This Month in Rock and Roll - March

This Month In Rock and Roll – March

By Hunter60

March, 1958: Buddy Holly's debut album "Buddy Holly' is released. Well, technically, it was Buddy's debut album, although an album by The Crickets (his band) titled "The Chirping Crickets" had been released in November 1957 including the vocals of … Buddy Holly. The reasons were, as you might expect, a way to avoid recording contract entanglements. In 1956, Buddy had been signed to a recording contract by Decca Records. Holly and the band went to Nashville to record three sessions for Decca and the record released from these sessions failed to make the mark. At the end of his contract, Holly was informed that he was not being re-signed but a condition was placed in the contract that said 'he' could not record for anyone else for five years. In 1957, The Crickets were signed to Brunswick records and Buddy signed as a solo artist during the same time to a Decca subsidiary, Coral Records giving Holly the unique status of having two recording contracts at the same time. In May of 1957, 'That'll Be The Day' was released under the name of The Crickets in an attempt to avoid Decca's legal claim to Holly. Once the song became a hit, Decca backed off of Holly and in a very strange turn of events, 'The Chirping Crickets' album (featuring Buddy Holly) was released in November 1957 and 'Buddy Holly' was released in March 1958. In essence, Buddy Holly had two debut albums on the charts at the same time. It was a very important moment in rock history as Buddy Holly set the stage and provided one of the main influences for rock pioneers The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys.

March 5th, 1963: Country music star Patsy Cline dies in plane crash. On March 3rd, 1963, Patsy Cline played a benefit in Kansas City for local DJ "Cactus" Jack Call who had died in a car accident. She intended to fly back to Nashville in her managers plane the following day but heavy storms postponed the flight until the 5th. Early in the afternoon, Patsy, her manager (who was also the pilot) Randy Hughes and two fellow performers, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas boarded Hugh's Piper Commanche and took off for Nashville. They stopped for fuel in Dryersburg, Tennessee and grabbed a bite to eat. Hughes called home to Nashville where he told his wife that the weather was 'fine' and they took off again. Flying without instruments Hughes didn't know that the weather in Dryersburg was 'fine' because they were in the eye of the storm. Hughes was not instrument trained and when he hit the storm, he lost control, the plane went into a nosedive and crashed five miles west of Camden, Tennessee killing all on board. To further add to the tragedy, country star Jack Anglin died in a car accident on his way to Patsy Clines funeral. There had been a myth attached to her death for years – the rumor had been that she was due to record a song titled 'Blue' in her next session and the song remained unrecorded by anyone for years because of the fear that the song had somehow been cursed; at least until Lee Ann Rimes recorded it without incident in 1996.

March 24, 1971: Marc Bolan of T-Rex inadvertently invents Glam Rock at Top Of The Pops. At this point in his career, Marc Bolan of T-Rex was practically sitting on top of the world. His band T-Rex was appearing on Top Of The Pops to perform their new number one hit "Hot Love." Wearing his new gold jacket and white hip huggers, Bolan was ready to walk onto the stage when he was stopped by publicist Chelita Secunda, a friend of Bolan's wife June. She looked him over and said "One more thing…" and she applied some eye shadow to Bolan and then added some glitter and tiny gold teardrops to his cheeks. Not that a musician wearing make up on stage was anything new but this was different and bold. Bolan looked, well, glamorous. The make up coupled with his loose, shoulder length curls gave him a totally different look and by the end of that performance "glam rock" was born. And it became something that, despite its best efforts, rock and roll couldn't shake for a couple of decades.

March 24th, 1973: Pink Floyd releases "Dark Side Of The Moon". By the time Floyd released their 6th album, they were firmly entrenched as the Godfathers of spacey progressive rock. When their early leader Syd Barrett had been removed from the band, the group began to move into even more experimental areas of psychedelic pop turning out lengthy instrumental compositions. They had scored well in their native England with their fourth disc, "Atom Heart Mother" and their fifth album, "Meddle", made it into the top three. But it was number six, "Dark Side Of The Moon", that shot them to the absolute top of the progressive rock game where they stayed for several decades. In England it charted for 367 weeks but in the United States, it charted for a record setting 741 weeks and it would probably still be there had Billboard not altered the rules for older releases. The reason "Dark Side Of The Moon" did so well seems to be that Floyd had learned a thing or two from their early days by incorporating their signature dream-like psychic soundtrack into shorter, catchy songs with imaginative lyrics that spoke of the very soul of the human existence. It was a magical formula that moved a band from the fringe of the rock and roll sound to the very heart of it.

March 9, 1987: U2 releases their watershed album "The Joshua Tree". Following their appearance at LiveAid (and their subsequent agony about the fact that appearing at a benefit for hunger helped make them more famous), vocalist Bono and his wife spent some time working in a charity camp in Ethopia. It was there that the images, attitudes and feelings melded into the underlying theme of "The Joshua Tree". Produced by Brian Eno, the album showcased the brilliant playing of guitarist The Edge, the driving bass of Adam Clayton and the steady and shattering drumming of Larry Mullen all served as a perfect backdrop to the steadily maturing songwriting and heartfelt vocals of Bono. Bono has said that 'The Joshua Tree" was written as a 'tribute' to America but many felt that it was more a metaphor with Bono turning his pen on to America, it's excesses and its disregard for the millions of starving world-wide citizenry. "The Joshua Tree" is often cited by most critics as being the greatest rock and roll record ever made and it was the disc that took a rather promising band and turned them into one of the greatest rock and roll acts of all time.

Notable March Birthdays:

March 1, 1944: Roger Daltry

March 2, 1962: Jon Bon Jovi

March 2, 1948: Rory Gallagher

March 4, 1950: Billy Gibbons

March 6, 1946: David Gilmour

March 7, 1944: Townes Van Zandt

March 9, 1945: Robin Trower

March 10, 1966: Edie Brickell

March 10, 1950: Tom Scholz

March 13, 1960: Adam Clayton

March 13, 1912: Lightnin' Hopkins

March 15, 1944: Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart

March 15, 1947: Ry Cooder

March 18, 1966: Jerry Cantrell

March 20, 1951: Jimmie Vaughn

March 22, 1943: George Benson

March 25, 1966: Jeff Healey

March 30, 1945: Eric Clapton

March 31, 1955: Angus Young