Time to take a look back into this day in rock history: January 15
Love to have you…..with one condition. Ed Sullivan welcomes back the Rolling Stones, but there’s a red flag with one of the songs they want to perform. The title alone seems suggestive, “Let’s Spend the Night Together”, so Ed’s crew makes the band change the words. Mind you, one of the acts that night is a group of singing nuns from Erie, Pennsylvania, so that tells you a lot about the expected audience. The show was too important to pass up so the Stones change the lyrics, but notice how Mick Jagger rolls his eyes when he sings, “Let’s Spend Some Time Together”.
Roy Orbison stars with Sheb Wooley in The Fastest Guitar Alive which, oddly enough, takes place during the Civil War. Did they have Ray Ban sunglasses back then?
A song that has been studied and dissected for over fifty years. Don McLean’s “American Pie” hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The general consensus is it’s about the death of Buddy Holly, but when asked McLean says it only means, “I never have to work again.”
Heart failure claims the life of singer songwriter Harry Nilsson. Probably best known for “Everybody’s Talkin’” from the film Midnight Cowboy film, he also has a huge hit with his version of the Badfinger tune, “Without You”.
One of the great harmonica players, Junior Wells dies after a long term battle with cancer and a heart attack. Along with his own solo catalog he worked with Carlos Santana, Buddy Guy and a long list of others.
