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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

      Feb. 9 (1963) — “Hey Paula” by Paul and Paula reaches No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it will remain for three weeks. Ray Hildebrand and Jill Jackson — their real names — will have a No. 6 hit with their followup, “Young Lovers,” but won’t have that kind of success again. Hildebrand will leave the act two years later, to resume his college education.

      Feb. 12 (1939) — Raymond Manzarek Jr. is born in Chicago, Ill. After graduating from DePaul University with a degree in economics and training as an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army, while working on a master’s in cinematography, he will meet fellow film student Jim Morrison. The two agree to form a band, and Ray Manzarek will recruit two musicians he meets at a Transcendental Meditation lecture, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. The Doors, with Manzarek playing keyboards and Morrison singing lead until his death in 1971, will become one the most successful rock bands of the late ’60s.

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