This Month In Rock and Roll History-April

April 7th 1956: Little Richards second hit single, "Long Tall Sally" enters the U.S. charts. Richard Penniman, aka "Little Richard", had been developing his "style" that seemed to be slyly obscene lyrics interspersed with complete gibberish and sung in a high-strung, almost maniacal fashion for some time, hitting the mark with his first single, "Tutti-Frutti" the year before. Blaming rock and roll for his struggles with his homosexuality, Richards has dropped in and out of rock and roll through out his career.

April 15th, 1966: The Rolling Stones release their first album consisting of Richards/Jagger penned original material. The album "Aftermath" was recorded in 7 days in Hollywood, California It included seminal Stones hits: Mothers Little Helper, Under My Thumb and Lady Jane.

April 16th, 1966: Van Morrison and Them have their first British and U.S. hit with "Gloria" (but not their own version!). A B-side release in Britain, the song became a solid hit in U.S. first. With its simple three-chord structure, it was an easy song to learn and became a staple of garage bands the world over. The Gants were the first band to cover the song but it was The Shadows of Knight's version that hit the charts in 1966 and made it to Number 10.
"'Gloria" has been covered by everyone from The Doors to Patti Smith.

April, 1977: The Stranglers, a punk/new wave band from Britain, score big with the song "Peaches" which rivaled The Sex Pistols 'God Save The Queen' at the time. The song contains perhaps one of the most recognizable bass lines in rock and roll. It become some nefarious for its explicit lyrics and the leering underlying tone of singer Hugh Cornwell giving a creepy feel to punk music, although it really didn't need any help at the time.

April 23, 1983: '"Come on Eileen" by Dexie's Midnight Runners, hits number #1 in both the U.S. and the U.K. I don't know if there's anything I can add to this other than the fact that the early to mid-eighties were a strange time in music.

April 1st, 1984: Rhythm and Blues / Soul superstar Marvin Gaye is murdered in his Los Angeles home by his father. Thoughout his career, Gaye exuded a cool and urbane style that hid his underlying torment. Apparently Gaye had been battling substance abuse, psychological problems and a huge tax bill as well as being haunted by memories of abuse from his father when Marvin was a child. These situations often led to violent arguments with his father who was also his business manager. It was one of these arguments that led to the shooting. His father escaped a murder charge when it was learned that he had a brain tumor. He was given six years probation on manslaughter charge for the shooting.

April 7th, 1998: George Michael was arrested following an incident at a public toilet in Beverly Hills, California. Tempted by what turned out to be an undercover police officer, Michaels was arrested and charged with "engaging in a lewd act". Although the legal consequences were nominal (a fine and some community service), the headlines were huge. Until his arrest, Michael was thought of as a hetero Lothario. To his credit, once "outed", Michael went on to a decent career as a solo artist.

April 29th, 2003: Apple unveils iTunes. Although Apple was slow on the uptake of the download music form that was popularized by Napster in the 1990's, Apple made it successful with the technology by the creation of the iPod, host computers and music archives. They also devised a very simple formula of 30 second samples for free and .99 cents per download.