March 15, 1975: Led Zeppelin hit No. 1 with Physical Graffiti, the first album released on their own Swan Song label.
March 15 is Phil Lesh’s birthday in 1940 he’d have been 86. Went on to try and record 'thick air'. Drugs may have been involved.
1972: In one of the strangest radio stunts ever, DJ Robert W. Morgan at KHJ in Los Angeles played Donny Osmond’s "Puppy Love" for 90 minutes straight. Terrified listeners called the LAPD, convinced the station had been taken over by terrorists or that the DJ had suffered a breakdown. The police actually raided the studio with guns drawn, only to find Morgan calmly spinning the record for the 30th time. He was not arrested, but the station's phone lines were jammed for days.
March 16, 1968: Jimi Hendrix was officially crowned "the most spectacular guitarist in the world" by LIFE magazine.
March 20, 1986: After being shelved for 12 years, Phil Lesh finally brought "Box of Rain" back to the live stage at the Hampton Coliseum. The crowd’s reaction was so deafening it nearly drowned out the opening chords. It stayed a staple from that moment until the very end in 1995.
March 21, 1952: The Moondog Coronation Ball was held in Cleveland. Organized by DJ Alan Freed, it is widely considered the first ever rock and roll concert, though it was shut down by police after just one song due to overcrowding.
1987: U2 released The Joshua Tree. It became the fastest-selling album in UK history at the time and the first to sell over a million copies on CD.
1976: After a show in Rochester, New York, David Bowie and Iggy Pop were arrested in their hotel room for possession of about 182 grams of marijuana. The resulting mugshot of Bowie is widely considered one of the "coolest" in history—he looked more like he was posing for an album cover than a booking photo. All charges were eventually dropped, but Bowie never performed in Rochester again.
1943: Birthday of Vivian Stanshall, the frontman of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
photo binkle_28
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