May 11, 1981
Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital after a battle with cancer.
1974
Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Bonham attended an Elvis Presley concert in Los Angeles. Elvis, knowing they were in the crowd, famously stopped his band mid-song and joked:
"Wait a minute... we’ve got Led Zeppelin out there. Let’s try to look like we know what we’re doing!" The groups hung out for hours backstage afterward; apparently, Elvis even asked them for autographs for his daughter, Lisa Marie.
1964
The Rolling Stones were refused service at the Grand Hotel in Bristol because they weren’t wearing jackets and ties. The story was picked up by the Daily Express the next morning with the headline: "The Rolling Stones gather no lunch." The paper also took the opportunity to label them "the ugliest group in Britain." Mick Jagger later remarked that being called ugly was the best publicity they ever had because it made parents hate them instantly
1970
The triple-LP soundtrack to the Woodstock Festival was released on this day. It was a massive technical undertaking for the time. It went Gold within two weeks.
1972: John Lennon appeared on The Dick Cavett Show and publicly claimed the FBI was tapping his phones and following him. At the time, many thought he was being paranoid, but declassified files later proved he was 100% correct.
May 12, 1967: Pink Floyd staged the first-ever quadraphonic (surround sound) rock concert at Games for May in London.
May 14, 1976. Keith Relf—the former lead singer of The Yardbirds—died in his home at age 33, electrocuted while playing an electric guitar that wasn't properly grounded.
1960
The Silver Beats (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe, and Tommy Moore) performed at Lathom Hall in Liverpool. This was the only time they ever used that specific name. They changed it to the "Silver Beetles" the very next day. A poster with "Silver Beats" is the ultimate holy grail for collectors
May 17, 1965
After a 31-month investigation into whether the lyrics of The Kingsmen’s "Louie Louie" were obscene, the FBI officially closed its file on this day. The agents concluded that the song was "unintelligible at any speed." They had spent thousands of hours (and taxpayer dollars) playing the record at 33, 45, and 78 RPM to try and hear something dirty, only to give up.
1975
While preparing for the Stones’ 1975 North American tour, Mick Jagger tripped and fell inside a restaurant in Long Island. To break his fall, he accidentally put his hand through a plate-glass window, severing an artery. He required 20 stitches and nearly derailed the entire multimillion-dollar tour before it even started. He was back on stage just two weeks later, though he had to perform with a heavily bandaged hand.
