Time to take a look back into this day in rock history: January 20
KWK radio in St. Louis bans rock and roll from its programming and plays every r & r disc one last time before it’s destroyed. Station manager, Robert T. Convey says it’s “a simple weeding out of undesirable music.”
The old Moondogger, Alan Freed, dies a broken man at the age of 43. Fighting charges of tax evasion to his final days, Freed never recovered from the payola scandal of the 1950s. His last station was an FM outlet near Los Angeles, KNOB, at a time when that band had little listener traffic. Freed was interred for a time at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but his remains were later interred at Cleveland’s lake View Cemetery.
Uh, yeah…he did it. It happened in Des Moines when Ozzy Osbourne bites the head off a live bat. Ozzy didn’t realize it was a real bat and after the show he was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital for rabies shots.
It’s still one of the most surreal moments in Beach Boys history. Mike Love gives a rambling speech at the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction when he insults, Diana Ross, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and claims Mick Jagger is afraid to get on the stage with the Beach Boys. As the music swells and drowns out Love, Elton John (who gave the induction speech introduction) comes to the mic and says, “Thank fuck he didn’t mention me!” At the end of the night Love stands silently on stage during the final jam while Springsteen and Jagger duet on “Satisfaction”. In hindsight, he says he should have meditated that morning.
2013
A “Taste of Texas” at the Kent Stage with Dale Watson and Ray Benson.
Poster courtesy of Raw Sugar Studio
One of the acts who put Cleveland International Records on the map, Marvin Lee Aday…”Meatloaf”…dies at 74. After a brief stage and movie career, his debut album “Bat Out of Hell” on Steve Popovich’s record label is one of the highest selling albums of its kind ever. Popovich also later sues the distributor over unpaid royalties for a huge settlement.
