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
Oct. 6 (1973) — Cher’s “Half-Breed” begins a three-week run atop the Billboard Hot 100. It is the second of the artist’s three No. 1 hits, and one of 34 charting singles she will record during a 50-plus year solo performing career that starts before her break-up with Sonny Bono.
Oct. 10 (1969) — Island Records releases In the Court of the Crimson King, the debut album by British progressive rock band King Crimson. Regarded by many to be the first true prog rock LP, it combined rock with jazz and symphonic music. The band’s most commercially successful recording, it ranked No. 2 on Rolling Stone magazine’s “50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time,” behind only Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.