March 18th in Music
1911: Birth of Joe Turner
1912: Birth of Perry Como
1949: Birth of Rick Wakeman
1950: Birth of Mark Mothersbaugh
1952: Birth of George Strait
1964: A riot broke out in Hamilton, Scotland during a Rolling Stones UK tour when over 4,000 fans with forged tickets bum rushed the gates at the Chantingall Hotel in 1964.
1967: The Beatles were selected to represent the UK for the first-ever global-wide satellite broadcast. The group agreed to be shown in the studio recording a song written especially for the occasion. John Lennon composed ‘All You Need is Love’ after being told by producers to “keep it simple”.
1968: The first Miami Pop event was coordinated by future Woodstock promoter Michael Lang and took place with an estimated 100,000 attendees. The 1968 lineup included Steppenwolf, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Mothers of Invention, Chuck Berry, Three Dog Night and more.
1975: Birth of Jack Johnson
1980: Joy Division singer and guitarist Ian Curtis shocked the world when he was found hanging in the kitchen of his Macclesfield, England house at the age of 23. Curtis had Iggy Pop’s 1977 debut album The Idiot, playing on his stereo on repeat and a suicide note was discovered nearby.
1993: Creation Records A&R Alan McGee missed a train then headed to King Tuts in Glasgow, Scotland to kill time before catching the next one. It was at King Tuts that McGee saw Oasis and declared, ‘I’ve found the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band since The Beatles,’ and signed them to Creation shortly afterwards.
2004: Clint Warwick the original bass player with The Moody Blues died from liver disease at the age of 63. Clint left the band in 1966 after playing on their only number one hit, ‘Go Now’.
2011: John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ sold for over $230,000 at an auction in the United States. The sale of the sheet, which featured the song’s third verse and the opening words to ‘She’s Leaving Home’, took place at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills.
– Jack Anderson
