Almanac

Rock 'n' Roll Almanac for Friday, October 24, 2025

89 years ago 1936Bill Wyman, former bass player for the Rolling Stones, is born.
63 years ago 1962James Brown records Live at the Apollo, Volume I at the landmark theater in Harlem. The album will sell over a million copies, unprecedented for an R&B record, and will later earn a reputation for being one of the finest concert albums ever made.
62 years ago 1963The Beatles leave for their first tour outside of Great Britain. They discover that Beatlemania goes beyond the shores of Britannia.
55 years ago 1970President Richard Nixon, in a speech to a White House radio broadcasters conference, appeals for rock lyrics to be screened and those urging drug use to be banned.
52 years ago 1973Art Garfunkel receives a gold album for his first solo effort, Angel Clare, which contains the smash hit, All I Know.
52 years ago 1973Keith Richards is fined $500 and is given conditional discharges on four drug charges and three firearm offenses following a trial in Marlborough Street Magistrate Court. Actress Anita Pallenberg, arrested with Richards on June 26 when police raided their Chelsea home, is given a conditional discharge for having 25 Mandraz tablets. Ten days earlier, both were fined $1,000 in France for possesion of controlled substances, that too was from an earlier bust.
50 years ago 1975Long Island's Nassau Coliseum is the site the FIrst Planetary Celebration, held to coincide with United Nations day, James Taylor, Pete Seeger and John McLaughlin star at the event, designed to promote awareness of mans golobal responsibility. Unfortunately, only 4,500 turn out to the 16,000-seat arena to hear the message.
45 years ago 1980Paul McCartney receives a rhodium-plated disc from the Guinness Book of World Records for being history's all-time best-selling songwriter and recording artist.
37 years ago 1988The John Fogerty vs. Fantasy Records case begins. Fantasy claimed the John plagarized his own song, Run Through The Jungle when writing The Old Man Down The Road.
36 years ago 1989Hank Ballard, Bobby Darin, the Four Seasons, the Four Tops, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, the Kinks, the Platters, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Who are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
32 years ago 1993Duran Duran cancels the rest of their tour when lead singer Simon LeBon tears a vocal chord.
29 years ago 1996Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr. receives a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
9 years ago 2016Pop idol Bobby Vee dies. He was 73. The boyish, grinning 1960s singer’s career was born when he took a Midwestern stage as a teenager to fill in after the 1959 plane crash that killed rock 'n' roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. Vee, whose hits included the chart-topping Take Good Care of My Baby and who helped a young Bob Dylan get his start, dies of advanced Alzheimer's disease. Vee was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2011, and performed his last show that year.
7 years ago 2018Polk Salad Annie and Rainy Night in Georgia songwriter Tony Joe White dies suddenly at his home in Leiper's Fork, Tennessee. “He wasn’t ill at all,” said his son, Jody White. “He just had a heart attack...there was no pain or suffering.” The Oak Grove, Louisiana native was 75 years old, and known for his deep, growling voice and potent "swamp rock" sound, which incorporated elements of blues, rock, country and R&B.

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