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. 5 (1962) — EMI’s Parlophone label releases “Love Me Do,” the Beatles’ first single. Originally written two years earlier by Paul McCartney, before he begins his songwriting partnership with group co-founder John Lennon, the song will be rewritten slightly by the two. It will be recorded three times with three different drummers: Pete Best, his replacement, Ringo Starr; and session musician Andy White. The Ringo version will be on the single — which goes as high as No. 4 on the U.K. charts, and is a No. 1 in the U.S. 17 months later — although the one with White’s drumming will be included on the group’s first English album.
Oct. 8 (1972) — Harvest Records releases Message from the Country, the fourth and final studio album by the seven-year-old British rock band the Move, The LP fulfills the band’s contractual obligation, and its members are already forming the hugely successful Electric Light Orchestra, laying down tracks for the first ELO album at the same time they are recording Message