Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
By the summer of 1964, The Rolling Stones were just finding their footing. Barely two years old, the band were still in their infancy, best-known for their cover versions of American blues and rock and roll songs. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had yet to really explore what would be a legendary songwriting partnership and their early British hits were all penned by others – Chuck Berry (“Come On”), Buddy Holly (“Not Fade Away”) and John Lennon and Paul McCartney (“I Wanna Be Your Man”).
After The Beatles had conquered America earlier in the year, the Stones embarked on their first U.S. tour in June of 1964. Bassist Bill Wyman would later remember the trek as a “disaster,” because the band had yet to score a big hit in the States. The band got mocked by Dean Martin for their performance and appearance on The Hollywood Palace – it was miles away from what the Fab Four had experienced on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Yet, the tour proved quite fruitful in other areas. During the Stones’ time as guests on Murray the K’s WINS Swinging Soiree radio show in New York, the influential DJ played them a new R&B recording credited to The Valentinos, called “It’s All Over Now.” The boys loved the song, saying that it was exactly the type of American music they were into. “It’s All Over Now” was actually co-written and sung by future soul legend Bobby Womack – The Valentinos were really The Womacks, a vocal group consisting of Bobby and his brothers. The single, which had just been released, was produced by Sam Cooke.
While on tour, the Stones were being pressured by their label to record and release new material to capitalize on their rising profile on both sides of the Atlantic. “It’s All Over Now” quickly became a contender to be the band’s next cover. Nine days after first hearing it on Murray the K’s radio show, the boys recorded their version at a very special place.
“We cut that in Chess Studios the first time in Chicago,” Richards later remembered. “The year before we were playing bars in England, you know. And then we’re walking into Chess Studios which was where all of these records that had been made that were so important to us. Now and again in life you get this feeling that you’ve died and gone to heaven. Luckily, neither was true.”
The Stones got to meet heroes such as Muddy Waters, and make their first American recordings in the same place as Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon. Richards felt the experience brought a rawness to the recording.
“The way you’d get a sound in an American studio in those days was the difference between day and night, compared to working in England or Europe,” he said. “I mean these cats, in America, they’d done it already. So to work in Chess was our first taste of American record.”
The Stones would record both “The Last Time” and “It’s All Over Now” (both destined to be hits) during their visit to Chess – although it was deemed that the latter would be released first. Just to keep things straight: on June 1, the band first heard the song; on June 10, they recorded their cover; on June 26, it was released as their newest single in England.
But Womack was not happy with the situation and told his manager that Jagger “should get his own song.” He probably was less than thrilled that his group’s version now had to compete with the one done by these British invaders. Of course, his attitude changed when the Stones’ “It’s All Over Now” became a monster hit. When Womack got the royalty check in late ’64, he let his manager know that the band could record any song of his that they wanted. Decades later, Womack would even appear on a Stones album – 1986’s Dirty Work.
Bobby had plenty of reason to change his tune. The third Stones single ever put out in America, “It’s All Over Now” gained a lot of airplay and rose to a respectable #26 on the charts. Although Lennon criticized Richards’ guitar playing on the song as sloppy, a young man in New Jersey named Bruce Springsteen was taken by the tune’s rough energy. It was the first song he learned on guitar.
“It’s All Over Now” performed even better in Britain. On this day in 1964, the single became the band’s first song to hit #1 on the U.K. charts. It certainly wouldn’t be the Stones’ last. That other song they recorded at Chess, the Jagger/Richards original “The Last Time,” would hit #1 in the fall (and rise to #9 in the States). For the rest of the ’60s, absolutely every Stones single release in the U.K. would hit the Top 10, with another five topping the charts. They would score five #1s in the States, too.
“It’s All Over Now” proved The Rolling Stones were just getting started.
little to do with the relationship between the musicians.
It was an honorary knighthood, not because pop upstarts don’t merit the full award, but because Geldof is Irish and a full knighthood is only given to citizens of the Commonwealth. Recipients like Geldof are allowed to use the letters KBE (Knight of the British Empire) but cannot use the title, Sir.
A little intoxicated as he strolled, Bators was hit by a car. Nothing too serious it seemed, or maybe his threshold for pain simply disguised the extent of his injuries. He casually mentioned the accident to his girlfriend Caroline t but said he didn’t need medical treatment. Later in the evening, however, Stiv Bators began to have problems breathing. His girlfriend called for an ambulance but it was too late. Bators died from a blood clot and internal bleeding.
Ronnie Lane, one of the good guys of rock, had risen from humble beginning to international pop star and everybody loved him. The friends he made on the way to the top, from Jimmy Page to Rod Stewart to Pete Townshend, would also figure prominently in the dark days as his body rebelled on him and disease took over his life.
president). His Irish-Italian mother, Mary, was a schoolteacher from Marseilles, IL who received her Masters degree from Loyola University in Chicago. She was well-traveled before her son was born, having spent time teaching English in Germany, Spain, Japan and in Kenya, where she met Tom’s father at a pro-democracy protest in Nairobi in August 1963. 
1. Robbie Williams
Britain’s answer to The Band, in many ways, Fairport Convention experimented with the fusion of traditional English folk music and rock and roll, just as bands in the U.S. were rushing to blend rock with country and folk.
Since he burst on the rock and roll scene in the early ’60s, Bob Dylan has been consistently taciturn about his personal life before he became “Bob Dylan” at the University of Minnesota. But as time has passed, snippets of information from Dylan himself and interviews with contemporaries have shed more light on his early years.
The musical madness stated in 1976, in London’s Camden town when some north London ska fans formed a band called The Invaders. The originals were Mike Barson on keyboards and vocals, Chris Foreman on guitar and Lee Thompson on saxophone and vocals. To this lineup was added John Hasler on drums, Chas Smash on bass and a short-lived singer Dikron. Dikron was replaced the next year by Suggs on vocals and with a few lineup exits and returns and another name change to Morris & The Minors, the band settled in and became Madness by the time of their first single.
The label’s first release, coded FAC 1 (every item of note, from album to record release party to the occasional wager, was numbered), was a poster announcing the opening of a label-owned club called The Factory. The Factory served as the launching ground for such local acts as The Durutti Column and Joy Division, who were also signed (not so coincidentally) to the Factory label. The club lasted for about 18 months, long enough for Factory Records to take on designer Peter Saville, Joy Division manager Rob Gretton and producer Martin Hannett as partners. Further closure of this first era of Factory Records came with the death of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who hanged himself on the eve of the group’s first U.S. tour. He never saw his band hit the Top Twenty with the single, “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” or the Top Ten with the album, Closer.
After Gentle’s first two singles did very little, Parnes decided to send him on tour to find his audience. Parnes has been working with Liverpool promoter Alan Williams and figured that, with new bands popping up every week in Liverpool, the city might be a good source of backing bands for his artists.
Gentle recalled that Lennon helped him with a song during the tour, “I’ve Just Fallen for Someone,” that was later recorded by Adam Faith. He also tried to persuade Parnes to sign the Silver Beetles, but the impresario was only interested in solo acts. When Johnny Gentle tried to hire the Silver Beetles again, he was out of luck. They were in Hamburg and about to change rock and roll history.
His paternal grandparents were musicians who played shows for the troops during World War I, and that musical heritage was passed down to Pete’s father, Cliff Townshend. Cliff was playing in bands, himself, by the age of 16 and was—perhaps a portent of his progeny—a bit of a rebel, getting expelled from school and playing music at wild, boozy parties. When he was 24, Cliff Townshend enlisted in the Royal Air Force. Quickly, he was conscripted into The Royal Air Force Dance Orchestra, better known as The Squadronaires. Like his parents, Cliff spent much of his generation’s World War entertaining the troops.
and Andrew Innes while sorting out his own post-school plans. Eventually, he moved down to London and started his own record label, Creation Records (named after the ’60s band, The Creation). From that point forward, McGee embarked on an almost Quixotic search for that perfect sound that married the swirling guitars of those ’60s bands with the aggression and venom of punk. 
Born in California in 1940, Sheley fell in love with the power and glamour of rock and roll and infiltrated the scene any way she could. In Hollywood, she dated Don Everly, and hung out with Gene Vincent. She got to meet Elvis, and became friends with him and joined his Hollywood entourage. 
Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
When original bass player Samwell-Smith left in the summer of 1966, another guitar player joined, one Jimmy Page who played on the band’s last hit record, “Happenings 10 Years Time Ago.” Beck left next, in 1966. When Relf and McCarty decided to leave Page and the boys behind to play folksy acoustic music, The Yardbirds transformed into something even more powerful: Led Zeppelin.
For the new album, Paul McCartney’s idea was to leave behind all of the Sgt. Pepper-style studio tricks and make music that was stripped-down and relatively straightforward to play live. The plan was that the new album would be recorded as a live performance, and not in the studio. At this point, the band hadn’t toured in two and a half years and McCartney liked the idea of going back on the road. John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were less keen on that notion, so the plan became for The Beatles to play a single concert – perhaps in London, or on an ocean liner or in a Roman amphitheater in Africa. Rehearsals began on January 2, 1969 with no concrete plans in place.
That rock trio was the Jimi Hendrix Experience, for whom the guitar-playing Redding switched to bass and ended up working on three seminal Hendrix albums.