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 5-11
April 5 (1942) — Harold Allan Clarke is born in Salford, U.K. He and his childhood friend Graham Nash will form the Hollies in December 1962, and the group will go on to become one of the most successful British Invasion acts, with 23 charting singles and six Top 10 hits. Clarke will leave the band in 1971 to pursue a solo career.
April 9 (1969) — King Crimson makes its live performance debut at a free concert in Hyde Park, London, U.K., put on by the Rolling Stones. The new band will play before a crowd of perhaps a half-million, and six months later will release an album that is considered a landmark in progressive rock, In the Court of the Crimson King. The band in its original iteration will release six more albums, including several other influential projects, before dissolving in 1974; it will later reform and, after numerous changes in personnel and three more hiatuses, is still performing currently.