1956 - She was Ms. Goody-Two Shoes, had an allure like no another, and 55 years ago, today, multi-talented Doris Day was at #1 on UK singles chart with Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be Will Be), the song's success then spreading around the world. The Oscar-winning song was featured in Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 film, The Man Who Knew Too Much, with Doris Day and James Stewart in the lead roles.
1963 - Stevie Wonder was just 13 when he topped world charts with Fingertips (Pt. 2), a song taken from a live recording of a Motor Town Revue performance and re-issued on the album Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius. It was the first non-studio live recording to reach #1 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart, in the United States, since Johnny Standley's 1952 comic monologue It's in the Book. The song featured Wonder on vocals, bongos, and harmonica, with a young Marvin Gaye on drums. It reached #1 on the U.S, pop, and R&B charts and launched Little Stevie Wonder. The song was written and composed by Wonder's mentors, Clarence Paul and Henry Cosby. It was Motown's second number-one pop hit (following The Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman"), and launched the 13-year-old Wonder into the pop music stratosphere, the youngest artist to be #1 on all three charts.
1966 - This was the day The Beatles' seventh album, Revolver, was released in the UK. The album showcased many new stylistic developments which further evolved on later albums. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous, folk-rock inspired Rubber Soul. It reached #1 in the UK chart and stayed there for seven weeks and reached #1 on the U.S. chart, remaining for six weeks. in Australia, France, Germany, Brazi, Canada and countries around the world, the album fared as well. Many critics and fans did, and still do, consider it the best album from the Beatles; some fanatical die-hards claiming it to be the best album ever released, giving the opinion that it was really the first album to have a new rock sound. Eleanor Rigby was one of Paul McCartney’s songs, and released as a single on a double A-side with Yellow Submarine, concurrently with the album release. The song contains McCartney’s lyrical imagery and a string arrangement - scored by George Martin under McCartney’s direction - which was inspired by the Bernard Herrmann score for François Truffaut’s film Fahrenheit 451. Ringo Starr contributed the lines “Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear… Darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there.” It was originally written as Father McCartney but was changed as it was thought that listeners would assume that it referred to Paul’s father. So, after looking through a local phone book, he found the name McKenzie. Lennon laid claim to “40 percent” of the lyrics, including “Wearing the face that she keeps in the jar by the door”. Harrison contributed the line “Ah, look at all the lonely people” used in the opening and as a bridge. The song’s quirky subject matter and stark, elegiac tone was a distinct departure from The Beatles’ previous output.
1967 - Recorded on July 10, the Bobbie Gentry classic, Ode To Billie Joe was released today, the song going straight to #1. If you'd like to see the video or find out more about Bobby Gentry's #1 hit, Ode to Billie Joe, go to our archive search engine. Five years later on the sam day,
Roberta Lee Streeter (born July 27, 1944), professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, record company president Clive Davis signed a young rock/blues band named Aerosmith, to CBS Records after seeing them play at Max’s Kansas City in New York. They received $125,000 for signing the record deal, a fair bit of dosh back then. And now. Aerosmith are one of the great, great rock'roll bands, right up there alongside the Stones and Acca Dacca, Steve Tyler without doubt one of the greatest rock'n'roll frontman of all time. then there's the style and the class of Joe Perry. Besides, nobody has better women in their videos, than Aerosmith. Here is the band, live, from 2002, in japan, performing Walk This Way. Watch this and tell me they're still not one of the all-time greats.
1974 – Svengali rock legend Kim Fowley brought together four girls who became the Runaways, members of which included Joan Jett and Lita Ford. I love the Runaways, Lita Ford becoming a brilliant guitar player, Joan Jett a more than competent front woman. Loved them then, love them now. Here they from 1977, doing their song, Wasted, on London's Old Grey Whistle Test. At the start of the punk wave, Ford and Jett just 19 years old.
1975 - Just 12 years after his debut #1 hit, Stevie Wonder signed a $13 million seven-year contract, today, the largest contract in the recording industry at the time; same day a year later, and NBC network in USA aired The Beach Boys: It's O.K., a 15th anniversary special, while four years later, again on the same day, Mormon superstar brothers, The Osmonds split up after 20 years - how you split up with your brothers, not sure; and Olivia Newton-John got her Hollywood star today, while a year later Lionel Richie released the album Dancing on the Ceiling. Richie has sold more than 110 million records, from when he formed a succession of R&B groups in the mid-1960s until now, August 5, 2011. In 1968 he became a singer and saxophonist with the Commodores, who signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records in 1968 for one record before they moved on to Motown Records - initially as a support act to The Jackson 5. The Commodores then became established as a popular soul group. When Richie went solo his career took off like s rocket…and who could forget this video of the song that went #1 around the world today.
1990 - On August 5, 21 years ago Madonna ended her Blond Ambition Tour in Nice, France; same day two year later and Toto's Jeff Porcaro died of cardiac arrest at age 38. He was spraying insecticide in his yard and developed an allergic reaction that triggered the heart attack. And seeking of heart attacks, 17 years ago on August 5, Billy Idol was admitted to Burbank, California’s St. Joseph’s Medical Center, after collapsing from a drug overdose in a Los Angeles nightclub. He was released two days later. I think old Billy boy was doing a bit of speeding way back then, and in this clip he could well be in his original band, Generation X.
