This Week in
Rock History
Feb. 19 (1940) — William Robinson Jr. is born in Detroit, Mich. Smokey Robinson will become the founder and front man of the Miracles, one of the original acts signed by Motown Record Corp. The group will produce 25 Top 40 hits with Robinson as lead vocalist, principal songwriter and producer, including a 1970 No. 1, “The Tears of a Clown.”
Feb. 19 (1966) — Lou Christie’s “Lightning Strikes” reaches No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart. A plea for a sexual double standard — “Listen to me, baby, it's hard to settle down/Am I asking too much for you to stick around” — it will remain atop the chart for only one week, and Christie won’t record another Top 10 hit.
Feb. 25 (1957) — Buddy Holly and the Crickets record their first charting single, “That’ll Be the Day,” in a Clovis, N.M., studio. The song is a No. 1 hit, and is considered a rock classic — but is not the first version Holly and his band recorded.
This Week in
Rock History
April 12 (1944) — Joachim Fritz Krauledat is born in what was then Tilsit, Germany, but is now part of the Russian Republic. His family will move to Canada, where he will change his name to John Kay and join a band called the Sparrows — which will later become Steppenwolf and sell more than 25 million records worldwide.
April 15 (1963) — On Easter Monday, the Beatles, who had just recorded their debut album, perform at the Bridge Hotel in Terbury, U.K. Opening for them is El Riot and the Rebels, a band that includes John Lodge, Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas. The following year, Pinder and Thomas — Lodge had left to finish college, but will eventually return —recruit Graeme Edge, Denny Laine and Clint Warwick and form the Moody Blues, originally a British blues band but later a progressive rock giant that will sell more than 70 million records worldwide.