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July 7, 2004
Faithfull Overdose ... Zeppelin Born And Buried ... Madonna Reveals All
This is the week that was in matters musical...
1838, Ferdinand von Zeppelin is born ... he will go on to invent the Zeppelin airship during his retirement in 1900 ... 68 years later, the Yardbirds will graft the name into an oxymoron and plant the shoot that will become heavy metal...
1940, after nine months of prenatal woodshedding, Richard Starkey bursts onto the world scene ... 22 years later, as Ringo Starr, he begins an eight-year stint with the most famous band ever, followed by a string of hit solo records and lifetime tenure in the School of Cool...
1954, Elvis hits the airwaves for the first time on WHBQ in Memphis ... the nascent King gets interviewed on the air and his record "That's All Right Mama" is played...
1962, the Rolling Stones play out for the first time at the Marquee Club in London ... Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, Mick Avery, and Dick Taylor constitute the lineup...
1967, narcs put the squeeze on the Lovin' Spoonful, taking down Steve Boone and Zal Yanofsky for illegal substances ... rumor has it they both sing like canaries and send a number of drug suppliers to the pokey...
1968, Bookends--Simon and Garfunkel's fifth album--tops the charts ... in combination with the soundtrack to The Graduate this album will keep S&G in the #1 position for a full 16 weeks...
1969, Marianne Faithfull puts the kibosh on her film career by ODing on barbs on the set of Ned Kelly, an Australian flick in which she was to star with boyfriend Mick Jagger ... authorities decide she was trying to off herself and two days later she goes into treatment for heroin addiction...
1970, Johnny Cash records Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" ... after having met Cash briefly in the studio, Kristofferson--a former Army captain and Rhodes scholar with a master's degree in English literature from Oxford--delivers the song personally by landing a helicopter on Cash's lawn, thus making his own big break ... the song will hit #1 four months later...
1973, in yet another example of senseless cruelty to musical instruments, Phil Everly smashes his guitar and storms off a stage in Buena Park, California, ending the Everly Brothers as an act ... he is apparently responding to a comment brother Don made a few minutes previous that "The Everly Brothers died 10 years ago"...
1975, Keith Richards is polishing his bad-boy rep when Arkansas police bust him for possession of an offensive weapon and reckless driving ... a wench mob of outraged teenage girlfans besiege the jail where he is held...
1980, Led Zeppelin gives its last performance at the Ewissporthalle in West Berlin ... a couple of months later John Bonham will be found dead ... this same week punker Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys announces his bid for mayor of San Francisco ... but the SF electorate is not down with Jello...
1985, Madonna gives it up for everybody in nude pictorials for both Playboy and Penthouse magazines...
1995, Jerry Garcia plays his last concert with the Grateful Dead at Soldier Field in Chicago...
2000, guitarist Janick Gers goes for an inadvertent stage dive, splits his head open, and covers himself in bruises during an Iron Maiden concert in Germany ... several later shows are cancelled as a result ... a Carl Reutersward sculpture of a pistol with a knot tied in the barrel is unveiled in London's Trafalgar Square as a memorial to John Lennon...
2002, the original shredder and his TV-star ol' lady let it slip that they've been separated for 10 months ... Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli don't say if they have made any plans for divorce...
2003, Jack White of the White Stripes breaks his finger in a car wreck then posts the video of the surgery to repair the injured digit on the Stripes' Web site...
...and that was the week that was.
Arrivals
July 7: Gustav Mahler (1860), Mary Ford (1928), Doc Severinsen (1927), Joe Zawinul (1932), Ringo Starr (1940), David Hodo of the Village People (1947), Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt of Iron Butterfly (1948), Mark White of Spin Doctors (1962)
July 8: Louis Jordan (1908), Billy Eckstein (1934), Jai Johnny Johanson of the Allman Brothers Band (1944), Prince (1958), Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode (1961), Toby Keith (1961), Joan Osborne (1962), Beck (1970)
July 9: producer Lee Hazelwood (1929), Donald McPherson of the Main Ingredient (1941), Mitch Mitchell (1946), Bon Scott of AC/DC (1946), Debbie Sledge of Sister Sledge (1954), Soft Cell's Marc Almond (1959), Jim Kerr of Simple Minds (1959), Courtney Love (1964)
July 10: Carl Orff (1895), Ronnie James Dio (1940), Jerry Miller of Moby Grape (1943), Arlo Guthrie (1947), Dave Smalley of The Raspberries (1949), Greg Kihn (1950), Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys (1954), Bela Fleck (1958), Peter DiStefano of Porno for Pyros (1965), Jessica Simpson (1980)
July 11: Tab Hunter (1931), Jeff Hanna of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (1947), Bonnie Pointer (1950), Suzanne Vega (1959), Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi (1960), Li'l Kim (1975)
July 12: Oscar Hammerstein II (1895), Van Cliburn (1934), Christine McVie (1943), John Wetton of Asia (1949), Eric Carr (1950), Liz Mitchell of Boney M (1952), Eric Carr of Kiss (1953), Sandi Patti (1956), Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy (1962), UB40's Alan Duval (1963), John Petrucci of Dream Theater (1967)
July 13: drummer Steven Jo Bladd of the J. Geils Band (1942), Roger McGuinn (1942), Cheech Marin (1946), Louise Mandrell (1954), Mark Mendoza of Twisted Sister (1956), rock journalist and movie maker Cameron Crowe (1957), Gerald Levert (1966), Coldplay's Will Champion (1978)
Departures
July 7: folk singer Fred Neil (2001), Mia Zapata of The Gits (1993)
July 8: Nico of The Velvet Underground (1988)
July 10: John Hammond Sr. (1987), Arthur Fiedler (1979), "Jelly Roll" Morton born Ferdinand Joseph Lemott (1941)
July 11: James Hill of The Fairfield Four (2000), Helen Forrest (1999), Louis Gottlieb (1996), Afro-Cuban jazz maestro Mario Bauza (1993), George Gershwin (1937)
July 12: Jimmie Driftwood (1998), Jonathan Melvoin of the Smashing Pumpkins (1996), Minnie Riperton (1979)
July 13: Philippe Wynne of The Spinners (1984)