On September 13, 1969, John Lennon performed with the Plastic Ono Band and Eric Clapton at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival.
Held at Toronto’s Varsity Stadium, the festival itself was a bit of a glorious hodgepodge, with some of rock’s founders (including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis) sharing a stage with some up-and-comers (Alice Cooper, Chicago Transit Authority), with the Doors as the headliners.
Toronto rock promoters John Brower and Kenny Walker organised a festival held at Varsity Stadium on 13 September 1969, around the notion of a revival of rock and roll stars from the 1950s, booking Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, and Gene Vincent.
On 12 September, Brower contacted Lennon, who was still a member of the Beatles, to ask him to be the master of ceremonies for the festival.Instead, Lennon offered to perform at the show with a new group, the Plastic Ono Band. Brower readily agreed, but since Lennon did not actually have a new group, he quickly began making phone calls to potential members to accompany himself and Yoko Ono. He initially approached Beatles band-mate George Harrison to play lead guitar, but Harrison declined, so Lennon turned to Eric Clapton, who had previously performed with Lennon in the one-off super group, the Dirty Mac. Bassist Klaus Voormann and drummer Alan White soon agreed to perform,[6][10] along with their assistants, Anthony Fawcett, Terry Doran, and Jill and Dan Richter. Voormann was a long-time friend of Lennon, but White, who was a respected session musician in London but did not know Lennon personally, initially thought that someone was prank calling him and only believed that the real John Lennon was on the phone when he called a second time.
They flew to Canada the next morning ,the day of the show, and rehearsed on the plane.
With so little time to prepare, they started out with three covers: Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes,” Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” and Larry Williams’ “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” Then came three Lennon originals: “Yer Blues,” — which Clapton had played with Lennon at the Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus a year earlier — “Cold Turkey” and “Give Peace a Chance,” for which Lennon improvised lyrics when he couldn’t remember the original ones.
The band played eight songs to a crowd of 20,000 people.
What makes it even more remarkable all of this happened during the completion of the Beatles album, ‘Abby Road’.
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On August 18.1969, Rolling Stones front man was shot. This was not by a criminal or by a deranged fan, but while shooting a film about an Irish outlaw in Australia ‘Ned Kelly’. A pistol loaded with blanks, which he was using at the time, backfired to drive the metal into his hand. Maybe that’s why singers should stick to singing, and actors stick to acting.
On August 18,1972, Paul and Linda McCartney were fined ś800 in Sweden for cannabis possession. They had been arrested 8 days earlier. They did not serve any time in Jail. The incident is rumored to have been the inspiration for the hit single ‘Band on the Run’
On August 18, 1956 Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel” reach #1 in the charts
On August 18, 1984,Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes (weds Des Moines department store heiress Julie Anne Friedman at London registrar’s office.
Born in Des Moines, Julie Anne Friedman went to boarding school in Massachusetts and university in New Orleans before landing in LA. It was there, in the early 80s, that she was discovered by a photographer. An invite to a yacht party after Duran Duran’s mixing session for Hungry Like the Wolf brought her and keyboardist Nick Rhodes together.
On August 18,2004 Elmer Bernstein, American film music composer (The Magnificent Seven; To Kill A Mockingbird; The Age Of Innocence; Thoroughly Modern Millie), dies at 82
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Born Richard Starkey, Ringo got the first half of his nickname while playing in bands with Eddie Clayton and Rory Storm. They called him Ringo because he wore multiple rings on both of his hands.
As for the second half of his name, Starr seems to be just a slight shortening of Starkey. However, the first bands he played with in Liverpool made the name part of the attraction. Ringo wasn’t quite as shy about drum solos before he joined an up-and-coming band called the Beatles. When working with his first Liverpool acts, they called his time soloing behind the kit “Starr Time,” thus making the second half of his stage name stick.
Richard Starkey was born on 7 July 1940 at 9 Madryn Street in Dingle, an inner-city area of Liverpool. He is the only child of confectioners Richard Starke and Elsie Gleave (Elsie enjoyed singing and dancing, a hobby that she shared with her husband, an avid fan of swing. Prior to the birth of their son, whom they nicknamed “Ritchie”, the couple had spent much of their free time on the local ballroom circuit, but their regular outings ended soon after his birth. Elsie adopted an overprotective approach to raising her son that bordered on fixation. Subsequently, “Big Ritchie”, as Starkey’s father became known, lost interest in his family, choosing instead to spend long hours drinking and dancing in pubs, sometimes for several consecutive days.
Starr was afflicted by life-threatening illnesses during childhood, with periods of prolonged hospitalisation. He briefly held a position with British Rail before securing an apprenticeship as a machinist at a Liverpool equipment manufacturer. Soon afterwards, he became interested in the UK skiffle craze and developed a fervent admiration for the genre. In 1957, he co-founded his first band, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, which earned several prestigious local bookings before the fad succumbed to American rock and roll around early 1958.
When the Beatles formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. After achieving moderate success in the UK and Hamburg, he quit the Hurricanes when he was asked to join the Beatles in August 1962, replacing Pete Best.
The rest is history.
Well of course for the fact of his other globally successful career, which so very few people are unaware of. In the UK from 1984 to 1986 and in the US from 1989 to 1990.Ringo Starr was the narrator of the popular kids TV show “Thomas & Friends”.
But he will of course forever be associated with the Beatles.
So you are young musician. You have had some success thus far ,but you are still struggling to get that all important first number one hit, that first megahit.
You want to put your stamp on Rock and Roll, You just saw Elvis performing and you know he is the guy to beat when it comes to chart success.
What do you do?
Well you go to the cinema of course because that is what Buddy Holly. Buddy and his friend and band mate Jerry Allison went to the cinema where they saw John Wayne in probably his best movie “The Searchers”.
According to legend, Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison saw the movie “The Searchers” and heard John Wayne use the phrase throughout the film. One night, while Holly and Jerry were working together, Holly said to him that it sure would be great if they could write a hit song. Jerry replied “That’ll be the day.” Immediately inspired, they wrote the rock-and-roll song of the same name.
It was first recorded by Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes in 1956 and was re-recorded in 1957 by Holly and his new band, the Crickets. The 1957 recording achieved widespread success. Holly’s producer, Norman Petty, was credited as a co-writer, although he did not contribute to the composition. It would become Buddy Holly’s first number one hit single.
Meanwhile back in Liverpool, England. an unknown skiffle band called “The Quarrymen” picked up the song and recorded it as a demo track.
That Liverpool band would soon change their name to “The Beatles”.
Linda Ronstadt recorded “That’ll Be the Day” for her 1976 Grammy Award-winning platinum album Hasten Down the Wind, produced by Peter Asher and issued by Asylum Records. Her version reached number 11 on both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the Cash Box Top 100 and number 27 on the Billboard Country Singles chart. In Canada, her version peaked at number 2 on the singles chart and was the 35th biggest hit of 1976. It also made the adult contemporary charts in the United States and Canada.
I bought Linda Ronstadt’s single, but I have to be honest I didn’t only but it for the song but also for the cover. Hey what can I say I was a young boy .
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I have to admit I am a bit skeptical about this story. Not so much about the words that were uttered, but more to who uttered them.
I was listening to a golden oldie show earlier this week. The presenter mentioned a bit of trivia in relation to the famous Beatles song, “Hey Jude” arrogant little so and so, me, assumed immediately that he was going to say that Hey Jude was written by Paul McCartney for John Lennon’s oldest son, Julian Lennon.
However it turned out that my judgement of the bit of trivia was misplaced. While recording Hey Jude ,Paul McCartney allegedly made a mistake and shouted out “Whoa” followed by “Fucking Hell”
2.58 minutes into the epic song you can hear these words in the back ground. I am just not sure of it is actually Paul McCartney, it sounds more like John Lennon to me. But that doesn’t really matter, it is still a great bit of trivia on one of the best songs ever written.
Geoff Emerick, The Beatles’ longtime sound engineer, wrote in his memoir Here, There, and Everywhere that it was Paul McCartney reacting to a botched note. Emerick claims that John Lennon insisted they leave the swear buried in the final mix. “Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word,” Lennon said. “Most people won’t ever spot it … but we’ll know it’s there.”
Ending of course with that great, and my favorite Beatles song. So listen out for it at 2.58 minutes.
George Harrison -25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001- was an English musician, singer, songwriter, and music and film producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called “the quiet Beatle”
Inspired by the likes of Django Reinhardt; Carl Perkins and Chet Atkins.
This is jst some of his music together with the Quarry Men,the Beatles, the Traveling Wilburys and solo.
What if John Lennon,Keith Richards and Eric Clapton formed a band together, surely they must have been the most famous band ever. wouldn’t they?
Well yes they did form a band, together with Mitch Mitchell from the Jimin Hendix experience, And no they didn’t become the most famous band ever, in fact hardly anyone knows they did team up forming the super band ‘The Dirty Mac’
The band was formed for the Rolling Stones’ TV special titled The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, which aired on December 11, 1968.
To say things went smoothly would be an overstatement. It had become nightmare full of malfunctioning equipment and eventually took 15 hours before the Stones hit the stage.
Lennon called himself as “Winston Leg-Thigh, for the occasion.The Dirty Mac recorded a rendition of the Lennon-penned Beatles track “Yer Blues” and then went on to back up Yoko Ono and violinist Ivry Gitlis on a track called “Whole Lotta Yoko”
Just imagine if the Dirty Mac had become a real band?
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August 16 is a date like any other date, except when it comes to music. Several events on this date have had a massive impact on the music industry. In fact in musical terms it just doesn’t get bigger than this .
August 16-1915 The birth of Al Hibbler
Nowadays the name Al Hibbler will mean very little to most.But if I will mention the song ‘Unchained Melody’ it will trigger a lot of memories to many, especially the pottery scene in the movie ‘Ghost’ the version of the song was by ‘the Righteous Brothers” and a great number of people may think theirs was the original but it was Al Hibbler who brought the song to the number 1 spot of the charts for the first time in 1955.It was composed by by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, was involved in the civil rights movement. He got arrested in 1959 in New Jersey and in 1963 in Alabama partaking in protest marches with .This didn’t make him very popular with major record labels notoriety and they did not carry his work, but Frank Sinatra supported him and signed him to a contract with his label.
August 16-1938 the death of Robert Johnson
Robert Elroy Johnson is without a doubt the undisputed King of the blues. Legend has it that he made a deal with the devil for his talents.
As a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, he had a burning desire to become the greatest blues musician. He was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight. There he was met by allegedly the devil who took the guitar and tuned it. The devil played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him virtuosity of the instrument.All Robert had to give in exchange was his soul.
That soul was taken on August 16,1938 when he was aged 27, which also makes one of the first musicians to make it to the list of the the club of 27, the cause of his death has never really been solved. Popular believe is that he was poisoned during an altercation in a bar with the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. It is said he was given a given a poisoned bottle of Whiskey after another bottle was knocked out of his hand.
He only recorded 29 songs but there is yet another legend about a 30th song never recorded. This ‘missing’ song is the plot line of the 1986 movie ‘Crossroads’ in all honesty the movie isn’t great but the music is fantastic, especially the guitar duel between Ry Cooder and Steve Vai is something else.
August 16-1958 the Birth of Madonna
Love her or loathe her there is no denying Madonna’s place in musical History, she is without a doubt the most influential female artist in decades.
Born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958 she became the leading female singer in the 80’s,90’s, and early 21st century. Although her acting and directing careers both turned out to be fiasco’s, when it comes to music there is no other like her. Staring off with poppy songs like ‘Borderline’ or ‘Like a Virgin’ she constantly reinvented herself and did not shy away from controversies.
She herself was influenced by 2 other strong female performers,Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde.
August 16-1962 the sacking of the Beatle, Pete Best.
The Beatles have been and still are one of the most influential bands ever, Their fame did not diminish after they split up. Kids nowadays still know them, and if you were to ask ,anyone to name the 4 band members people would say”John Lennon,Paul McCartney,George Harrison and Ringo Starr” however as the picture above indicates this wasn’t the original line up.
The original drummer was Pete Best but he was replaced by Ringo Starr on August 16,1962. There was no official reason given why he was sacked but according to Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager,Lennon, McCartney and Harrison thought that Best was “too conventional to be a Beatle” and added that “though he was friendly with John, he was not liked by George and Paul”
Originally the Beatles had been a 5 piece band, the original bass player Stuart Sutcliffe died in 1961, in Hamburg.
August 16-1977 the death of the King of Rock N Roll,Elvis.
I am not going to say too much about the King, because I don’t think there is anybody on the planet who hasn’t heard of them.
This is my personal memory of the day he died on August 16,1977.
I came home from school that day and my mother sat at the kitchen table, and she asked me “Guess who died today?” I replied “I don’t know, just tell me” She said ‘Elvis’. I was 9 at the time and pretended not to care. But I went up to my room and cried my eyes out, it felt I had just lost my best friend.
August 16 -2008 Ronnie Drew, Irish singer (The Dubliners), dies at 73
In September 2006, Drew was reported to be in ill health after being admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, to undergo tests for suspected cancer. The Evening Herald reported that his apparent illness was due to years of heavy drinking. However, according to a fan site dedicated to The Dubliners, it was reported that he was undergoing treatment for throat cancer. Drew had been a teetotaler for a number of years, with an occasional relapse,[citation needed] but he remained a regular smoker.
He appeared on Ireland’s The Late Late Show on 15 December 2006 along with Phil Coulter, where he discussed his recent health scares.
Despite his failing health, he was featured on an album entitled Pearls—produced by Niall Austin—with work he did with Jah Wobble.[11]
His wife of more than 40 years, Deirdre Drew (née McCartan, daughter of Patrick McCartan) died on 7 June 2007 at St Vincent’s Hospital, just one day before he was scheduled to return to performing live at the Legends of Irish Folk concert, which also featured Johnny McEvoy, Ralph McTell and Finbar Furey.
On 25 October 2007, Drew—now bald and beardless—appeared on Ryan Confidential on RTÉ 1 to give an interview about his role in The Dubliners, his life since leaving the band and being diagnosed with throat cancer. Later in 2007, he again appeared on The Late Late Show, where he spoke some more about the death of his wife and his ongoing treatment for cancer.
Drew died in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin on 16 August 2008, following his long illness. He was buried three days later in Redford Cemetery in Greystones.
August 16,2018 Aretha Franklin, American singer-songwriter
Known as “The Queen of Soul” (Respect) and first female performer inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987), dies of pancreatic cancer at 76
On August 13, 2018, Franklin was reported to be gravely ill at her home in Riverfront Towers, Detroit.[164][165] She was under hospice care and surrounded by friends and family. Stevie Wonder, Jesse Jackson and former husband Glynn Turman visited her on her deathbed.[166] Franklin died at her home on August 16, 2018, without a will. The cause of death was a malignant pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor which is distinct from the most common form of pancreatic cancer.
Leaving you with one of my favourite Elvis songs.
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“I heard the news today, old boy”. That must be the best start to any song. The song ‘a day in the life’ by the Beatles is not just a random set of words strung together, it actually has a back story which in a way links to another band, the Chieftains.
According to Lennon, the inspiration for the first two verses was the death of Tara Browne, the 21-year-old heir to the Guinness fortune who had crashed his Lotus Elan on 18 December 1966 in Redcliffe Gardens, Earl’s Court. Browne had been a friend of Lennon and McCartney,and had, earlier in 1966, instigated McCartney’s first experience with LSD.Lennon adapted the song’s verse lyrics from a story in the 17 January 1967 edition of the Daily Mail, which reported the ruling on a custody action over Browne’s two young children.
“He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They’d seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords”
Lennon said. “Tara didn’t blow his mind out, but it was in my mind when I was writing that verse. The details of the accident in the song—not noticing traffic lights and a crowd forming at the scene—were similarly part of the fiction
It was over a custody battle between his mother, Oonagh, and his estranged wife, Nikki, over their young children. That custody battle made the headlines in a newspaper which was picked up by John Lennon when he and the band were writing songs for their forthcoming classic, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Realising he actually knew Tara Browne, the deceased Irishman in question, he sat down at the piano, took pen to paper, and the rest is history.
Lennon said “I noticed two stories. One was about the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story,” he recalled in a 1980 interview with Playboy. “On the next page was a story about 4,000 potholes in the streets of Blackburn, Lancashire, that needed to be filled.” While the holes were delightfully absurd, Browne’s accident hit chillingly close to home. He was a familiar face in the Beatles’ social circle, and one of Swinging London’s first famous fatalities.
One of Tara’s older brothers was Garech Browne, an enthusiast of traditional Irish music and a founder of the music group The Chieftains.
Tare Browne was the son of The 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne, an Anglo-Irish peer and a member of the House of Lords ; and Oonagh Guinness.
Finishing with that famous song
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I have to admit the title might be a bit harsh but I hope it got your attention.
Paul McCartney’s arrival at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport on January 16, 1980, marked his first visit to Japan since the Beatles tour of 1966. The occasion was a planned 11-city concert tour by his band Wings. Instead, Paul’s visit was limited to a nine-day stint in the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center, which ended on this day in 1980.
Paul McCartney’s previous application for a Japanese visa had been turned down in 1976. This time he was allowed into the country as it was a brief tour.
Upon their arrival at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, however, customs officials found 219 grammes of marijuana, with a street value of 600,000 yen, hidden in Paul’s luggage and inside the hood of one of his children.
McCartney was arrested, handcuffed and questioned for an hour by narcotics control officers. It was then decided that further questioning would take place the following day.
The amount was large enough, however, to warrant a smuggling charge and a potential seven-year prison sentence. Given Japan’s reputation for rigorous enforcement of its strict anti-drug laws, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that McCartney would escape trial and possible imprisonment, yet he was released and quickly deported from Japan on January 25, 1980, prior to making any appearance in court.
The arrest put the tour in jeopardy, and Wings’ music was immediately banned from all television and radio stations across Japan.
Wings’ Japanese promoters announced that a decision on the 11 concerts would be made the next day. On this evening they told reporters: Almost 100,000 tickets for the concerts have been sold, representing a possible loss of well over 100 million yen.”
McCartney was imprisoned for a total of 10 days until 25 January 1980. He was released without charge and deported to England.
The other members of Wings had left Japan on 21 January. The dates of the tour were to have been Budokan Hall, Tokyo (21-24 January), Aichi-Ken, Taiiku-Kan, Nagoya (25-26 January), Festival Hall, Osaka (28 January), Osaka Furitsu-Kan, Osaka (29 January), Budokan Hall, Tokyo (31 January to 2 February).
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History of Sorts 
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