| This Week in Our History |
News & Entertainment | |
| 1957 - Smith-Corona Manufacturing Inc. of New York began selling portable electric typewriters. The first machine was a ‘portable’ of 19 pounds! Soon, other manufacturers offered similar models, made of lighter-weight plastics, with a lot less of the sophisticated workings inside. | |
| 1958 - Explorer I, the first U.S. space satellite, was put into orbit around the earth by a Jupiter-C rocket. Radio signals from the satellite were soon picked up in California. | 1958 - The first two-way moving sidewalk was put in service at Love Field in Dallas, TX. The length of the walkway through the airport: 1,435 feet. |
| 1959 - Texas Instruments filed for a patent on the ‘solid circuit’. Their first integrated circuit (IC), as it later became known, was the size of a pencil point, and was shown off for the first time in March 1959. | |
| 1968 - Gore Vidal’s controversial sex novel, Myra Breckinridge, was published by Little, Brown & Company. It was later made into a film starring Raquel Welch and Mae West. | 1968 - Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese provincial capitals in what became known as the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year). |
| 1970 - ‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich scored 49 points for Louisiana State University against Mississippi State. Maravich became the first collegiate player to score over 3,000 career points. | |
Rock & Roll Birthdays | |
| Jan 30 | Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane (Buchwald) (1942) |
| Jan 31 | Terry Kath of Chicago (1946, d. 01/23/78) |
| Feb 1 | Don Everly (1937) |
| Feb 2 | Graham Nash (1942) |
| Feb 3 | Dave Davies of The Kinks (1947) |
| Chart Toppers This Week | |||
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| This Week In Rock & Roll History | |
| 1958 | A band called The Champs release Tequila, an instrumental that will hit number one in mid-March. The group included sax player Jim Seals and drummer Dash Crofts, who would go on to score several hits in the seventies, including Summer Breeze as Seals and Crofts. |
| 1959 | The Coasters tune, Charlie Brown, was released. The tune went to #2 and stayed there for three weeks, but didn’t make it to the top spot of the charts although it was on the charts for a total of 12 weeks. And what song was at number one, preventing Charlie Brown from reaching the top, you ask? Venus, by Frankie Avalon. |
| 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 28-year-old J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and 17-year-old Ritchie Valens died in an airplane crash near Mason City, Iowa. February 3rd has been remembered as ‘The Day the Music Died’ since Don McLean made the line popular in his 1972 hit, American Pie. | |
| 1961 | The Shirelles became the first girl group to have the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 when Will You Love Me Tomorrow reached the top. They would go on to place ten more hits in the Top 40. The song reached #4 in the UK. |
| 1962 | Gene Chandler's The Duke Of Earl tops the Cashbox Best Sellers chart for the first of a five week stay. |
| 1963 | The Beach Boys record Surfin' USA, which will climb to number three in the US by mid-April. Although it was credited as being composed by Brian Wilson, the tune was a note-for-note cover of Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen. Following a lawsuit, Berry was granted writing credit and royalties from the record. |
| 1964 | The British group, The Beatles, received its first gold record award for the single, I Want To Hold Your Hand. The group also won a gold LP award for Meet The Beatles. The album had been released in the United States only 14 days earlier. |
| In response to a storm of controversy, Max Firetag, the publisher of The Kingsmen's hit, Louie Louie, offers $1,000 to anyone who can find suggestive lyrics in the song. The reward is small change considering that the disc cost less than $50 to record and has sold millions of copies. | |
| 1965 | At the Arthur Smith Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina, James Brown records Papa's Got A Brand New Bag, which will reach #8 on the Billboard Pop chart and #1 on the R&B chart the following August and later win a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Recording. |
| 1966 | I Fought The Law by The Bobby Fuller Four is released. It will enter the Hot 100 two weeks later and eventually reach #9 during an eight week chart run. |
| 1967 | While taking a break from the filming of the Strawberry Fields Forever promotional video at Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent, John Lennon buys an 1843 poster from an antiques shop in Surrey which will provide him with many of the lyrics for Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite. |
| 1968 | The Beatles record Paul McCartney's Lady Madonna at Abbey Road studios in just three takes. The Fats Domino inspired tune will reach #1 in the UK and #4 in the US. Domino himself would release a cover version of the song that topped out at #100 on the Billboard chart later in the year. |
| An Oxford, Ohio group called the Lemon Pipers saw their only Billboard chart-maker, Green Tambourine, reach #1. It made #7 in the UK. | |
| 1969 | With Billy Preston sitting in on keyboards, The Beatles made their last public appearance -- at a free concert at their Apple corporate headquarters in London. The group recorded Get Back; and were also filmed for the movie Let It Be. |
| Information courtesy Classic Bands & Those Were The Days | |
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