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
Aug. 25 (1973) — The Allman Brothers nearly lose their third member in less than two years when Butch Trucks is involved in a one-car crash near Macon, Ga. The accident occurs not far from where fellow founding member Duane Allman was killed in an October 1971 motor vehicle accident — and in the same area where Barry Oakley, another original ABB member, like Allman died as the result of a motorcycle crash.
Aug. 29 (1969) — The second-annual Isle of Wight Festival opens in Wootton Creek, U.K. It will draw only about a quarter of the number attendees as the Woodstock festival held two weeks earlier, but will also feature some of the top rock acts of the time, including the Band, the Who, the Moody Blues and Joe Cocker. The top draw, though, is Bob Dylan’s first public performance since a near-fatal motorcycle accident more than three years earlier.