Today In Oldies Music History: May 12
--Births
1921: Joe Maphis1928: Burt Bacharach
1940: Norman Whitfield
1942: Billy Swan
1943: David Walker (Gary Lewis and the Playboys)
1944: James Purify (James and Bobby Purify)
1945: Jayotis Washington (The Persuasions)
1946: Ian McLagan (The Faces)
1948: Steve Winwood (The Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith, Traffic)
Deaths
2001: Perry Como2004: John Whitehead (McFadden and Whitehead)
Events
1951: Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, a/k/a Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm, hit #1 on the R&B charts with their single "Rocket 88," which many historians now consider to be the first rock and roll song.1955: Singer/actress Gisele MacKenzie debuts her new song, the soon-to-be-a-hit "Hard To Get," on the NBC-TV program Justice.
1958: The latest in a long line of quickie rock and roll movies, dubbed Let's Rock, debuts, featuring Paul Anka, Roy Hamilton, Danny and the Juniors and the Royal Teens.
1960: Frank Sinatra's Timex Spectacular special, cannily renamed Welcome Home, Elvis in honor of its guest star's release from the Army, is broadcast on ABC-TV and pulls in 41 percent of America's households. In it, Sinatra and Presley do a medley of each other's songs, with Frank taking on "Love Me Tender" and Elvis singing "Witchcraft."
1961: The Beatles sign their first recording contract -- in Hamburg, Germany, with Bert Kaempfert.
1963: Bob Dylan walks off the set during rehearsals for CBS-TV's Ed Sullivan Show when he is told he will not be able to perform his protest song Talking John Birch Society Blues.
1967: Archie Bell (of Archie Bell and the Drells) is drafted into the US Army.
1968: Jimi Hendrix is busted for hash and heroin on arrival at Toronto's International Airport; Jimi later claims the drugs were planted on him.
1968: Onetime Rolling Stones leader Brian Jones, now slipping into heavy drug use, makes what is to be his final appearance with the band, performing with them at the Empire Pool in Wembley, England for the NME Poll Winners Concert.
1971: In St. Tropez, France, Mick Jagger marries his first wife, a model from Nicaragua named Bianca Perez Morena de Macias. The rest of the band attends, as does Paul and Ringo from the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and Stephen Stills. The stormy marriage would end six years later.
1975: Jefferson Starship play a free concert in Central Park for 60,000, which unfortunately leaves WNEW, the radio station that sponsored it, with $14,000 in damages to clean up. Four years later to the day, the new, hard-rock Jefferson Starship lineup, minus Grace Slick and plus former Elvin Bishop vocalist Mickey Thomas, debuts in another free concert, this time at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
1983: Despite selling ten million copies of his 1977 album Bat Out Of Hell Meatloaf files for bankruptcy just six years later, claiming debts in excess of a million dollars.
1995: Peter Tork guest stars as "Jedediah Lawrence" on tonight's "Career Day" episode of ABC-TV's Boy Meets World.
1998: Elton John fires his longtime manager, John Reid, who had been with the singer since he started his solo career back in 1968.
2000: The iron gates to Strawberry Field, the orphanage which inspired the Beatles' classic "Strawberry Fields Forever," are stolen by thieves in Liverpool. Fortunately, the scrap-metal dealer who bought them realized what they were and promptly returned them to authorities.
2002: Dionne Warwick is arrested for possession of marijuana at Miami International Airport after eleven joints are discovered in her carry-on bag.
2004: The Bee Gees each receive honorary degrees in music from Manchester University in England, Barry posthumously.
2008: American biology professor Jason Bond decides to name a recently-discovered species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, after Neil Young, his favorite musician.
Releases
1956: Elvis Presley, "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"1970: The Grateful Dead, Workingman's Dead
Recording
1967: The Beatles, "All Together Now"Charts
1958: The Everly Brothers' "All I Have To Do Is Dream" hits #11958: Link Wray's "Rumble" enters the charts
1964: The Beach Boys' album Beach Boys Concert hits #1
1973: Led Zeppelin's album Houses Of The Holy hits #1