This Day in Music
In 1977, The Sex Pistols signed with A&M Records, following their controversial departure from EMI over their bad behavior. While the punk pioneers privately inked the contract one day earlier, the label held a press conference outside Buckingham Palace where they took part in a public signing ceremony. Afterward, the band celebrated with a boozy party at the label’s offices where all kinds of mayhem ensued, including bassist Johnny Rotten verbally abusing staff and Sid Vicious smashing a toilet bowl and cutting his foot open. Two days later, the band got in a fight in a club that saw Rotten threatening the life of a record executive, and on March 16th, A&M terminated their contract with the band, paying them a £75,000 settlement fee.
In 2009, tickets for a Las Vegas concert by Sir Paul McCartney sold out in seven seconds. The ex-Beatle was playing a one-off show, marking the April 19 launch of the 4,000-capacity New Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Tickets were priced at $750 and sold at a rate of almost 600 a second.
In 1958, Simon & Garfunkel, who were both fifteen years old and still in high school, released “Our Song,” the second of two singles via Big Records under the name Tom and Jerry. Alluding to his interest in math, Garfunkel called himself Tom Graph while Simon adopted the surname of a former girlfriend, calling himself Jerry Landis.
In 1979, disco queen Gloria Gaynor topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Will Survive.” A female empowerment anthem welded to a disco beat, the tune began life as the B-side to a single called “Substitute” before a DJ flipped the record over and exposed it to a wider audience. It also went to No.1 in the UK and won a Grammy in 1980 for Best Disco Recording.
In 1960, the trade paper Record Retailer published the UK’s first-ever EP and LP charts. Topping the EP charts was Cliff Richard & The Shadows’ “Expresso Bongo” while The Explosive Freddy Cannon was the top-selling LP.
In 2017, Sister Sledge’s Joni Sledge, the second eldest of the Philadelphia group, died at the age of 60. The sisters began recording in 1971 but didn’t make a breakthrough until 1979 when they hooked up with Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards who masterminded their blockbuster album, We Are Family.
BORN ON MARCH 10
1940: Dean Torrence (Jan and Dean)
1947: Tom Scholz (Boston)
1955: Bunny DeBarge (DeBarge)
1963: Rick Rubin (Producer)
1964: Neneh Cherry
1966: Edie Brickell
1971: Timbaland
1983: Carrie Underwood
1987: Emeli Sandé
