On this daythe 1st of March

VALE Michael Gudinski
One of the most significant figures in Australian popular culture, has died aged 68. The founder of the Mushroom Group, Gudinski died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Melbourne on Monday night (1st March 2021). A larger-than-life figure, Gudinski was widely respected for his unwavering passion for all music – in particular Australian music.
Michael Gudinski with Australian performers in 1982: Back row (L to R) Mike Rudd, Joe Camilleri, Brendan Mason, F.J Holden, Wilbur Wilde, Andrew Daffield, Kerry McKenna, Greg McAlish and Sean Kelly. Front row, Wendy Stapleton, Michael Gudinski and Renee Geyer.

1912. The first appearance of the word 'blues' in a piece of music: "The Dallas Blues" by Hart Wand. The story goes that a black porter overheard Hart playing his violin and the porter remarked "That give me the blues to go back to Dallas." Hart A. Wand (1887-1960), is known to have released the first ever twelve bar blues song and is attributed with the founding of the blues itself.

1955. Sam Phillips launched Sun Records by releasing "Drivin' Slow" by 16-year-old saxophonist Johnny London.

1961: Elvis Presley signed a five year movie deal with Hollywood producer Hal Wallis. What were they both thinking?

Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon, March 1 1973.

On this daythe 2nd of March

1955: Bo Diddley had his first recording session at Universal Recording Studio in Chicago, where he cut "Bo Diddley", which topped the US R&B chart the following June.

1983: Sony, Philips and Polygram introduced a revolutionary new digital audio system called the Compact Disc, that contained up to 1 hour of uninterrupted music. From that point on many baby boomers started replicating their vinyl collection with Compact Disks. 30 years down the track those same baby boomers lamented the transition, dug up their vinyl collection from the attic and resurrected their turntable.

On this day the 3rd of March

March 3, 1951 first rock ‘n’ roll single recorded
"Rocket 88" (originally written as Rocket "88") is a rhythm and blues song that was first recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 3, 1951 (accounts differ). The recording was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm.

1957: The head of the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago, Samuel Cardinal Strich, banned Rock and Roll from Catholic schools in his district. Most of the priests who really had a lot to do with the kids at that time thought Rock and Roll was OK!

3rd March 1963 American country blues musician "Mississippi" John Hurt 're-discovered' by musicologist Tom Hoskins in Avalon, Mississippi.

On this day the 4th of March

1967: The Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" sat atop the Billboard singles chart after American disc jockeys shied away from playing the flip side, "Let's Spend The Night Together".

On this day the 5th of March

1963: Patsy Cline was killed when her private plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee. Most often remembered for her hits, "Crazy", "Walkin' After Midnight", "I Fall To Pieces" and "She's Got You", Cline's Greatest Hits L.P. has sold over eight million copies, making it the largest selling female Country album of all time, until Shania Twain came along.

On this day the 6th of March

On this day March 6th back in 1986 Richard Manuel of The Band hangs himself after a show in Winter Park, Florida.

2007: According to Dr. Bill Bass, a forensic anthropologist hired by the son of J.P. Richardson, The Big Bopper suffered massive fractures and likely died immediately in the 1959 plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Jay Richardson had hired Dr. Bass of the University of Tennessee to look into rumors that a gun may have been fired on board the plane and that the Big Bopper might have survived the crash and died while trying to get help. Dr. Bass' report says that those rumors are groundless. "There was no indication of foul play. [He] died immediately. He didn't crawl away." Jay Richardson was pleased with the findings, saying "I was hoping to put the rumors to rest."

R.I.P. Charlie Baty 1953 - Mar 6, 2020
Guitarist Charlie Baty died on March 6th at 66. In 1976 he founded Little Charlie and The Nightcats with harmonica player and vocalist Rick Estrin. The jump band was popular on the urban blues circuit, released many albums for Alligator Records, and toured the United States and Europe. Baty was a versatile guitarist with a diverse ear for American music. The band included a variety of styles in their playing, from surf rock to Western Swing.

On this day the 7th of March

March 7 2018
Gary Burden, who beginning in the late 1960s designed memorable album covers for Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, the Doors and numerous other stars of rock and folk-rock, died on March 7 in Los Angeles. He was 84.

1966, Tina Turner recorded her vocal on the Phil Spector produced 'River Deep Mountain High'. It went on to make No.3 in the UK but only No.88 on the US chart.

 

On this day the 8th of March

1963: 25,000 people attended the funeral for Country singer Patsy Cline, killed three days earlier in a plane crash near Camden, Tennessee.

2003: Adam Faith suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 62. He was one of England's major Pop stars in the early 1960s and enjoyed a run of eleven British Top 20 hits prior to the arrival of The Beatles.

On the 8th March 2016 “The Fifth Beatle” Sir George Martin passed away.

On this day the 9th of March

On this day the 9th March back in 2012 in Jackson, Miss. Rock 'n' roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis married for a seventh time in Mississippi, and the new bride is his cousin's ex-wife. She worked several years as Lewis' caretaker at his home in Nesbit, Miss., just south of Memphis a job she said she was sent to do by her then-husband and one of Lewis' ex-wives, who were brother and sister. ( I'm still trying to work all that out.) She said she and the 76-year-old Lewis, also known as " The Killer," never intended to fall in love. It just happened. "Great balls of fire and dexterous fingers" she exclaimed "we married for love, not for money". .

Friday 9th March 2018
NME has announced that this week’s issue (Friday 9 March) will be its final print edition, as it attempts to expand its digital audience. NME was launched as the New Musical Express in 1952 and began its 66-year career as one of the UK’s most recognisable music publications, featuring iconic artists on its cover including Oasis, Bowie, Amy Winehouse, The Libertines and The Strokes.

On this day the 10th of March

1969: Skip James, American blues musician (b. 1902) died on this day.

1979: Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" was released in America where it would spent over 741 weeks on the Billboard chart.

1997: R&B singer LaVern Baker, who placed 7 songs in the US Top 40 in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, including "Tweedlee Dee" and "I Cried A Tear", died of heart failure at the age of 67.

Joni Sledge, singer, songwriter, died 10 March 2017, aged 60.
Joan Elise "Joni" Sledge was an American singer–songwriter, actress and producer. Sledge was best known as a founding member of the American family vocal group Sister Sledge

On this day the 11th of March

1986 Sonny Terry, American bind Piedmont blues musician, died at the age of 74

On this day the 12th of March

The Velvet Underground, Nico release date: 12 March 1967
The debut album by American rock band the Velvet Underground released by Verve Records.

2003 : On the eve of The Rolling Stones' first tour of China, the Chinese government provided the group with a list of provocative songs the group was prohibited from playing, including Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women and Let's Spend The Night Together.

On this day the 13th of March

1990: MTV became available in the Middle East with the launch of MTV Europe in Israel.

On this day the 14th of March

2011: Big Jack Johnson died on this day. He was an exponent of an edgier, electrified version of the raw, uncut Delta blues sound along with R. L. Burnside, Paul "Wine" Jones, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes and James "Super Chikan" Johnson.

1991 March 14th: Jerome "Doc" Pomus, American blues singer-songwriter (Save Last Dance for Me), died at 65

On this day the 15th of March

1983: Cathy Smith is arrested for second-degree murder for providing the drugs that killed John Belushi.



1912: Born 15th March. One Lightnin' [Sam] Hopkins.

On this day the 16th of March

On March 16, 1939 Floyd Smith recorded "Floyd's Guitar Blues," perhaps the first hit record featuring electric guitar.
One of the very first jazz guitarists to experiment with the electric guitar was Eddie Durham (1906–1987) who was playing one as early as 1938. Durham showed the instrument to Charlie Christian (1916–1942) in 1937 and to Floyd Smith.

1975: T-Bone Walker, born Aaron Thibeaux Walker, died of bronchial pneumonia after a series of strokes at age 64.

Dick Dale invented surf music. Dale, died 16 March 2019 of heart and kidney failure Saturday at age 81. He singlehandedly created the distinctive surf-guitar sound that was echoed by instrumental groups such as the Ventures, Marketts and Surfaris, and that was eventually the foundation for vocal groups such as the Beach Boys, Jan & Dean

On this day the 17th of March

2008: Heather Mills was awarded 23.7 million pounds (about $47 million) in her divorce from Paul McCartney. Mills had asked for much more but the lawyers said she didn't have a leg to stand on!

On this day the 18th March

18th March 2017
Chuck Berry, a Founding Father of Rock 'n' Roll, died 18 March 2017 at age of 90. The cause of death was not revealed.
Chuck Berry, the singer, songwriter and guitar great practically defined rock music with his impeccably twangy hits “Maybellene,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Memphis,” “My Ding-a-Ling” and “Sweet Little Sixteen”. His classic “Johnny B. Goode” was chosen by Carl Sagan to be included on the golden record of Earth Sounds and Music launched with Voyager in 1977. During his 60-plus years in show business, Berry in 1986 became one of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He entered The Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame in ’85 and that year also received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

March 18th 1938
John Hammond for Brunswick-Vocalion produced a session devoted to the Kansas City Five with lead-arranger Eddie Durham on electric guitar. The instrument had been developed by George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher.

1958: Jerry Lee Lewis became the first artist to sing three songs on an episode of ABC-TV's American Bandstand (and he sings, not lip-synchs them). It was the last time that anyone attempted to shut "the Killer" up!

On this day the 19th of March

1980: In proceedings against the doctor who supplied the prescription drugs that killed Elvis Presley, Elvis' autopsy is entered as evidence. Dr. George Nichopoulos, who was known as "Dr. Nick" was eventually found guilty of overprescribing the drugs.

 

A heartbreaking milestone. This northern white rhino, Sudan (the very last male of the subspecies) died on Monday 19thMarch 2018 at the age of 45.

On this day the 20th of March

1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married in Gibraltar. A union that became far from rock solid.

On this day the 21st of March

Eddie James "Son" House, folk blues musician (Delta Blues) born on this day back in 1902.

Died on this day March 21, 1991
Clarence Leonidas Fender (August 10, 1909 – March 21, 1991) was an American inventor, who founded Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, or "Fender" for short.In January 1965, he sold the company to CBS and later founded two other musical instrument companies, Music Man and G&L Musical Instruments. Together with George Fullerton, Fender developed the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar, in 1948. Called the Fender Broadcaster (renamed the Telecaster in 1950), it was produced under the auspices of the Fender Electric Instruments Company, which Fender had formed in 1946. In 1951 the Fender Precision Bass, the world’s first electric bass guitar, was unveiled, and in 1954 the Fender Stratocaster was put on the market. More stylish and technically improved than the Telecaster, the Stratocaster was the first guitar to feature three electric pickups (instead of two) and the tremolo arm used for vibrato effects. Its clean, sharp sound earned it a loyal following among guitarists, rivaled only by that of Gibson’s eponymous Les Paul, and it became the signature instrument of Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and others.

1976: Singer Claudine Longet, formerly the wife of Andy Williams, shot her boyfriend, world skiing champion Spider Sabich. Longet was arrested for manslaughter. At her trial Longet said the gun discharged accidentally as Sabich was showing her how it worked. Sabich was shot as he was bent over, facing away, and at least 1.80 m (6 ft) from Longet, which was inconsistent with the position and relative distance of someone demonstrating the operation of a firearm.

On this day the 22nd of March

1999: Britney Spears' album "...Baby One More Time" was certified triple platinum by the RIAA.

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On this day the 23rd of March

1956: Fats Domino headlines the first day of a 3-day concert organized by the DJ Alan Freed in Hartford, Connecticut. Over the course of the shows, 11 fans are arrested by over-zealous police. It's a litmus test for rock concerts and their effect on young people, as psychiatrist Francis Braceland testifies afterwards that rock music is "a communicable disease with music appealing to adolescent insecurity and driving teenagers to do outlandish things. It is cannibalistic and tribalistic."


THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON released in United Kingdom: March 23 1973
The first recording session devoted to The Dark Side of the Moon was held on May 30. For this, Pink Floyd returned to the Abbey Road Studios, which they had more or less abandoned for their two previous albums, Meddle and Obscured by Clouds. Although the album was recorded over a period of nine months, due to the group’s various commitments, it took only forty or so sessions (in Studios Two and Three, and Studio One for a single piano part!), not including various remixing, editing, and cross-fading sessions (which took place in Room Four).

On this day the 24th of March

2001: "Duane Allman Boulevard" is dedicated in Macon, Georgia, near where he died in a motorcycle crash.
Must be a dead end street.

On this day the 25th of March

1957: Elvis Presley buys the Graceland Mansion in Memphis for $102,500

Yardbirds release “For Your Love,” Eric Clapton leaves the band in protest, March 25 1965.

1980: No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall (part II)

On this day the 26th of March

Born on this day back in 1886: Al Jolson.

On this daythe 27th of March

Born on this day 1905: Leroy Carr, blues singer-songwriter, born in Nashville, Tennessee (d. 1935)

On this day back in 1958, Stereo albums were introduced. Many years later they worked out how to put the left channel and the right channel on the one album!

English singer-songwriter and actor Ian Dury who rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. Died 27 March 2000 (aged 57) in Upminster, London, England. He was the lead singer of Ian Dury and the Blockheads and before that of Kilburn and the High Roads. Dury's 1981 song "Spasticus Autisticus" – written to show his disdain for that year's International Year of Disabled Persons, which he saw as patronising and counter-productive – was banned by the BBC. Dury was a disabled person himself, having been left crippled by childhood polio. The lyrics were uncompromising:

So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin
And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in
So long have I been languished on the shelf
I must give all proceedings to myself

The song's refrain, "I'm spasticus, autisticus", was inspired by the response of the rebellious Roman gladiators in the film Spartacus, who, when instructed to identify their leader, all answered, "I am Spartacus", to protect him.

On this day the 28th of March

CATFISH BLUES first recorded on March 28, 1941
First recorded on March 28, 1941, by Mississippi bluesman Robert Petway for RCA Bluebird, and subsequently released on Bluebird B8838. Another version, titled ‘‘Deep Sea Blues,’’ was made by Petway’s contemporary Tommy McClennan on September 15, 1941, also for RCA Bluebird (Bluebird B9005). Melodic and lyric antecedents can be traced at least back to the 1920s.

1958 William Christopher Handy, US conductor/composer (St Louis Blues), died at 84 in New York

1974 Arthur Crudup, American blues singer and guitarist, died of heart attack at 68. Between 1941 and 1956, Crudup recorded more than eighty sides for Melrose and RCA, among them such popular songs as ‘‘Rock Me, Mama,’’ ‘‘Mean Old Frisco Blues,’’ and ‘‘Shout Sister Shout.’’ But it was ‘‘That’s All Right, Mama’’ that would bring him the greatest notoriety. The young Elvis Presley heard Crudup’s recording of that song and adapted it to his own R&B-rockabilly style; it was one of three songs he recorded at the beginning of his relationship with Sam Phillips’s Sun Records label, and was released as his first single in the summer of 1954.

On this day back in 1967 Van Morrison recorded Brown Eyed Girl.

On this day the 29th of March

On this day back in 1978 Tina Turner is officially divorced from husband Ike. She takes nothing from the partnership, but revives her career with a startling comeback in the early '80s.

March 29 2019
The Rock and Roll Hall inducted The Cure, Def Leppard, Janet Jackson, Stevie Nicks, Radiohead, Roxy Music and The Zombies into the Hall of Fame.

THE ZOMBIES
INVENTIVE, LUSH, AND TIMELESS. PSYCHEDELIC POP AT ITS BEST.
Innovative arrangements, gorgeous choral harmonies, and impeccable musicianship made the Zombies one of the most admired and influential groups of the 1960s.

ROXY MUSIC
AN EXPERIMENT THAT ENVISIONED THE FUTURE OF ROCK AND ROLL
Roxy Music added elements of modern fashion, cinema, art, and the avant-garde into rock and roll, and pushed listeners’ perceptions about the essence of pop music. An experiment that envisioned the future of rock and roll and, in doing so, changed the course of music.

On this day the 30th of March

Legendary soul singer/songwriter Bill Withers died on Monday (March 30) due to heart complications. He was best known for hits like “Lean On Me,” “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Use Me,” “Lovely Day” and more. Withers was a three-time Grammy winner and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.
After signing a record contract, he released his first album, Just As I Am, in 1971, which contained one of his greatest songs “Ain’t No Sunshine” and was produced by another soul giant, Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. & the M.G.’s). A year later, he released his second album, Still Bill, which contained lasting hits like “Lean On Me” and “Use Me” and became his highest charting album, reaching number four on the Billboard 200.

On this day the 30th March back in 2012 "The Killer" was still married to his 7th wife!

On this day the 31th of March

On this day the 30th of March back in 1955 Fats Domino recorded "Blue Monday". Love this song, but then again I love most of Fats' songs. News his death in March 2015 have now been confirmed as a complete hoax and just the latest in a string of fake celebrity death reports. Domino is unlikely to ever perform again, which, at 87, is certainly his prerogative. He’s more than earned his rest. His music from 1949 through the early 1960s with its energy and distinctive New Orleans rhythms occupies a special place in rhythm and blues and the cross over to rock and roll.

On this day the 31st of March back in 1949 RCA introduced the 45 rpm record, which eventually became the format of choice for "singles," becoming more popular than the 78 rpm format by 1958. I wonder what ever happened to my collection of 45 singles that I amassed in the 60’s? Beatles, Stones, Cream, Hendrix, Animals, Vanilla Fudge etc. It all started with some Buddy Holly and Ricky Nelson singles that cousin Anthony passed onto me!

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