This Day in Music History: Aretha records “Think,” Bad Brains release Rock for Light

1964 – Ringo Starr famously tells the other Beatles after a long day of filming their first movie that it’s been “a hard day’s night.” John Lennon turns the phrase into a song, and the movie title is changed from Beatlemania! to A Hard Day’s Night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3uMs-8xOnk

1968 – Aretha Franklin records “Think.”

1971 – The Beatles win their only Oscar, taking Best Original Song for their movie Let It Be.

1972 – Billy Joel plays a concert at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia which is broadcast by the local radio station WMMR. After the show, the station puts his performance of “Captain Jack” in rotation, and Joel builds a following. This leads to a contract with Columbia Records, which releases Joel’s breakthrough album, Piano Man, in 1973.

1983 – The Bad Brains’ second full-length release, Rock for Light, is released. Produced by The Cars’ Ric Ocasek, the album features both new compositions (the title track and “How Low Can a Punk Get?” among others), as well as re-recordings of tunes that originally appeared on the group’s debut (“Sailin’ On,” “Banned in D.C,” etc). Years later, Kurt Cobain lists Rock for Light as one of his all-time favorite records.

1996 – In San Francisco, CA, Jerry Garcia’s remaining ashes are scattered near the Golden Gate Bridge. A small portion of his ashes had been scattered in the Ganges River in India on April 4th.

2015 – The Who begins their 50th anniversary tour.

Birthdays

1894 : Bessie Smith

1942 : Allan Clarke (The Hollies)

1944 : Dave Edmunds

1968 : Ed O’Brien (Radiohead)

1978 : Chris Stapleton

Information for this post was gathered from This Day in Music, The Music History Calendar, On This Day, and Wikipedia.