Rock History: August 3
Notable rock and roll birthdays, releases, and milestones that happened on August 3 throughout history.
Emile Berliner, the inventor of the lateral-cut flat disc record used with the gramophone, died of a heart attack in Washington, D.C. at 78. His hand-cranked machine, introduced in 1895, helped pioneer the seven-inch flat record format.
Bill Haley filed a lawsuit against Dave Miller, founder of Essex Records, over unpaid royalties on the group’s earlier recordings. Haley won the suit, and Miller was ultimately driven into bankruptcy.
“A Big Hunk o’ Love” became Elvis Presley’s fourteenth consecutive Gold record. Recorded in Nashville while he was serving in the Army, it was the first Presley hit made without his longtime backing musicians, guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black.
The Browns — siblings Maxine, Bonnie, and Jim Ed — broke into the Billboard Top 40 with their country-flavored rendition of “The Three Bells.” The record went on to top not just the Hot 100 and the country chart, but surprisingly the R&B chart as well.
The Kingston Trio landed on the cover of Life magazine under the headline “Top Sellers in Albums.” By that point the group had already released three million-selling LPs: “The Kingston Trio,” “At Large,” and “…from the Hungry i.”
The Beatles played the Cavern Club in Liverpool for the final time. Tickets, which had gone on sale July 21st, sold out in just thirty minutes, and manager Brian Epstein capped attendance at 500 for safety reasons. Over the two and a half years since their debut there, the band had performed 274 shows at the cramped basement venue — their first gig had paid them £5 (about $14), their last brought in £300 (about $840).
Philadelphia quintet The Tymes topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “So Much in Love,” which also reached number 21 in the UK. The group would return to the American chart ten more times and the British chart on four further occasions through 1976.
The Beatles made their first appearance on an American record chart when “From Me to You” debuted at number 125 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart — at the time, it had sold fewer than 4,000 copies stateside.
The Fifth Dimension performed at Steel Pier in Atlantic City for a fee of $11,000. Their supporting act was a then-unknown vocalist named Helen Reddy, who was paid $600 for the gig.
The Doors scored their second number-one single on the Billboard chart with “Hello, I Love You,” which reached number 15 in the UK. The record was promoted as one of the first rock 45s released in stereo.
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap topped the Cashbox Best Sellers chart with their third million-selling single, “Lady Willpower,” which reached number two on Billboard and number five in the UK.
Paul McCartney announced the formation of a new band featuring his wife Linda on keyboards, drummer Denny Seiwell, and guitarist Denny Laine — still unnamed at this point. McCartney reportedly settled on the name Wings that September, while praying during the difficult birth of his daughter Stella.
Ringo Starr received a Gold record for “It Don’t Come Easy,” which reached number four in both the US and UK. Starr received sole songwriting credit, though it later emerged that George Harrison had contributed significantly — possibly writing most of it. The B-side, “Early 1970,” featured four verses, one about each former Beatle, with Starr’s own verse reflecting on their lives just months after the band’s split.
Tamla Records released Stevie Wonder’s sixteenth studio album, “Innervisions,” which peaked at number four on Billboard’s Top LPs & Tape chart and number one on the Soul LPs chart. At the following year’s Grammy Awards, it won Album of the Year and Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and ranked number 34 on Rolling Stone’s 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter left Steely Dan to join the Doobie Brothers. Jeff Porcaro stepped in as his replacement before later departing to form Toto, while Michael McDonald joined Steely Dan around the same time Porcaro did — McDonald would also eventually leave to join the Doobie Brothers himself.
In what must have made for an unusual bill, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band opened for Anne Murray at New York’s Schaefer Music Festival. A large chunk of the audience reportedly left once Springsteen’s set ended, leaving Murray to perform for a noticeably thinner crowd.
Bad Company’s self-titled debut album reached number one on Billboard’s Top LPs & Tape chart. Powered by the lead single “Can’t Get Enough,” which hit number five on the Hot 100, the album went on to sell more than five million copies in the US alone.
The Beach Boys released their 27th studio album, “Summer in Paradise” — the only Beach Boys studio record made without any songwriting, performing, or production input from co-founder Brian Wilson. It sold poorly, partly overshadowed by a Beach Boys box set that came out the following week, and the band wouldn’t release another album of original material until 2012’s “That’s Why God Made the Radio.”
Motown Records was sold to the Dutch entertainment company PolyGram for $325 million — more than five times the $61 million founder Berry Gordy had received when he sold the label to an investment group back in 1988.
Country legend Patsy Cline received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Before her death on March 5, 1963, Cline had released three studio albums and more than thirty singles, including the Hot 100 hits “Walkin’ After Midnight” (number 12 in 1957), “I Fall to Pieces” (number 12 in 1961), “Crazy” (number nine in 1961), and “She’s Got You” (number 14 in 1962). Her husband, Charlie Dick, and daughter, Julie Fudge, were both on hand for the bittersweet occasion.
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Roger Voudouris, who reached number 21 on the Billboard Pop chart in 1979 with “Get Used to It,” died at 48 after a battle with liver disease. Though his commercial success was modest in the US, he maintained a strong following in Japan and Australia.
Arthur Lee, singer and guitarist for psychedelic rock band Love, died of leukemia at 61. The group reached number 33 in the US with “7 and 7 Is” and number 52 with “My Little Red Book,” both in 1966.
A Los Angeles judge granted Katherine Jackson, Michael Jackson’s 79-year-old mother, permanent custody of her late son’s three children — 12-year-old Prince Michael, 10-year-old Paris Michael, and 7-year-old Prince Michael II. Their biological mother, Debbie Rowe, was granted visitation rights.
Singer-songwriter Bobby Hebb died of lung cancer at 72. Besides topping the Cashbox chart in 1966 with “Sunny,” he co-wrote Lou Rawls’s 1971 hit “A Natural Man.”
Stevie Wonder’s representatives confirmed he had filed for divorce, ending his ten-year marriage to Kai Millard Morris. The proceedings were filed under his birth name, Stevland Morris, and the divorce was finalized in October 2015, with a judge ordering him to pay $25,000 a month in child support. Wonder’s first marriage, to Syreeta Wright, had ended back in 1972.
