1919 Tennessee Ernie Ford (16 tons) 1925 Gene Ames (Ames Brothers) 1945 King Floyd (New Orleans) 1946 Peter Tork (Monkees) 1950 Peter Gabriel (Sledgehammer) 1952 Edward John Gagliardi (Foreigner) 1956 Peter Hook (New Order) 1961 Les Warner (Cult) 1961 Tony Butler (Big Country) 1961 Henry Rollins 1971 Sonia (You'll Never Stop me Loving You)
Number 1 In The Charts On February 13
1961 Lawrence Welk: Calcutta US 45 1971 Osmonds: One Bad Apple US 45 1982 Jam: A Town Called Malice UK 45 1993 2 Unlimited : No Limit : UK single 1993 Cult : Pure Cult : UK LP 1999 Monica : Angel Of Mine : US single
Various Music Events On February 13
1954 Guitar Slim enjoys only major hit with The Things that I Used to Do at No. 1 in US R&B chart.
1956 Alan Freed signs with Coral Records.
1957 Filming completed on first UK rock-and-roll movie, Rock You Sinners with Rory Blackwell, Tony Crombie and Joan Collins!
1960 Frank Sinatra launches his Reprise label.
1980 Phil Lynott marries Caroline Crowther.
1981 Chris Blackwell's Island Label introduces controversial 'one plus one' cassettes with blank side for taping.
1982 Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon celebrates 402 weeks in US Top 200 LP chart - longest run in chart history.
1988 John 'Cougar' Mellencamp's The Lonesome Jubilee achieves certified sales of two million.
1988 Michael Jackson buys "Neverland", a ranch in Santa Ynez, California.
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Vintage Retro Music & Retro Pop Culture is our passion and what we LOVE. We keep it going everyday for the love of producing it for you to enjoy. Thanks for viewing. Much Peace!
1928 Bo Diddley (Elias Bates McDaniel) 1931 Skeeter Davis (The End of the World) 1939 Del Shannon (Runaway) 1942 Mike Nesmith (Monkees) 1945 Davy Jones (Monkees) 1945 Andy Williams (Can't Help Falling in Love) 1947 Jeff Lynne (ELO) 1959 Tracey Ullman (Singer/comedienne)
Happy Birthday Jeff Lynne!
Number 1 In The Charts On December 30
1967 Beatles: 'Hello Goodbye' US 45
Various Music Events On December 30
1960 Miracles hit US chart with 'Shop Around'
1962 Brenda Lee's dog dies in the fire that destroys her Nashville Home
1967 Traffic's Mr. Fantasy' hits UK LP chart
1972 Stevie Wonder's 'Talking Book' hits US LP chart
1973 Mahavishnu Orchestra play their final gig at Detroit's Masonic Auditorium
1976 Abba's "Greatest Hits" album goes gold.
1978 XTC play their first US gig, in Philadelphia
1979 Emerson, Lake & Palmer announce their break-up.
1981 The J.Geils Band album"Freeze-Frame" goes gold
Have a groovy vintage retro day!
- Retro Rebirth
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1907 Cab Calloway 1929 Chris Kenner (I Like It Like That) 1937 O'Kelly Isley (Isley Brothers) 1940 Phil Spector (record producer) 1943 Trevor Lucas (Fairport Convention) 1944 Kenny Everett (DJ) 1944 Henry Vestine (Canned Heat) 1945 Noel Redding (Jimi Hendrix Experience) 1946 Jimmy Buffett (Margaritaville) 1948 Merry Clayton (Gimme Shelter) 1954 Robin Campbell (UB40) 1954 Annie Lennox (Eurythmics) 1971 Noel Hogan (The Cranberries)
Number 1 In The Charts On December 25
1965 Beatles: 'Rubber Soul' UK LP 1965 Dave Clark Five: 'Over and Over' US 45 1971 Melanie: 'Brand New Key' US 45 1976 Johnny Mathis: 'When a Child Is Born' UK 45 1993 Mariah Carey : Hero : US single 1993 Mr Blobby : Mr Blobby : UK single 1993 Mariah Carey : Music Box : US LP
Various Music Events On December 25
1958 Alan Freed's Christmas rock-and-roll spectacular opens a ten-day run at Loews State Theatre in Manhattan, with seventeen acts, including Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran and Jackie Wilson
1959 Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) receives his first drum set for Christmas. The 18 year old is currently working as an apprentice engineer.
1964 George Harrison's girlfriend Patti Boyd is attacked by jealous female fans at Beatles' Christmas concert at Hammersmith Odeon
1965 The Who enter UK LP chart for first time with 'My Generation'
1967 Paul McCartney and Jane Asher get engaged
1971 Faces' 'A Nod's as Good as a Wink' hits UK LP chart
1976 The Eagles' sixth album "Hotel California," their first with Joe Walsh, goes platinum.
1978 Public Image Ltd., featuring John Lydon, plays its first gig, at Rainbow Theatre, London
1981 The J. Geils Band play a Christmas concert for the inmates of Norfolk Correctional Center near Boston, the group's hometown. Following the show, lead singer Peter Wolf tells the audience, "We wanna be the first to buy you all a free drink on the outside."
1990 James Brown, on 4 day leave from prison, gives his first concert performance in two years in front of South Carolina soldiers. The troops' leave had been cancelled because of the impending Gulf War.
1996 "The People vs. Larry Flynt," starring Courtney Love, is released.
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- Retro Rebirth
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1942 Ralph Ellis (Swinging Blue Jeans) 1945 Mickey Dolenz (Monkees) 1946 Randy Meisner (Eagles) 1947 Andrew Semple (Fortunes) 1947 Michael Allsup (Three Dog Night) 1948 Mel Galley (Whitesnake) 1954 Cheryl Baker (Bucks Fizz) 1958 Clive Burr (Iron Maiden) 1958 Gary Numan 1960 Peter 'Ped' Gill (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) 1960 Salt (Cheryl James) (Salt n'Pepa)
Deaths
1973 Ron 'Pigpen' Mckernan (Grateful Dead) 1993 Billy Eckstine
Number 1 In The Charts On March 8
1975 Telly Savalas: If UK 45 1975 Olivia Newton-John: Have You Never Been Mellow US 45 1986 Diana Ross Chain Reaction UK 45 1997 Spice Girls : Spice : UK LP
Various Music Events On March 8
1962 Roy Orbison's Dream Baby hits UK chart.
1962 Beatles perform for the first time on BBC on the 5 p.m. show Teenagers Turn, playing Dream Baby.
1968 Fillmore East opens in New York City.
1969 A one-week experiment to allow sales of budget-price LPs to be considered for full album chart listing sees a flood of cut-price LPs in UK chart, headed by The Four and Only Seekers debuting at No. 1. The rule is immediately changed.
1970 Diana Ross opens an eleven-date cabaret engagement in Framlington, Massachusetts - her first outing as a solo performer.
1971 WPAX Hanoi goes on the air. Abbie Hoffman and many others make tapes in a loft in New York; tapes are then broadcast to US troops. Station opens with Jimi Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner.
1980 UB40 debut on UK chart with King/Food For Thought.
1982 Elton John begins tour of New Zealand, his first for two years.
1987 At Detroit's Joe Louis Arena Bob Seger announces the end of "his last tour ever", only to start touring again soon after.
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- Retro Rebirth
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The Monkees, even today, still go down as the most successful TV rock show idea ever. That was how they came about, as an idea for a TV show molded after the Beatles movie, A Hard Days' Night. A TV show about four poor hippie band members, with lots of slapstick comedy, and of course, music too.The fact that this manufactured group turned into a real band and had a whole bunch of big hits is really, well, far out!
Screen Gems executive Don Kirshner came up with the idea after seeing the Beatle movie and hired producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider to begin auditions for the show in 1965. An ad was placed in Variety, and amongst the 437 applications were Stephen Stills, Danny Hutton (later of Three Dog Night ), Harry Nilsson and Paul Williams. Only one Monkee would be found from the auditions, guitarist and songwriter Michael Nesmith, who's song "Different Drum" was a then current top ten hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys. Hired later from other sources were folk singer - guitarist Peter Tork, and actors Mickey Dolenz (who started out as a child actor), and Davy Jones, who didn't know how to play a note of music. They were hired first and foremost as actors for the TV show; with no plans to have an actual real life band come about. It was decided for the show that the members would be portrayed as followed: Nesmith as the lead guitarist, Tork as the bassist, Dolenz, who could play guitar, was at first going to be the rhythm guitarist, but Jones, who was to be the drummer, was deemed by the shows producers as to being too small to sit behind the drum kit and still be seen. So Dolenz, who never before played the drums, took that part and Jones, well, he was placed out front as the cute one. All four would take turns at lead vocals, but as it turned out, the two actors, Jones and Dolenz, were the better singers and in time would get more of the lead vocals, with Nesmith handling the vocals for the country rock tunes (which me mainly wrote). Yet the truth of the matter was that Dolenz was the group's true lead singer, even if that fact was never advertised.
On September 12, 1966, the first episode of The Monkees was aired by NBC-TV and in an short time the show was a hit both in the US and the UK. Their self titled debut album was also a huge hit, selling over a million copies, as was its single, "Last Train To Clarksville", which made it to number 1 on the US charts. Most of the songs were written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, and Carole King and Gerry Goffin, with just one song, "Papa Gene's Blues" written by Nesmith. But the truth was, the Monkees not only were not a band yet and didn't play as one on this album, but they were not even a true singing group yet, as they didn't work together even in that department when the disc was put together. Dolenz not only sang most of the lead vocals on the LP, but he also, alone, sang most of the backing vocals for the songs, too. Nesmith's self penned song was the only tune on the album which was close to being a true "Monkees" number, as he, Dolenz and Tork, all performed on it. The rest of the music on the album was played by session musicians.
Their next album, More Of The Monkees, also was a big hit, and its single, "I'm A Believer", went to number one in both the US and UK. On this LP they were a true singing group at least, and suddenly they were the latest and biggest pre-teen and teen phenomenon around. However the group did not like the fact that they were still not allowed to play on their albums, and they came clean to their fans about this on their own after the second album's release. Like the first LP, Nesmith and Tork were allowed to play their guitars only on the Nesmith penned songs; so when they let their fans know they weren't happy with this fact, their management listened and gave in, since the TV show was now a huge hit. So the Monkees got what they demanded, that being that for the next album, Headquarters, they all would play most of the instruments as a true band, with just a couple of guitar session players backing them.
Headquarters would go on to prove that the Monkees did indeed have more than just acting talent, by far it was their best album. Nesmith would supply three new songs plus lead and steel guitar to the album. Tork added guitar, keyboards, banjo, bass and one penned song. Dolenz by now was not bad on the drums, yet he didn't care to play them, in part because he still was the main lead vocalist. Yet he still played drums on every track on the LP, along with playing rhythm guitar and keyboards, too; plus he wrote the album's closing number. Jones, well, he learned to shake the maracas real nice, but really, he was the band's second lead singer and the main ladies man in the group. Headquarters was released in May of '67 and was a huge hit and a really nice piece of work from the boys. The Monkees were not just a TV singing group anymore, but now a real band. They went on tour after the album release and played for real in front of their fans. This tour featured the famous, if not totally out of aliment pairing of the Monkees and Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix, who was still unknown, opened for the Monkees. In November of '67 the Monkees released their fourth album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones Ltd. which, dare I say, was a psychedelic masterpiece. The album did have a bit of country rock on it, but more psychedelic tunes. One of those psychedelic songs "Daily Nightly", was the very first rock song to use the new Moog synthesizer (which was the very first synthesizer), played by Dolenz. "Pleasant Valley Sunday" was another number one hit and the Nilsson cover song "Cuddly Toy" was also well received.
Things would start to wind down for the group in 1968. On March 25, their final TV episode was screened and the next month their next album, The Birds, The Bees And The Monkees was a disappointment as they returned to using more session musicians to record most of the album. But the album did spawn two big hit singles "Daydream Believer" and "Valleri", with most of the lead vocals on these two sung by Jones. "Valleri" in fact had been recorded back in '66 and only featured Jones and Dolenz singing on it. Next, The Monkees embarked on a feature film, Head, which upon its release got poor reviews and seemed to be viewed by noone. Tork left the band after Head's release and the remaining trio continued on without him. They released two more albums that bombed and the band, now going nowhere fast, broke up in '69. They reunited in 1985 (minus Nesmith) for a successful tour, but the new studio album they released, Pool It, was horrendous and they broke up the next year. In 1995 all four of the Monkees reunited for an UK tour and released a new studio album in '96, Justus. The album was the first Monkees album to feature all original material from the group members and was produced by Nesmith. It got good reviews and was a minor hit. It was nice to see the entire band back together recording again after so many years.
Various Videos Of The Monkees
The Monkees - I'm a Believer Video
The Monkees - Mary Mary Video
The Monkees - Goin' Down Video
The Monkees Discography
2005 Summer 1967: The Complete U.S. Concert Recordings 2004 Missing Links 2003 The Best Of The Monkees 2003 Extended Versions 2002 Live Summer Tour 2002 The Essentials 2001 Music Box 1998 Daydream Believer and Other Hits 1998 The Monkees: Anthology 1997 I'm a Believer and Other Hits 1996 Justus 1996 Missing Links Volume Three 1991 Listen to the Band 1987 Live 1967 1986 Pool It 1986 Missing Links Volume Two 1982 More Greatest Hits 1976 Greatest Hits 1975 Hit Factory 1970 Instant Replay 1970 Changes 1969 The Monkees Present: Micky, David & Michael 1968 Head 1968 The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees 1967 Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. 1967 Headquarters 1967 More Of The Monkees 1966 The Monkees
Have a groovy day!
- Retro Rebirth
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[Closeup of the rear of the Monkees director's chair bearing Mike's name. The chair's occupant turns about and the camera cuts to Michael Nesmith and Frank Zappa, with a gigantic drum behind them, in each other's guises. Michael is wearing an ersatz Frank Zappa wig, moustache and goatee, and nose (which keeps falling off), and Frank is wearing Michael's wool hat and blue 8-buttoned Monkee shirt.]
Frank: Hello! I'm Mike Nesmith, and I'm one of The Monkees. Tonight, as my guest on this wonderful television program, which has done so much for all of you young people out there, I have, as my special guest, none other than
FRANK ZAPPA (Michael flashes "peace sign".), that world-famous person, participant in, perhaps even leader of none other than The Mothers Of Invention! And here he is, luv ya, Frank Zappa.
Michael: Hi, kids. Hi, Mike.
Frank: Hi!
Michael: It's really...s'really a pleasure to be here. (His fake nose falls off.)
Frank: It is? (Michael picks up the fake nose and places it on his nose again.) We have a lot of zany stuff on this program, don'tcha think?
Well, tell me, Frank...
Michael: Tell you what, Mike...
Frank: No, you're supposed to talk like Frank.This is one of our cute numbers for this show.
Michael: Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm supposed to be you and you're supposed to be me, right? (His fake nose falls off again.)
Frank: You see the way we work this out in advance?
Michael: My nose keeps fallin' off. (He picks up the fake nose and places it on his nose again.) Okay, go ahead. Ask me a question.
Frank: When you first got into the psychedelic music business, was it very difficult?
(Michael's fake nose falls off yet again! Once more, he picks it up and puts it back on his nose.) I know that used to work in Hollywood a lot.
Michael: Well, it was more of a "come on guys, let's go" kind of a situation.
Frank: "Come on, guy"...that's like The Beach Boys.
Michael: A lot of that. We did a lot of that.
Frank: You know that, after I quit the show, I'm gonna join The Byrds, don'tcha?
Michael: (laughs) No, I didn't know that.
Frank: When you quit The Mothers, who are you going to join?
Michael: I may join The Byrds, too. I wanted to get into a very serious area that, of course, appeals to me, as Frank Zappa, sometimes thought of as "creative genius," especially in the area concerning your Monkees music, which, ah, appears to me to be banal and insipid.
Frank: You think that our music, The Monkees' music, is banal and insipid?!
Michael: Well, words like that are hard to read...
Frank: Uh-huh.
Michael: ...especially side-by-side.
Frank: Have you ever tried reading "Mike and Frank"?
Michael: I wanted to know where the soul of your music was; is it on the 1 and the 7, or is it on the 1and the 5?
Frank: The soul of your music is on the 1 and the 7, sometimes on the 3 and the 5. The soul of our music, The Monkees' music, lies somewhere inbetween the 1 1/2 (off-camera chuckling), the 2 1/2, the 3 3/4 and th giant C-major chord on the piano! Which I'll demonstrate for you! We have wonderful music. Match-cut. Here we go, we turn over and we all take our positions in front of the camera (they do so), because this is The Monkees, and we're really tricky. Tell me, Frank Zappa, I've always wanted to have you show me how to conduct, because I heard you were really spiffy at it.
Michael: Well, you follow me then, in front of the tel...
Frank: Come on, you're on television. I'm just one of these unpopular musicians. Teach me.
Michael: No, it's the other way around. You're a popular musician' I'm...dirty gross and ugly.Well, I'll tell you, Mike, before we get too involved with the piano, let's whip over to the car, and I'll teach you...
Frank: "Whip"?!
Michael: ...how to play a car. Watch this! (With a huge hammer, Michael hits the big drum behind them. As The Mother Of Invention's tune "Mother People" plays over the soundtrack, cut to outside the pad, where Michael, in his regular guise, conducts as Frank, in his regular guise, takes a chain to the hood of a car. Then Frank takes off its entire front end and crashes the windows, dents the hood and bangs the motor with a sledgehammer. Sparks and pyrotechics emit from the engine, which Frank snuffs out with a fire extinguisher. A final shot of Frank blowing the extinguisher into the camera and Michael continuously conucting is shown before the cut to black...and the show's opening titles commence.)
You can watch the video of the above transcript below
Have a groovy day :)
Peace and Love, Retro Rebirth
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