 Ronnie Hawkins dies at 87.
2022 Johnny Depp joins Jeff Beck on stage at Sheffield City Hall in the UK Sunday (5/29) as Beck launched his European tour. Depp and Beck do versions of Isolation, the John Lennon song they recorded together in 2020, the Hendrix song Little Wing and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.

John Fogerty was born on this day in 1945. The co-founding brother and principle songwriter in Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of the most prolific US bands of its time, was born in Berkeley, California. After taking guitar lessons from Barry Oliver, the musician that started the Berkeley Folk Festival,  John started group that would become CCR with bassist Stu Cook and drummer Dough Clifford while the four were in high school in 1959. His older brother, Tom, joined the band they called the Blue Velvets soon after.

 

Fantasy Records signed the band in 1964 and changed the name of the group to The Golliwogs, something band members didn't discover until seeing it displayed on a single they'd recorded for the label. That underhanded move and the onerous contract the group had signed resulted in a decades long feud and legal entanglements between John and the label that included several years during which John, as a solo artist, refused to perform or re-record songs he'd written while with Creedence under contract with Fantasy so that the label would not profit from them.

 

The Golliwogs recorded several singles but did not release an album before John was drafted and served a couple of years in the Army. After his discharge, the group did record and release one album before changing its name to Creedence Clearwater Revival.  Creedence was only together four years, but produced a slew of albums, including three in 1969 alone.

 

The band split soon after John's brother opted out in 1972. After releasing an album under the name The Blue Ridge Rangers in 1973, John began work on what would become his first solo album under his own name. That 1975 solo debut and the album that followed met with modest success.

 

Fogerty spent several years on the musical sidelines before returning in 1985 with the Centerfield, the album that would become by far his most popular solo effort. The inclusion of two songs perceived as being directed at the head of his former label led to two lawsuits, including one that claimed that one of the biggest songs on the album, Old Man Down the Road, used the same chorus notes that were in Run Through the Jungle, a CCR hit that Fantasy Records still owned the publishing rights to. One of the cases went to a circuit court appeal and then to the US Supreme Court, where Fogerty prevailed.

 

John's touring pace picked-up considerably in recent years before coming to a halt at the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2019 while he was in the middle of a 50th anniversary tour. While in lockdown, Fogerty recorded and streamed several songs with his two sons and his daughter under the name Fogerty's Factory.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 28 include...

 

1917 Violinist "Papa" John Creach born.

1947 Leland Sklar (bassist with David Bowie, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, David Crosby,Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, Warren Zevon, James Taylor, Rod Stewart and many others, born.

1966 Members of the Beatles and Bob Dylan spend the day together in London.

1969 Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful arrested on marijuana charges in London.   

1971 David & Angela Bowie son Duncan Zowie Bowie born. 
1973 Ronnie Lane leaves the Faces.    

1976 Allman Brothers break up after Gregg testifies in trail against their road manager. 

1977 Members of the Police play together for the first time.  

1977 Bruce Springsteen settles long suit against manager Mike Appel.  

1982 Bill Graham stages a Vietnam Veterans benefit concert in San Francisco featuring the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship and Country Joe McDonald.

1987 Ozzy gives flyers a version of Crazy Train on plane PA during Miami to Boston flight. 

1988 Steven Tyler marries Teresa Barrick

1994 Eagles open Hell Freezes Over tour.

1997 U2 concert in Raleigh, NC called off after severe thunderstorm destroys Jumbotron. 

2007 The Police open a reunion tour in Vancouver. 

2015 Pete Townshend honored as MusiCares Person of the Year.

2021 John Hall releases Reclaiming My Time.

 

 

The multiple ailments that Gregg Allman suffered from caught up with the Southern Rock icon on this day in 2017 when he succumbed to liver cancer. Gregg soldiered on following the death of his band mate and brother Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley who both lost their lives in motorcycle accidents almost exactly one year and just a few city blocks apart in 1971 and '72 in Macon, Georgia.  His soulful voice and outstanding keyboard work and his devotion to continuing the legacy of the Allman Brothers Band sustained the group through many other tough times in the decades that followed, cementing its deserved recognition as one of America's pre imminent bands and making it one of the most influential bands in Rock history.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 27 include

1945 Bruce Cockburn born. 

1948 Jefferson Starship multi instrumentalist Pete Sears born.

1958 Split Enz, Crowded House, Fleetwood Mac's  Neil Finn born.

1962 Bob Dylan releases The Free Wheelin' Bob Dylan.

1975 Paul McCartney releases Venus & Mars.

1977 Elvis Costello has his concert debut in London.

1987  U2 concerts are spectacles of sights and sound on a massive scale, but a show in Rome on this night during the Joshua Tree Tour was so loud that the group's massive sound system triggered earthquake alarms.

1988 Van Halen, Metallica open Monsters Of Rock tour in Wisconsin.

1992 Songwriters Hall Of Fame announces Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Billy Joel, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman as inductees.    

1994 The Eagles do their first concert in 14 years in Burbank, California.

1995 Rolling Stones start recording Stripped in Amsterdam.     

1997 Paul McCartney releases Flaming Pie.

1999 BB King lands several honors at the W.C. Handy Awards.

2015 Rolling Stones play a private birthday party for an HP exec's wife at Solana Beach, California club.

2015 U2 road manager Dennis Sheehan dies of a heart attack in his Hollywood hotel room.

2022 Def Leppard releases Diamond Star Halos...

 

Stephanie Lynn Nicks... has the ring of a Country Music artist, and she might have become one. Her earliest singing was with her grandfather while growing up in the southwest.  After stints living in Phoenix, Albuquerque, and El Paso, the Nicks family settled in California, where Stevie joined a folk-rock group. She met her future musical and romantic partner Lindsey Buckingham in her senior year of high school. They were together in a band named Fritz while attending San Jose State until 1972, when Buckingham Nicks was formed. Their album got released in '73. Buckingham played guitar on Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch's solo album, putting him on Mick Fleetwood's radar.  The drummer wanted Lindsey to replace Welch in FM, but Welch said he'd only do it if Nicks was added, too.  The pair became Fleetwood Mac members in January, 1975.

 

 

Other  Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 26 include...

 

1940 The Band's Levon Helm born.

1944 Mott The Hoople founding keyboard player Verden Allen born. 

1945 Guess Who founding drummer Garry Peterson born.

1946 Guitar great Mick Ronson (David Bowie, Ain Hunter, Van Morrison) born  

1964 Lenny Kravitz born.

1966 Bob Dylan plays Royal Albert Hall.   

1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono open 8 day Bed In For Peace in Montreal.   

1969 Janis Joplin is featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine.

1972 David Bowie lets Mott the Hoople record two of his songs to keep them from breaking up.

1977 KISS members donate blood to be mixed with ink for the printing of Kiss comics.

1982 The Rolling Stones open a European tour in Aberdeen, Scotland

1997 Bono meets with Bill Clinton at the White House.  

2008 Yale University gives Paul McCartney an honorary degree.

2017 Bono visits former President George W. Bush on his Texas ranch.   

2017 Eric Clapton honored with commander in the Order of Arts and Letters status by France. 

2017 Chris Cornell buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

2017 Metallica's Lars Ulrich knighted in his native Denmark by its queen.

2022 Yes drummer Alan White dies at home in Newcastle, England at the age of 72 after a brief illness and just days after announcing he would be unable to participate in the Close to the Edge 50th anniversary tour of the group.

 

On this night in 1969, the Who and Led Zeppelin did the first and only concert the two groups did together. The concert was staged at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD. The Who, benefitting from the buzz created by performing songs from Tommy live even before that double album's recent release, got headliner status. Led Zeppelin's debut album had been released the first month of the year, but the band was so comparatively unestablished that its name was misspelled on the tickets.  

 

 Zep's eight song set went so long that the stage power got cut in to get them off so the Who wouldn't suffer the same fate due to the curfew the venue had to operate under.  A reviewer of the concert was impressed with Jimmy Page's playing, but had little else good to say about the opener, writing,  "...although guitarist Jimmy Page once again proved himself a fine musician, there wasn’t much more to be said about the act as a whole. He and singer Robert Plant launched into innumerable transgressions of tonal question-answer games, more conducive to boredom than musically induced languor.”

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 25 include...

 

1948 Scorpions front man Klaus Meine born.

 

1950 Kansas co-lead vocalsit and violinist Robby Steinhart born.

 

1955 Argent's John Grimaldi born.

 

1958 The Jam's Paul Weller born.

 

1965 Dave Davies knocked out after falling onto drum kit during Kinks London concert.

 

1973 Carole King does a free concert in New York City's Central Park.

 

1978 Keith Moon does his last concert with the Who.

 

1982 Queen releases Hot Space.   

 

1990 Fleetwood Mac opens its Behind The Mask tour in Vancouver.

 

1990 Lou Gramm of Foreigner goes solo (rejoins in 1992).

 

1993 Jimmy Buffett releases Before The Beach.

 

1996 Eric Clapton rescues guitars from burning London home.

 

1999 Paul Stanley of KISS premiers as Phantom in Toronto Phantom Of The Opera production.

The enigma/genius/crumudgeon/legend Bob Dylan was born Robert Zimmermann on this day in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. Through his half century career, Dylan has sold more than 100 million albums, published eight books, collected multiple Grammys, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize Committee, a Presdential Medal of Freedom, a Nobel Prize in Literature, and earned entry to the Rock Hall Of Fame and the Songwriters Hall Of Fame.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 24 include...

 

1947 Blue Oyster Cult's Al Bouchard born. 

1949 Dire Straits John Illsley born.

1960 Roxy Music and Dire Straits Guy Fletcher born.  
1969 Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes born. 

1970 Peter Green does his last concert with Fleetwood Mac.

1974 David Bowie releases Diamond Dogs.   

1982 Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, Traffic, Black Sabbath play benefit for Vietnam Veteran Memorial. 

1986 AC/DC releases Who Made Who.

1988 Van Halen releases OU812.     

1990 Axl Rose & wife file for divorce less than a month after marrying.     

1991 Byrd's Gene Clark dies.     

1993 Rod Stewart releases Unplugged And Seated. 

1994 Jimmy Buffett releases Fruitcakes.     

1997 Bob Dylan hospitalized for bacterial infection.

2009 Drummer Liberty Devitto sues Billy Joel claiming he was not paid royalties he was due.

2022 Aerosmith announces Steven Tyler has reentered rehab. Band postpones Las Vegas residency concert series.

Tina Turner passes away in Zurich, Switzerland at 83.

 

    

Released in the UK 5/23/1969, six days after its US release, the Who's Tommy is met with a combination of rave and dismissive reviews, many of the negative ones based on the opinion that an album revolving around a multi-handicapped boy was distasteful and exploitative.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 23 include...

 

1963 Elmore James dies after suffering heart attack.    

1946 J. Geils Band bassist Danny Klein born.

1947 Electric Light Orchestra keyboard and horn player Bill Hunt born.

1966 The Doors do their first set at the Whiskey a Go-Go.

1967 Pink FLod records See Emily Play.

1970 Grateful Dead play UK for first concert overseas.

1971 Iron Butterfly breaks up.  

1972 San Francisco city council bans electric instruments in Golden Gate Park to block a Jefferson Airplane concert.

1974 George Harrison announces the formation of Dark Horse Records.

1975 Last Genesis concert with Peter Gabriel.  

1978 Bruce Springsteen opens Darkness on the Edge of Town tour in Buffalo.   

1979 Tom Petty declares bankruptcy in effort to resolve dispute with record company.

1979 KISS releases Dynasty.

1979 The Who's The Kids are Alright documentary debuts in New York City.

1987 Tom Johnston reunites with the Doobie Brothers for a veterans benefit.

1988 Kinks release The Road.

1990 Nick Mason of Pink Floyd marries Annette Lynton.

1995 Warren Zevon releases Mutineer. 

2006 Def Leppard eases Yeah, covers CD.

2007 Paul Simon honored with the Gershwin Award by the Library of Congress.

2009 A roof collapse forces cancellationof a.38 Special concert.

 

On this day in 1965, Bob Dylan released Bringin' It All Back Home.   Bob pushed the envelope on his 5th album, devoting one side to acoustic tracks and the other to ones with him backed with an electric band.  Songs for the album were banged out on a typewriter in a room Dylan and Joan Baez shared in the Woodstock home of Bob's manager, Albert Grossman. In the midst of writing songs for the album, Dylan went to New York and met with the Beatles in the hotel they were booked in. That August, 1964 meeting is thought to have convinced Dylan that shifting  into an electric mode was the right path for him musically.  Having made the decision, he contacted Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm and Garth Brooks, members of the Hawks, a bar band he'd encountered in 1963, but the future members of The Band were not brought in on the sessions for Bringin' It All Back Home. A number of the musicians that were entered and exited sessions without contributing anything Dylan was satisfied with. Once things jelled, the recording of the electric side of the album came together quickly. 

The release was met with raves and pans. His decision to go electric cost him some fans but gained him considerably more than he lost.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 22 include...

 

1980 U2 opens 11 O'Clock Tic Tock toru in London.

1997 Fleetwood Mac reunite to record MTV special.

2002 Steely Dan honored with Founders Award at ASCAP Music Awards ceremony.

2007 Ozzy Osbourne releases Black Rain.

2010 Bono undergoes emergency back surgery in Munich, Germany, next US Leg of 360° tour delayed.

2010 Clarence Clemons of E Street Band performs and gets degree during graduation at University of Maryland Eastern Shore...

 

 

Joe Walsh's 7th solo album dropped on this day in 1985. The Confessor included. Timothy B. Schmidt was the only other member of the Eagles involved, and he just did some background vocals.Walsh recruited drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Waddy Wachtel, Toto bassist Mike Porcaro, and Randy Newman and Alan Pasqua to play keyboards on the release. A number of other musicians Walsh had never worked with were brought in for specific songs on the musically diverse album.

Production was handled by Keith Olsen, whose credits include albums from a wide range of musicians that includes Ozzy Osbourne, the Grateful Dead, Heart, Foreigner, Scorpions, Rick Springfield, Fleetwood Mac and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 21 include...

1940 Early Beatles collaborator Tony Sheridan born.

1943 Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine born.

1947 Bill Champlin of the Sons of Champlin and Chicago born.

1955 Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Stan Lynch born.

1968 Rolling Stones Brian Jones arrested on marijuana charges in London apartment.

1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young record Ohio in LA.

1971 Free, Paul Rodgers' pre-Bad Company band, calls it quits.

1975 Joe Strummer arrested for whacking a fan with his guitar during Clash concert in Hamburg, Germany.

1976 Blue Oyster Cult releases Agents of Fortune.

1980 Five Jimi Hendrix gold album awards stolen from Electric Lady Studio in New York City.

1981 Bob Marley laid to rest in St. Ann's, Jamaica.

1996 Soundgarden releases Down on The Upside.

1997 USC Marching Band does Louie Louie with Stone Temple Pilots before San Diego concert.

2003 Paul McCartney awarded honorary doctorate degree by St. Petersburg State University in Russia.

2008 Steven Tyler checks into rehab to deal with after effects of several leg injuries and surgeries.

2010 Bono undergoes spinal surgery, U2 postpones 360 degree tour dates.

2014 the family of a film crew member that was killed by a train while filming a scene atop a railway bridge in Georgia for a biopic about Gregg Allman files suit. The movie subsequently scrapped.

  

 

 

 

Singers get less credit when the songs most closely associated with them are not their own compositions. Only a few more than make up for the lack of writing chops by doing songs written by someone else with such extraordinarily unique interpretations that they transcend that limitation. Joe Cocker, one of the best ever at doing that, was born on this day in the working class city of Sheffield in 1944. The son of a civil servant, Cocker grew up revering Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and other pantheons of American blues and R&B. His remarkable album and Cocker's Woodstock rendition of With a Little Help From My Friends served notice that one of Rock's greatest interpreters of other peoples songs had arrived.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 20 include...

1947 Steve Currie of T.Rex born

1949 Fabulous Thunderbirds Jimmy Vaughan born.

1954 James Henderson Black Oak Arkansas born.

1966 Pete Townshend smashes Keith Moon with his guitar when an altercation breaks out after Townshend and Roger Daltrey showed up late for a concert. Moon and Entwistle quit the band over it, but rejoin the following week.

1967 Jimi Hendrix signs recording contract. 

1967 The lyric "I'd love to turn you on" in A Day in the Life causes BBC to ban play of the Sgt. Pepper song.   

1968 Peter Cetera of Chicago beaten by fans at Dodger Stadium because of his long hair.   

1968 Janis Joplin records Piece of My Heart with Big Bother and the Holding Company. 

1968 Pete Townshend marries Karen Astley.     

1969 Led Zeppelin records Heartbreaker.

1970 The Beatles Let It Be movie premieres in London and Liverpool. 

1979 Billy Joel plays Leningrad.

1980 Joe Strummer arrested in Hamburg, Germany for hitting a fan with his guitar during a Clash concert.   

1995 Don Henley marries Sharon Summerall, Eagles, Springsteen, Sting, Bob Seger attend Malibu wedding.   

1998 Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan attend Frank Sinatra's funeral.

1998 Tommy Lee draws a six month sentence on spousal abuse charge.   

1998 Drummer Bill Ward suffers a heart attack during Black Sabbath rehearsal. 

2006 Ozzy Osbourne plays Prince's Trust 30th anniversary concert in London.     

2009 Santana, Queen and KISS appear on season finale of American Idol. 

2012 Bee Gee Robin Gibb dies of cancer. 

2013 Ray Manzarek of the Doors dies of cancer.

2015 Rolling Stones do a warm-up date for Zip Code tour for 1,000 in Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, CA, released on CD/DVD in 2017   

2015 Foo Fighters guest on the final David Letterman Show...

 

On this day in 1945, Peter Dennis Blanford Townshend was born in West London. Townshend met future band mate John Entwistle in his early school years and the two future Who members were in a band known as the Confederates. Pete enrolled in art school in 1961 and was a class mate with Ronnie Wood at Ealing Art College.  Toward the end of that year, Townshend met Roger Daltrey and joined him in a band dubbed the Detours. A group already using that name led to the band Townshend and Daltrey had formed changing its name to the Who.

 

May 19 has proven to be a momentous day for Classic Rock birthdays and album releases.  Other Noteworthy births on this day include...

 

1949 ZZ Top's Dusty Hill      

1952 Joey Ramone    

1954 AC/DC's Phil Rudd

 

May 19 album releases include

 

Elton John - Honky Chateau (1972)   

 

Elton John - Captain Fantastic (1975)

 

Billy Joel - Turnstiles (1976)     

 

Peter Gabriel - So (1986)

 

Other things that went down on this date include... 

 

1967 Keith Richards falls asleep at the wheel and is charged with marijuana and cocaine possession after crashing his car. 

 

1979 Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney. George Harrison, Ringo Star and Ginger Baker play together at Eric's wedding reception.

 

1997 Billy Joel delivers commencement address at Hofstra, gets honorary degree.

 

2001 Eddie Van Halen reveals he is undergoing cancer treatment.

 

2007 U2 does unannounced red carpet performance at Cannes Film Festival. 

   

2009 Drummer Liberty DeVito sues Billy Joel over royalties claim.

 

2009 Mike McCready of Pearl Jam does National Anthem Hendrix style before Angels-Mariners game at SafeCo Field. 

 

2012 Mick Jagger hosts and is musical guest on Saturday Night Live.

 

2013 A guitar George Harrison and John Lennon both played is auctioned for $408,000.

 

Classic lineup Yes keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman was born on this day in 1949 in London.  His goal of becoming a classical concert pianist got sidetracked when he began receiving offers to do studio sessions for David Bowie, T-Rex Elton John, Cat Stevens and others. Following three years as a member of Strawbs, Wakeman began his opening stint in Yes in 1971.  He would bounce in and out of the group a number of times in the ensuing decades and perform and record with Yes ex-pats Jon Anderson, Steve Howe and Bill Bruford and pursue his own solo ambitions.

 

1944 Albert Hammond born.

1964 A riot disrupts a Rolling Stones concert in Scotland when thousands with forged tickets show up.

1966 Bruce Springsteen and the Castilles hold their first recording session.

1967 Pink Floyd starts recording See Emily Play.

1968 The Doors, Grateful Dead, Steve Miller Band Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish and Taj Mahal play the Northern California Rock Festival.

1968 The Miami Pop Festival draws 100,000 to hear Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night, Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention, Three Dog Night, Chuck Berry, Blue Cheer and Pacific Gas and Electric.
1970 Beatles Let It Be released in US (5/8 in the UK).   
1975 ZZ Top releases Fandango. 

1978 Bob Marley and the Wailers open a US tour in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 
1991 Elvis Costello plays Saturday Night Live.

1993 Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS get Hollywood Walk Of fame Stars.
1993 Clay County Florida dedicates Ronnie Van Zant Park in honor of the late Lynyrd Skynyrd vocalist. 
1999 Jimmy Buffett releases Beach House On The Moon.
2006 Beatles Apple Corp. loses trademark infringement case against Apple Computer.
2007 Roger Waters opens US tour doing Dark Side Of The Moon during second set.

2011 Auction buyer pays $237,132 for John Lennon's hand written lyrics to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Paul McCartney's second solo album dropped on this day in 1971.  Ram added to the estrangement of McCartney and John Lennon, who believed some lyrics on the album were digs directed at him.  While Paul had played almost all of the instruments on his self-titled debut himself, he recruited other musicians for Ram, which Lennon considered a clear indication that he, Paul and the other  Beatles had no musical future together.

 

Other Noteworthy  classic rock events on May 17  include...

 

1942 Taj Mahal born.

1944 Jesse Winchester born.

1949 Yes & King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford born. 
1964 Pearl Jam drummer  Dave Abbruzzese born.   

1963 Monterey Pop Festival debuts with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary in the lineup.

1964 Bob Dylan's major concert debut in the UK comes at Royal Festival Hall in London.

1965 Trent Reznor born.

1967 Bob Dylan Don't Look Back documentary premieres in San Francisco.
1975 Mick Jagger cuts hand in fall through restaurant window in New York.   

1976 Rainbow releases Rainbow Rising. 
1978 Kinks release Misfits.

1980 Peter Criss of KISS goes solo.
1980 Paul & Linda McCartney perform on Saturday Night Live.  

1987 Tom Petty loses LA house to arson.   

1989 Doobie Brothers release Cycles.     

1989 Bill Wyman opens first Sticky Fingers restaurant in London.

2013 Bob Dylan named an honorary member ofthe American Academy of Arts and Letters.

2017 Chris Cornell hangs himself after Soundgarden performs at the Fox Theater in Detroit...

 

On this day 1970, the Who released Live at Leeds, the group's ferociously raw set recorded on Valentine's Day three months earlier at the University Refectory, a 2,000 seat auditorium at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, UK. The concert was arranged expressly to record a live album that would dispel impressions the Tommy rock opera album created that the group was heading in an art rock direction. The intensely raw and hard rocking set delivered from the stage that night is produced what is widely considered one of the best live albums ever released.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock Events on May 16th include...

1946 King Crimson's Robert Fripp born.

1946 Foghat drummer Roger Earl born

1947 Nazareth drummer Darrell Sweet born.

1950 Zephyr, James Gang, Deep Purple and Firefall guitarist Jock Bartley born

1951 Jonathan Richman born.     

1966 Beach Boys release Pet Sounds.     

1966 The Beatles record Taxman and For No One.

1969 John Lennon declared 'inadmissible immigrant' by State Department. 

1969 Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane arrested on drug charge in New Orleans hotel.

1969 Pete Townshend jailed for hitting plain clothes cop who went on stage during Who Fillmore East concert to tell audience to evacuate due to a fire next door.

1970 Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane busted on drug charge in Bloomington, Indiana hotel.

1974 Queen cancels US tour when Brian May comes down with hepatitis.

1975 Kinks release A Soap Opera.

1978 Joe Walsh releases But Seriously, Folks.

1980 Paul McCartney releases McCartney II in the UK.

1980 Yes replaces Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman with Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn.

1980 Brian May collapses during a Queen concert and is hospitalized with hepatitis.

1984 Ozzy Osbourne is charged with public intoxication in Dallas.

1986 Elvis Costello marries Caitlan O'Riordan of the Pogues.

1998 Several Rolling Stones Bridges to Babylon tour dates get cancelled when Keith Richards breaks ribs in a fall while reaching for a book in his home.

2010 Ronnie James Dio dies of stomach cancer in Houston hospital.

2017 Bon Jovi does surprise performance of Reunion during Fairleigh Dickinson University graduation.

 

 

 

Stevie Ray Vaughan's second album hit the streets on this day in 1984.  Side one ended with his 8 minute version of Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), the Hendrix classic off Electric Ladyland. Cold Shot, the opener on side two and the title track were the other big songs on the release that was recorded in New York City's Power Station studios under the guidance of John Hammond of Columbia Records.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 15 include...

 

1948 Brian Eno born. 

1948 Uriah Heep's Gary Thain born.

1953 Mike Oldfield born. 
1963 The Rolling Stones sign Decca Records contract.

1967 Paul McCartney meets future wife Linda Eastman at a London Georgie Fame concert. 
1968 Wonderwall film premieres at the Cannes Film Festival.  George Harrison and Ringo Starr attend the screening.  John Lennon and Paul McCartney skip it to hold a press conference announcing they were ending their association with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  

1974 Bill Wyman releases Monkey Grip, first Rolling Stones solo project.   

1975 The Fleetwood Mac lineup of Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Christine and John McVie debuts live in El Paso, Texas.

1976 Thin Lizzy releases The Boys Are Back In Town. 

1976 The Steve Miller Band releases Fly Like an Eagle.

1980 The Sex Pistols Great Rock Swindle premiers.  

1981 Moody Blues release Long Distance Voyager. 

1984 Nils Lofgren joins Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.     

1987 David Crosby marries Jan Dance.     

1994 Sting picks up Berklee College of Music degree in Boston.

1997 Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, the Young Rascals are inducted into the Rock Hall Of Fame.  

1995 Scott Weiland arrested on drug charges outside Pasadena hotel.

2016 A guitar George Harrison borrowed sells for $490,000 at New York Hard Rock Cafe auction.   

2017 Don Henley confirms that Glenn Frey's son Deacon has joined the Eagles.

2020 Bob Dylan awarded Sweden's Polar Music Prize...

 

     

One of rock's most prominent bassists was born on this day in 1943. Jack Bruce teamed with his future Cream bandmate, Ginger Baker, in the band known as the Graham Bond Organisation in the early 1960s. Bruce left that group  for a brief stint as the bass player in John Mayall & the Blues Breakers during Eric Clapton's  tenure in that band. After Bruce and Clapton parted with Mayall's outfit, they tapped Baker to join them in forming Cream. In addition to being a fantastically gifted bassist Bruce was a solid songwriter and distinctive vocalist. He penned and sang lead on a number of  the short lived but prolific  trio's biggest songs, including Sunshine of Your Love, White Room and I Feel Free.  Following Cream's demise, Bruce teamed with former Mountain members Leslie West and Corky Laing in another power trio, West, Bruce and Laing.

Other Noteworthy classic rock events on May 14 include...

1952 Talking Heads front man David Byrne born.     

1953 Red Rider's Tom Cochrane born.   

1962 Cult's Ian Astbury born. 

1968 John Lennon and Paul McCartney guest on the Tonight Show to announce the formation of Apple Records.   

1969 Neil Young releases Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

1970 Crosby Stills & Nash break up.     

1976 Yardbirds Keith Relf electrocuted playing guitar in his home.   

1976 Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and the Eagles do a benefit for Jerry Brown's presidential campaign.

1977 Heart releases Little Queen. 

1979 Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys born.

1985 Supertramp releases Brother, Where Are You Bound.

1988 Led Zeppelin reunite for 40th anniversary of Atlantic Records, Madison Square Garden.     

1996 Def Leppard releases Slang.

2002 Rush releases Vapor Trails.

2008 Metallica opens North American tour in Los Angeles.  

2015 B.B. King dies at 89 after a stroke related to Diabetes.   

2016 The Edge falls off stage during U2 concert in Vancouver.

2016 Jimmy Carter awards Gregg Allman Humanities doctorate during Mercer University graduation in Macon, Georgia. 

2017 Robert Plant and Brian Johnson join Paul Rodgers for encore during Bad Company front man's solo band concert.

2017 E Street Band guitarist and Sopranos star Steven Van Zandt delivers graduation address at Rutgers University.

2017 Early Alice Cooper Band members reunite with him during Nashville encore...

 

 

 

One of the great Classic Rock albums of the 1980's dropped on this day in 1985 when Dire Straits released Brothers in Arms.The fifth studio album from the group topped the album sales charts for 14 weeks, became one of the top 10 albums in UK sales history and went platinum 9 times over in the US, with more than 30 millions copies world wide.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 13 include...

 

1947 Mott The Hoople's Overend Watts born. 
1950 Fleetwood Mac's Danny Kirwan born. 
1950 Stevie Wonder born.

1951 Roxy Music's Paul Thompson born.

1966 The Kinks record Sunny Afternoon.

1970 Beatles Let It Be has premier in New York City. 

1970 Badfinger records No Matter What.   

1971 Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane in car crash near Golden Gate Bridge.     

1977 Ted Nugent releases Cat Scratch Fever.

1985 Bruce Springsteen marries Julianne Phillips.

2005 Stevie Wonder a father on his 55th birthday.   

2006 Cheap Trick performs in infield during Indianapolis 500 qualifying.   

2010 Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Elton John do Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ with Deborah Harry, Shirley Basey and Lady Gaga at rainforest preservation benefit at Carnegie Hall.

2012 Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn dies while on tour in Tokyo. 

2014 Black Keys release Turn Blue.

2017 Major Pink Floyd exhibit opens at Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

2017 Axl Rose joins Billy Joel on Highway To Hell and Big Shot at Dodger Stadium.

2018 Guess Who veteran Burton Cummings suffers multiple injuries in a Los Angeles car accident.

2022 Eddie Vedder invites teenage drummer and Pearl Jam fan Kai Neukermans to join them on the song Mind Your Manners during the group's Oakland Arena concert.

2022 Canadain rock trio Triumph's documentary Triumph: Rock and Roll Machine premieres on Nugs.net...

A couple of amazing albums had their releases on this day five years apart.  The debut album from the Jimi Hendrix Experience on May 12, 1967 and Exile On Main Street from the Rolling Stones on this day in 1972.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 12 include...

 

1942 Ian Dury born.   

1945 Faces Ian McLagan born.     

1948 Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith's Steve Winwood born.   

1950 Billy Squier born. 

1958 Kiss' Eric Singer born.

1963 Bob Dylan walks out of Ed Sullivan Show rehearsal over CBS refusal to let him perform Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues on the show.  

1965 Rolling Stones record (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

1967 Who stage a quadrophonic concert in London.   

1967 Pink Floyd debuts surround sound at a concert in Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

1968 Brian Jones does his final concert with the Rolling Stones.

1968 Jimi Hendrix is arrested on Hashish and heroin charges in Toronto.

1971 Mick Jagger marries Bianca Perez Morena in St. Tropez.   

1972 John Lennon says the FBI is trailing him on Dick Cavett Show.     

1975 Jefferson Starship does free Central Park concert for an estimated 60,000 in New York City. 

1977 The Sex Pistols sign with Virgin Records.

1981 Van Halen opens Fair Warning tour in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
1981 Meat Loaf files for bankruptcy.

1984 The Cars play Saturday Night Live. 
1985 Phil Collins opens No Jacket Required tour in Worcester, MA.

1986 Joe Strummer of the Clash loses his drivers license on a DUI conviction.

1990 Eagles members Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit perform together at a convention in LA.

1992 Black Crowes release Southern Harmony & Musical Companion.

1992 Billy Joel meets with Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev.   

1997 Yes cancels US tour because Rick Wakeman won't tour.

2000 The gates to Strawberry Fields are stolen,

2002 Aerosmith's Tom Hamilton loses his Cape Cod house in a fire.

2006 James Hetfield of Metallica given Stevie Ray Vaughan award for helping in fight against addiction. 

2007 The Edge of U2 gets Berklee College of Music honorary degree in Boston.

2011 David Gilmour and Nick Mason join Roger Waters on Comfortably Numb and Behind The Wall during concert at London’s 02 Arena. 

2012 Eagles members get honorary degrees from Berkleee School Of Music in Boston.

2017 Eddie Vedder joins  Red Hot Chili Peppers on Shine On You Crazy Diamond  duringK Arena concert in Seattle. 

2017 U2 opens Joshua Tree anniversary tour in Vancouver...

 

 

 

The soundtrack to the original Woodstock festival film got its release on this day in 1970. The triple album has been repackaged and expanded a number of times in the decades since. The Rhino Records collection due on the original festival's 50th anniversary will dwarf all of the previous releases. It contains 38 discs and more than 20 hours of performances for the 1969 concert that haven't been released previously.

 

Other noteworthy May 11 events over the years include...

 

1941 Eric Burdon of the Animals and War born.

1947 Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks.
1967 Beatles record baby You're a Rich Man.

1973 Paul McCartney & Wings open their first tour in Bristol, England.

1973 Stevie Wonder records Higher Ground.

1974 Robert Plant joins Elvis Presley on the song Love Me during Presley's  Los Angeles concert.

1979 Bob Dylan opens recording sessions for Slow Train Coming.

1981 Bob Marley dies of cancer.

1981 Frank Zappa puts out four albums on the same day.

1989 Songwriters Hall of Fame inducts Roy Orbison.

1993 Dire Straits releases On The Night

1995 Eric Clapton, BB King, Jimmy Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and Bonnie Raitt do a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan concert in Austin, Texas.

2003 Noel Redding, bass player in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, dies of cirrhosis of the liver complications.

2014 Foreigner bassist Ed Gagliardi dies of cancer at 62

 

Paul David Hewson was born on this day in 1960 in Dublin. The future U2 front man, who now divides his time between music, political activism, extensive business dealings and humanitarian campaigns, has legions of people that love him and quite a few with a less favorable opinion about him.

He acquired the nickname Bono Vox, a variation on a Latin phrase for 'good voice', while a member of a young street gang. The forerunner to U2 was the group Feedback, formed when Bono, Dave Evans (The Edge) and Adam Clayton contacted Larry Mullen, Jr. about a school bulletin board post he'd put up at their school in 1976 seeking musicians interested in forming a band. After a brief run as Feedback, the group switched to The Hype and then jettisoned that in favor of U2.

The group's first release came in the form of a 3 song EP titled U2-3 in 1979. U2 signed with Island Records and issued its first full album, Boy, in 1980. The 1981 release October and 1983's War built recognition for the group and the release of the live album Under a Blood Red Sky helped establish them as one of Rock's most dynamic live groups. They reached their pinnacle of popularity with 1984's The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree (1987), the album that moved them into the ranks of acts that could fill stadiums.

 

Other noteworthy May 10 events include...

 

1945 Traffic's Dave Mason born.

1946 10CC's Graham Gouldman born.

1946 Donovan (Leitch) born.

1947 Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne's Jay Ferguson born.

1957 Sex Pistol's Sid Vicious (John Simon Beverley) born.

1967 Keith Richards and Mick Jagger enter not-guilty pleas on drug charges.
1968 Jim Morrison incites a riot during a Doors concert in Chicago.

1969 Turtles play at the White House.

1972 Slade opens its first headlining tour.

1974 An LA Bash is staged for the debut of Sawn Song, Led Zeppelin's own subsidiary record label. 

1974 Who sell out 8 nights at Madison Square Garden in 8 hours.

1974 Eric Clapton records I Shot The Sheriff.

1975 Allman Brothers Band release The Road Goes On Forever.

1975 The Beatles Apple record label shuts down.

1976 Ace Frehley marries Janette Treotola.

1976 Warren Zevon releases self-titled debut.

1986 Tommy Lee marries Heather Locklear.

1993 Who's Tommy musical earns 11 Tony Award nominations.

1995 Black Crowes do Oklahoma City benefit show for Federal Building bombing victim's families.

2003 Berklee College of Music awards an honorary degree to Steven Tyler.

2005 Rolling Stones announce Bigger Bang tour with 3 song live set at Julliard School of Music in New York.

2006 Great White's road manager draws a four year prison sentence in connection with his role in the Rhode Island night club fire that killed 100 in February of 2003.

2007 Tribute to Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd staged in London.

2014 Jimmy Page gives commencement talk at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

2013 Two arrested and charged for toppling the statue of Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott erected in his honor in Dublin.

 

Billy Joel was born on this day in 1949 in the Bronx.  Before opting to be a solo artist, Joel was in a band named The Hassles that released a pair of albums and then formed the duo Attila with other Hassles member Howie Blauvelt, who later became a co-founding member of the group Ram Jam that released the hit Black Betty in 1977.
Joel's solo career began with the 1971 album Cold Spring Harbor.  Columbia Records signed him after his 1972 live performance of Captain Jack on Philadelphia radio station WMMR  ignited a huge response.  A slightly shortened version of that song became the closing track on Joel's 1973 album, titled with the song what would become Billy's nickname, Piano Man. Streetlife Serenade and Turnstiles followed. Joel's biggest album, The Stranger, came out in 1977 and became the best selling album in Columbia's history to that point with more than 10 million copies sold.

Once Billy's days of long tours were in his rear view mirror, he started doing monthly concerts at Madison Square Garden that frequently include special guests dropping in to share the stage with him for a song or two.  

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 9 include.... 

 

1944 Buffalo Springfield and Poco member Richie Furay born.

1945 Steve Katz of Blood Sweat & Tears born.

1950 Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson born.

1953 Status Quo's John Edwards born.

1962 Beatles sign first recording contract with EMI.

1963 Paul McCartney meets Jane Asher for the first time back stage at Royal Albert Hall.

1965 Members of the Beatles and Rolling Stones attend Bob Dylan's concert at Royal Albert Hall.

1966 The Doors audition to be the house band at the Whiskey A Go Go in Hollywood.
1970 Lynyrd Skynyrd did Free Bird for the first time live.

1974 Bruce Springsteen does Born To Run for the first time while opening for Bonnie Raitt in Cambridge, MA.  Jon Landau's account of the concert includes, "I have seen the future of rock & roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen."
1978 Fee Waybill breaks leg in fall from stage during a Tubes London concert.

1982 Bob Dylan finishes recording his Infidels album.

1986 Peter Gabriel releases So.

1989 John Mellencamp releases Big Daddy.

1992 Springsteen does his first live TV appearance on Saturday Night Live.
1998 Jimmy Page plays Saturday Night Live.

2006 Neil Young releases Living With War.

2014 Keith Richards 1972 Dino 246 GT Ferrari auctioned in Monaco.

 

 

Happy birthday to the beat keeper and co-founding brother of Van Halen, Alex Van Halen - born on this day in 1953 in Amsterdam.  He and his brother Eddie became US citizens when Alex was nine.  Both had classical musical training on piano before Eddie took up drumming and Alex started playing guitar.  The pair flipped instruments after Eddie was blown away by his brother's playing of the drums to the Safaris 1963 hit song Wipe Out.

 

Other noteworthy May 8 events in Classic Rock include...

1917 Papa John Creach of Jefferson Airplane & Starship born.

1943 Danny Whitten, guitarist in Neil Young's band Crazy Horse is born.

1943 Yardbirds bassist Paul Samwell-Smith born.     

1944 Gary Glitter born.    

1951 Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz born. 

1953 Fleetwood Mac’s Billy Burnette born. 

1970 Beatles Let It Be released.

1971 Alice Cooper releases Love It To Death. 

1972 Billy Preston becomes the first Rock act booked a New York City's Radio City Music Hall.

1977 Joe Bonamassa born. 

1992 Genesis open US tour in Dallas. 

1993 Mark Knopfler given honorary degree from the University of  Newcastle.

1984 Roger Waters releases The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking.

1996 A judge rules photos from an X-rated home movie Motley Crue's Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson filmed could be published by Penthouse magazine.

1998 Johnny Winter added to Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

2006 Keith Richards undergoes brain surgery to address an injury resulting from a fall out of a palm tree in Fiji. Stones postpone European tour.

2008 Bruce Springsteen and his band do Born To Run in its entirety in Red Bank, New Jersey.

2009 Jimmy Buffett plays the Miami stadium that is home to the NFL Miami Dolphins when it is temporarily renamed Landshark Stadium for the Buffett branded beer.

2016 Rush opens R40 tour in Tulsa.

2021 Van Morrison releases Latest Record Project: Volume One...

 

Drummer Bill Kruetzmann born on this day in 1946 in Palo Alto, California. The future co-founding drummer of the Warlocks and the Grateful Dead was undeterred by a school music teacher who pronounced him incapable of keeping a beat. He developed his own style derived in part from listening to R&B session drummers and from relentless solo drumming sessions on a Slingerlands kit he'd gotten. Lore has it that English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley happened to hear young Kreuetzmann wailing away on the skins in a large, empty room at his school. Drawn to the scene by the innovative style of what the young drummer was laying down, Huxley was said to have remarked that he'd never heard anything like it, and that he encouraged Kreuetzmann to keep it up. Sadly, Bill has made it known that he won't be onboard for the final run of concerts of Dead & Company. 1950 Tubes Prairie Prince born. 1951 David Bowie band member Carlos Alomar born. 1961 Motorhead's Phil Campbell born. 1972 Reginald Dwight officially changes his name to Elton Hercules John. 1974 Led Zeppelin hosts a launch party for The group's Swan Song record label. 1985 Promoter Bill Graham's San Francisco offices burn – arson suspected. 1991 Court rules against a couple that sought to hold Ozzy Osbourne responsible for their son's attempted suicide. 1998 Steve Perry exits Journey for the second time. 2002 The Rolling Stones arrive via blimp in New York's Central Park to announce their 2002-2003 tour. 2003 Fleetwood Mac opens Say You Will tour in Columbus, Ohio. 2006 Rolling Stone magazine publishes issue 1,000. 2006 Roger Daltrey sings song he wrote for his favorite soccer team at closing of their stadium, calls the invitation more exciting than when the Who were invited to play Woodstock. 2011 Bob Weir performs with the Marin County Symphony Orchestra in California. 2022 U2's Bono and The Edge do a 40 minute set in an underground metro station doing double duty as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine during the Russian invasion of the country.

 

 

Join us in a toast to Bob Seger as he starts another year, Still Runnin' Against The Wind.

The son of a musical Ford Motor Company employee who played a number of instruments, Bob was introduced to a lot of music at a young age. But there was little harmony between his parents and his father deserted the family when Bob was just 10.

 

At 16, Seger became the lead singer, keyboard player and guitarist in a trio of fellow Ann Arbor High School members playing as the Decibels before moving into a quartet known as the Town Criers and then to Doug Brown & The Omens before forming his own group, Bob Seger and the Last Heard late in 1965. The group name shifted to the Bob Seger System after landing a contact with Capitol Records in 1968. Their breakout single was Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, which became the title song for the band's 1969 album. The following year's album, Mongrel, failed to build interest and the System disbanded, after which Seger hooked up briefly with a duo known as Teegarden & Van Winkle for the album Smokin' O.P.'s in 1972. Bob put together another group to record the 1973 album Back In '72.

 

Things finally gelled musically for Seger with the formation of the SIlver Bullet Band in 1974. That year's album, Seven, included Get Out Of Denver. Capitol Records was impressed enough by it to give Seger another shot. 1975's Beautiful Loser album solidified Bob with the regional Rock fans to the point he could book back-to-back nights at the Cobo Arena by the fall of '75 and record Live Bullet, the 1975 double album that earned Seger and his band big time national recognition.

 

Even though he's retired from touring, Seger's vocal prowess remains as impressive as ever. Thanks for all the great years, songs and albums, Bob!

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 6 include...

 

1973 Paul Simon opens first solo tour, Boston.

1977 Boomtown Rats do their first concert in London.

1992 Bruce Springsteen plays invitation only show at Bottom Line in New York.

1993 David Crosby guests on Simpsons.

1994 Pearl Jam files a ticketing monopoly complaint against Ticketmaster with the Justice Department.

1995 Berklee School of Music awards James Taylor an honorary degree.

1997 CSN&Y, Buffalo Springfield, Rascals and Joni Mitchell inducted by Rock Hall Of Fame.

1998 Canada names Bryan Adams an Officer of the Order of Canada.

2000 John Mellencamp delivers the commencement address at Indiana University.

2006 Memorial to Bon Scott of AC/DC unveiled in Scottish hometown.

2006 Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ean Evans dies of cancer.

2022 Timothy B. Schmit releases Day By Day, the Eagles member's 6th solo album... 

Bob Seger's second album with the Silver Bullet Band and his 10th studio album overall dropped on this day in 1978.  The bar was set high after the breakout success of his Night Moves album moved Seger into an Arena scale artist nationwide, a standing he had previously achieved in and around Detroit.  Stranger in Town would go platinum within weeks of its release.  Bob took the same appraoch on it as he had with Night Moves, relying on the Silver Bullet Band for about half the songs and working with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on the others.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 5 include...

1948 Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward born. 

1965 The Warlocks, forerunner of the Grateful Dead,make live debut in a Menlo Park, California pizza place. 

1965 Alan Price quits the Animals.

1968 Buffalo Springfield does its last concert, Long Beach, CA.

1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival releases Bayou Country.

1978 AC/DC releases Powerage.

1981 Tom Petty releases Hard Promises.

1985 Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders marries Jim Kerr of Simple Minds in Central Park.   

1986 Rock Hall Of Fame officials announce museum will be in Cleveland.   

1996 Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott arrested after altercation with lady in an LA hotel. 

1995 Former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler arrested on heroine charge.  

1997 Bruce Springsteen awarded Polar Music Prize by Sweden.

1997 Beat poet Allen Ginsberg dies.   

2014 Kenny Wayne Shepherd releases Goin' Home. 

2015 U2 members busk on a train platform at Grand Central Station in New York.   

2015 John Lodge releases 10,000 Light Years Ago...

An event widely considered to be a turning point in the nation's willingness to continue to support US military action in Southeast Asia took place on this day in 1970 when National Guard troops opened fire on Kent State University students in Ohio protesting the war in Vietnam. In less than 20 seconds, four were killed and close to another dozen wounded. Neil Young wrote Ohio in the immediate aftermath of the incident and he and his band mates, David Crosby,Stephen Stills and Graham Nash recorded it the same day he'd written it.  The song was released as a single with the Stills song Find the Cost of Freedom on the flip side.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 4 include...

1923 Spirit’s Ed Cassidy born.   

1951 Mick Mars (Bob Deal) of Motley Crue born1959 First Grammy awards given out. 

1964 Moody Blues form. 

1967 Mick Jagger drops in to watch the Jimi Hendrix Experience rehearse for the Top Of The Pops TV show in the UK.   

1973 Led Zeppelin opens a US tour in Atlanta.

1987 Paul Butterfield dies of heart failure linked to a drug overdose in his Hollywood home at 44.

1989 Stevie Ray Vaughan opens his last tour in Vancouver. He would lose his life in a helicopter crash after a concert in Wisconsin on August 27, 1990,  just a few dates before the tour was scheduled to end.

1991 Berklee College of Music in Boston awards Phil Collins an honorary degree.

1997 Crosby Stills & Nash play Kent State University in Ohio on anniversary of 1970 shootings of war protesters on campus.

2000 Metallica demands Napster suspend the accounts of 335,000 people transferring the group's songs on the service.  

2006 Pearl Jam plays David Letterman Show.

2021 Steve Miller Band releases Breaking Ground August 3, 1977.

2022 The Black Crowes release 1972.

 

Many fans consider the album released on May 3rd, 1976 to be Aerosmith at it's raw, Rockin' best. The follow-up to Toys in the Attic did not disappoint, thanks in part to the group members bringing the live performance chops they honed during the lengthy 1975 tour into the studio with them.  The release has been cited as inspirational by many musicians including Slash, who said that hearing the the album convinced him to start playing guitar.The group's 4th studio release arrived just before the band's increasingly wild lifestyle would start undermining their ability to hold things together in the studio and on the road.

 

Other noteworthy May 3 events include...

 

1919 Pete Seeger born. 

1928 James Brown born.     

1953 REO Speedwagon bassist Bruce Hall born. 

1955 Sex Pistol's Steve Jones born.   

1968 Jimi Hendrix records Voodoo Chile

1971 Grand Funk Railroad invites 150 to a press conference in New York. 6 show up.     

1971 Led Zeppelin opens a European tour in Copenhagen.

1976 David Bowie opens a six night series of concerts at Wembley Stadium during his Station to Station tour.

1976 Paul McCartney and Wings open a US tour inFort Worth, Texas.

1973 1976 Paul McCartney opens Wings Over America Tour in Dallas.     

1977 Led Zeppelin sets single act attendance record at King Dome in Seattle (76,229).   

2006 Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour debts on satellite radio.

2009 Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and dozens more perform at 90th birthday party for Pete Seeger at Madison Square Garden.

2012 Paul McCartney and wife Nancy Shavell avoid a near crash when the pilot of a helicopter transporting them in bad weather from London to the couple's Sussex home gets disoriented and almost clips trees.

2014 John Fogerty joins Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band on Proud Mary at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

2021 Yes releases Union 30 box set.

 

 

Louis Andrew Grammatico was born on this day in 1950 in Rochester, New York. The son of a band leading trumpet player, the future front man for Foreigner was in a few regional groups before becoming the drummer and lead vocalist of a group named Black Sheep that released albums in 1974 & '75.

 

Gramm met Mick Jones and gave him a copy of Black Sheep's first album when Jones played Rochester with his group Spooky Tooth. That earned him an opportunity to audition for a new group Jones was putting together a couple of years later. His strong audition landed Lou a place in the band what was briefly known as Trigger before switching its name to Foreigner, a good fit for an outfit comprised of both UK and US members.

 

Gramm released his first solo album in 1987 and his role in Foreigner entered an on-off phase that lasted several years until the group elected to seek a permanent replacement.

 

At the end of 2018, Lou announced at the end of a solo concert in Schenectady, New York that his audience that night had heard what would be his last concert as a touring musician.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on May 2 include...

 

1946 Kinks and Argent drummer Bob Henrit born.

1965 Appearance number two for the Rolling Stones on the Ed Sullivan Show.

1969 The Beatles record Something.

1969 Who perform Tommy live at London club during press party.

1972 Bruce Springsteen auditions for John Hammond at Columbia Records offices in New York City.

1972 Stone The Crows guitarist Les Harvey was electrocuted on stage and dies when he grabbed an ungrounded microphone with wet hands.

1977 Eric Clapton records Wonderful Tonight.

1979 Who do first concert with Kenny Jones on the drums in place of the late Keith Moon.

1980 The South African government bans Another Brick in The Wall by Pink Floyd.

1989 The Allman Brothers Band releases Dreams.

1991 The government of Ireland bans R.E.M. video for Losing My Religion due to religious images it contained.

1992 Berklee College of Music in Boston awards Bonnie Raitt an honorary doctorate of music degree.

2005 Bruce Springsteen releases Devils & Dust.

2011 Stevie Nicks releases In Your Dreams.

On this afternoon in 1975, the Rolling Stones announced their US tour at the 5th Avenue Hotel in New York City and then climbed onto a flatbed truck to play live while rolling through midtown Manhattan.

 

 

 

Other Noteworthy classic rock events on May 1 include...

 

1939 Judy Collins, the inspiration for Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills & Nash born.

1945 Rita Coolidge born.

1946 Blood, Sweat & Tears trumpet player Jerry Weiss born.

1949 Jim Clench, bassist with April Wine and Bachman Turner Overdrive born.

1966 Black Crowes and Lynyrd Skynyrd bassist Johnny Colt born.

1967 Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys charged with draft evasion,

1967 Elvis Presley marries Priscilla Beaulieu at the Aladin Hotel in Las Vegas.

1969 Jimi Hendrix arrested on drug charges in Toronto.

1973 Bachman Turner Overdrive releases debut.  

1977 Clash open first tour in London.

Bianca Jagger files for divorce from Mick Jagger. 

1984 Mick Fleetwood declares bankruptcy.

1988 Mike Rutherford of Genesis loses 4 teeth in a polo match.   

2007 Rush releases Snakes & Arrows. 

2016 7,356 guitarists set Guinness World Record jamming to Hey Joe in Poland.