#1R&B Song 1952: “5-10-15 Hours,” Ruth Brown
Born: James Brown, 1933
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1947 Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra charted with “Hawk’s Boogie,” reaching #2 R&B. The bandleader, composer, and trumpet player from Birmingham, AL, reached the R&B hit list twelve times between 1942 and 1950.
1950 Muddy Waters, recently signed to Chess Records of Chicago, had his first single for them, the venerable “Rolling Stone.” Though it did not chart, the recording became well known among musicians and made its way across the Atlantic to the blues-hungry British rock ‘n’ rollers of the ’60s. In fact, one act went so far as to name themselves after the song, as well as a hattip from a certain famous American folk singer.
1959 Florence Greenberg, a Passaic, NJ, housewife who discovered the Shirelles, opened her own Scepter Records in New York and signed the girls after they charted on Decca with “I Met Him ona Sunday.” The Shirelles would go on to have twenty-five more pop hits and twenty R&B charters all on Scepter, which would also become the home of Dionne Warwick and Chuck Jackson.
1963 The Drifters, Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, the Crystals, Jerry Butler, Little Esther, Dee Clark, and Solomon Burke performed at Pittsburgh’s Syria Mosque.
1969 Jimi Hendrix was arrested at Toronto International Airport in Toronto, Canada, for possessing heroin. He was later released on $10,000 bail.
1980 Larry Graham charted with “One in a Million You,” reaching #1 R&B and #9 pop for his biggest solo hit. Graham had formerly been a member of Sly & the Family Stone and later, Graham Central Station.
1997 Michael Jackson went to visit his concert promoter Marcel Avram. That was nothing unusual except for the fact that Avram was in Stadelheim Prison in Munich, Germany, at the time on charges of tax evasion.
Ann
