Colonel Tom Parker on This Day in History

This day in History: Colonel Tom Parker was born on this day in 1909. Thomas Andrew Parker, commonly known as Colonel Parker, was a musical entrepreneur, best known for being Elvis Presley's manager.

Born in the Netherlands, Parker entered the United States illegally when he was 20 years old. He adopted a new name and claimed to have been born in the United States. A carnival worker by background, Parker moved into music promotion in 1938, working with one of the first popular crooners, Gene Austin, and then country music singers Eddy Arnold, Hank Snow, and Tommy Sands. He also assisted Jimmie Davis' campaign to become governor of Louisiana. As a reward, Davis gave him the honorary rank of "colonel" in the Louisiana State Militia.

Parker encountered Presley in 1955, and by 1956 had become his primary representative. With Parker's help, Presley signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, leading to his commercial breakthrough in 1956 with his sixth single "Heartbreak Hotel" and propelling him to become one of the most popular and commercially successful entertainers in the world.

"Parker is hated by the fans because he got 25%, then 50%, of Elvis’ income. But he brought Elvis to the attention of his audience. He gave Elvis the venue that made Elvis into an icon. There was no indication that Elvis would escape the country music circuit until Parker took over as manager in September, 1955." Source

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KISS on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Rock Band KISS had its start on this day in 1973. Bass guitarist Gene Klein and rhythm guitarist Stanley Eisen, members of the hard rock band Wicked Lester, introduced their reimagined format, wearing face makeup and playing before a group of 10 customers at the Popcorn Club, a bar located in Queens, New York City. Klein renamed himself Gene Simmons while Eisen became Paul Stanley. With drummer George Peter Criscuola (Peter Criss) and lead guitarist Paul "Ace" Frehley, the band played for the first time under the name KISS. The band was paid $50 for performing two sets that evening, following a cold-call Simmons had made to the venue, convincing them to hire the new band for a three-night stand.

The band's name has repeatedly been the subject of rumors pertaining to alleged hidden meanings. Among these rumors are theories that the name is an acronym for "Knights in Satan's Service", "Kinder SS", or "Kids in Satan's Service". Simmons has denied all of these claims.

Ace Frehley created the now-iconic logo, making the "SS" look like lightning bolts. The letters happened to look similar to the insignia of the Nazi SS, a symbol that is outlawed in Germany by Section 86a of the German criminal code. However, Simmons and Stanley, both Jewish, have denied any intentional likeness to Nazi symbolism in the logo. Since 1979, most of the band's album covers and merchandise in Germany have used a different logo, in which the letters "SS" look like the letters "ZZ" backwards. This logo is also used in Austria, Switzerland, Lithuania, Hungary and Israel to avoid controversy.

Kiss's first tour started on February 5, 1974, in Edmonton, Alberta, at the Jubilee Auditorium, as an opening act.

Kiss was strongly influenced by Alice Cooper and New York Dolls, while Gene Simmons has stated that the band's "musical heart and soul lies in England". The Beatles and the Yardbirds' trio of rock guitarists Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck were among the British acts he praised, with Simmons stating, "I've ripped off so many English riffs, if the British influence wasn't there, we wouldn't be here. 'Rock and Roll All Nite' is a direct bastard child of Slade's 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now'". In his book, Kiss and Make-Up, Simmons wrote of the glam rock group Slade, "... we liked the way they connected with the crowd and the way they wrote anthems ... we wanted that same energy, that same irresistible simplicity".

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Led Zeppelin's 4th album on This Day in History

 

This Day In History: Led Zeppelin's 4th album was released on this day in 1971. It has gone on to sell over 37 million copies worldwide.

Led Zeppelin has been such an influential band that some groups actually sound just like them. During the 80's one of these groups were Kingdom Come. The musical style on Kingdom Come's debut album was very close to the early blues-rock style of English rock band Led Zeppelin, to the point that some listeners initially thought that Kingdom Come was actually a Led Zeppelin reunion. With a sound that was thought by many to be highly derivative of Led Zeppelin's, there was a backlash from critics, with the band being dubbed "Kingdom Clone" in the press.

Kingdom Come - Get it On

The biggest band to be accused to copying Led Zeppelin was Whitesnake. Tracks like "Slow an' Easy", "Still of the Night" and "Judgement Day" have been accused of copying Led Zeppelin, while David Coverdale has been accused of imitating singer Robert Plant. Responding to the claims, Coverdale jokingly stated in 1987: "I guess it's quite a compliment to be placed in a class like that." The comparison was exacerbated when Coverdale teamed up with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page to release the album Coverdale–Page in 1993. In the press, Plant would refer to Coverdale as "David Cover-version". Coverdale denied any notion of plagiarism, stating: "I don't know how accurate the comparison is. People shouldn't forget that I worked in Deep Purple for a number of years, so my pedigree in hard rock is quite strong. I understand that bands like Whitesnake, Purple and Led Zeppelin all play a solid powerful brand of rock, but I don't think we're coming from the same place musically." Their bassist Neil Murray laid some of the blame on A&R executive John Kalodner, who he claimed began pushing Whitesnake in a more Led Zeppelin-like direction.

Whitesnake - Still of the Night

The latest band that sounds a lot like Led Zep is Greta Van Fleet. Even Robert Plant chimed in on them.

However, even Led Zeppelin has been accused to copying other bands. The iconic song “Stairway to Heaven” was part of an ongoing lawsuit. The band Spirit has claimed that the arpeggio opening is too similar to their 1968 song “Taurus.” "...a federal jury ruled in 2016 that Led Zeppelin’s song did not bear the burden of being 'virtually identical' to 'Spirit', as is the threshold for fairly common or simple chord progressions. This decision was then upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2020, and finally on October 5th, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the case." Source

Spirit vs Led Zeppelin

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The Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: A privately-chartered plane crashed in a swamp in Mississippi on this day in 1977, killing three members of rock music group Lynyrd Skynyrd: lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backup singer Cassie Gaines. Ronnie Van Zant repeatly told people that he would not live to see his 30th birthday. He was 29 years old when the plane crashed. Van Zant was laid to rest wearing his trademark Texas Hatters hat and his favorite fishing pole at his side.

Oh, and the best performance of Sweet Home Alabama is by the Leningrad Cowboys & the Russian Red Army Choir.

1977 was an exceptionally bad year for deaths. That was the year we also lost Elvis Presley, Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Bing Crosby, T. Rex’s Marc Bolan, Jean Hagen, Groucho Marx, Gummo [Milton] Marx, Freddie Prinze, opera star Maria Callas, novelist Vladimir Nabokov, filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, Paul Desmond (Dave Brubeck Quartet), Alan Reed (the voice of Fred Flinstone), Ernst Bloch, Sebastian Cabot, Guy Lombardo, Peter Finch, Matthew Garber, Rocket Scientist Wernher von Braun, and Diana Hyland.

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The Buddy Holly Story on This Day in History

 

This Day in History:  The Buddy Holly Story starring Gary Busey opened on this day in 1978. It's a great movie that still holds up. Busey actually sang his own songs here and Rollingstone picked this movie as one of the ten best Rock biopics of all time. Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The heart and soul and power of 'The Buddy Holly Story' is the uncanny, marrow-deep, robust, exhilarating, likable, superlative, overwhelmingly convincing portrayal by Gary Busey ... For once there is no lip-synching to someone else's voice, no feigning with the fingers to somebody else's strumming. Busey does it all himself, and it is one of those rare and stunning performances in which the person of the actor himself is totally lost to sight in his creation of someone else."

Other top tock biopics according to Rollingstone are: The Doors, Ray, Walk the Line and 'What's Love Got to Do With It'

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Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Bill Haley & His Comets released "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts on this day [May 10] in 1954. The recording is widely considered to be the song that, more than any other, brought rock and roll into mainstream culture around the world. 

The verse melody of "Rock Around the Clock" bears a very close similarity to that of Hank Williams' first hit, "Move It On Over", from 1947. Williams' song was very similar to Charley Patton's "Going to Move to Alabama", recorded in 1929 – which itself was at least partly derived from Jim Jackson's "Kansas City Blues" from 1927. The song also uses phrases from Count Basie's "Red Wagon", first recorded in 1939.

"Rock Around the Clock" was first issued in May 1954 as a B-side to "Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)". While the song did make the American Cashbox music charts (contrary to popular opinion that it was a flop), it was considered a commercial disappointment. It was not until 1955, when "Rock Around the Clock" was used under the opening credits of the film Blackboard Jungle, that the song truly took off.

"Rock Around the Clock" became wildly popular with teenagers around the world. Pink Floyd's David Gilmour stated, "It's very hard to tell what made me first decide to play the guitar. Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley came out when I was ten, and that probably had something to do with it."

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Rocker Jim Steinman on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Jim Steinman died on this day (April 19) in 2021. Steinman was an American composer, lyricist and record producer, and his works include albums such as Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell (one of the best-selling albums in history) and Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and producing albums for Bonnie Tyler.

His songs were over-produced and over the top, which is why people loved them. Steinman once stated, "If you don't go over the top, you can't see what's on the other side." A bio on his website calls him "The Lord of Excess," and notes that the L.A. Times once referred to him as "the Richard Wagner of rock." 

His most successful chart singles include Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All", Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)", the Sisters of Mercy's "This Corrosion" and "More", Barry Manilow's "Read 'Em and Weep"and Celine Dion's cover of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now."

Despite the success of Bat Out Of Hell, they had a hard time getting signed by a record label. According to Meat Loaf's autobiography, the band spent most of 1975, and two-and-a-half years, auditioning Bat Out of Hell and being rejected. CBS executive Clive Davis even claimed that Steinman knew nothing about writing, or rock music in general. After numerous further rejections, the album was released by Cleveland International Records in October 1977. The album was an immediate success in Australia and the United Kingdom, and later in the United States. Reports vary as to how many copies of the album have been sold, but in 2007, Cleveland International Records founder Steve Popovich said that it was around 40 million copies. The highest-charting song from the album was "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad", which reached No. 11 on the Billboard Charts.

His song for Bonnie Tyler "Holding Out For a Hero" was covered by 49 artists, and Total Eclipse of the Heart was covered by 76. 

For 3 straight weeks in 1983, Jim was responsible for the #1 and #2 songs on the Billboard charts.