Pick a Day

Music History Events: Incidents

July 29, 1966 Bob Dylan gets in a motorcycle accident and pretty much disappears for nine months, leaving a void filled with rumors speculating on his condition. He clears things up in his 2004 autobiography, where he writes: "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race."

July 4, 1966 The Beatles play two shows in the Philippines, first in the afternoon to a crowd of 30,000, then in the evening to another 50,000. They fly to India the next day.

June 11, 1966 European radio is abuzz with rumors that Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, has been killed in an auto accident days earlier. In fact, guitarist Pete Townshend was in the wreck, but survived with minor injuries.

June 10, 1966 Steve Marriott of Small Faces collapses while performing on the British show Ready Steady Go!, forcing the band to cancel a week of shows.

June 6, 1966 Roy Orbison's wife Claudette dies when her motorcycle is hit by a truck. She and Roy had remarried two months earlier after reconciling from a divorce.

June 5, 1966 Gladys Presley, Elvis' mother, awakens suddenly in Memphis, convinced that her boy is in danger; at that moment, Elvis' first pink Cadillac catches on fire while en route from Fulton, Arkansas. Elvis is unharmed.

May 20, 1966 When John Entwistle and Keith Moon are late for a Who show at the Rikki Tik club in Newbury, England, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey go on with the opening act as their rhythm section. Entwistle and Moon show up halfway through, and after the show Moon announces that he and Entwistle are leaving to form a duo. All is well a week later when they patch things up.

April 9, 1966 Jeff Beck collapses on stage at a Yardbirds concert in France. Said their drummer Jim McCarty: "You never really quite knew what was going to happen with him."

March 19, 1966 Gary Leeds of The Walker Brothers is "abducted" by British students raising money for charity.

December 19, 1965 Keith Moon collapses during a Who concert in Ontario.

November 19, 1965 At the Glad Rags Ball in London, The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, storms off stage in the middle of a set plagued with PA problems. Rumors of a Who breakup spread quickly throughout London with most of them naming Boz Burrell (ofKing Crimson and Bad Company) as Daltrey's possible replacement.

October 23, 1964 J. Frank Wilson of the Cavaliers, who scored a huge teen-tragedy hit three years earlier with "Last Kiss," is badly injured in his own car crash near Lima, Ohio, one that unfortunately takes the life of the song's producer, Sonley Roush.

May 11, 1964 In an early sign of their tendency to disrupt authority, The Rolling Stones are refused service for lunch at Bristol, England's Grand Hotel because they're not properly dressed in jackets and ties. The next day, the Daily Express calls them "the ugliest group in Britain" and remarks, "The Rolling Stones gather no lunch."

September 13, 1963 Graham Nash of The Hollies falls out of their touring van after a Scottish gig, leaning on an unlocked door and tumbling out at 40 mph. Thirty-six years later to the day, he breaks both legs in a boat accident off the coast of Hawaii.

December 30, 1962 Eighteen-year-old Brenda Lee's house in Nashville catches fire and burns to the ground; Lee injures herself slightly rushing back into the house to save her poodle, Cee Cee, but the pet unfortunately dies later from smoke inhalation.

November 8, 1962 A bullet is fired at Motown's tour bus while traveling through Savannah, Georgia, but fortunately none of the (all African-American) stars are hurt.

April 22, 1962 Jerry Lee Lewis loses his first son, Steve Allen (named after the TV host and good friend), in a tragic drowning accident at the age of three.

June 14, 1961 After a performance at the Majestic Theatre in Newcastle, England, Gene Vincent is mobbed by admirers who accidentally push him down a flight of stairs, where he is knocked out.

November 21, 1960 George Harrison of The Beatles is deported back to England when authorities in Germany, where the band has been performing, learn he is just 17.

November 19, 1960 While in Los Angeles during the filming of his seventh movie, Wild In The Country, Elvis Presley suffers a bit of road rage, pulling a gun on a group of passengers in another car who had supposedly insulted him.

April 17, 1960 Gene Vincent is seriously injured in a Wiltshire, England, car crash in which Eddie Cochran dies.

March 13, 1959 An emergency plane landing in a South Bend, Indiana, field nearly kills The Kingston Trio's band members.

November 10, 1958 Lou Rawls, who is fronting a group called the Travelers, is badly injured in a car accident in Marion, Arkansas, that also involves Sam Cooke, who is headlining the tour. The driver, Edward Cunningham, dies in the accident.

October 26, 1958 The first rock concert in Germany is held in Berlin, and it doesn't go well, as agitated youth fight during a performance by Bill Haley and his Comets. By the time police clear the Berlin Sportpalast, where the concert is held, five policemen and six audience members are seriously injured.

July 15, 1958 John Lennon's mother, Julia, is killed when she's hit by a car driven by an off-duty police officer. Lennon, 17 at the time, later writes the songs "Julia" and "Mother" about her.

October 12, 1957 Little Richard renounces rock and embraces God, telling the crowd at his show in Sydney, Australia: "If you want to live for the Lord, you can't take rock 'n' roll, too. God doesn't like it." After the tour, Richard gives up secular music, gets ordained as a minister, and records Gospel. He doesn't return to rock until 1962.

November 2, 1956 A riot breaks out at Fats Domino's show in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with police resorting to tear gas to break up the unruly crowd. Fats jumps out of a window to avoid the melee; he and two other band members are slightly injured.

October 21, 1956 Elvis Presley visits his favorite local movie theater, the Memphian, and is beset by an adoring crowd who, in the ensuing melee, scratch his new Cadillac. Thus begins Elvis' new habit of renting the entire theater whenever he wants to watch a movie.

July 25, 1956 The Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria collides with the Swedish liner Stockholm, killing 52 instantly and sinking the Andrea Doria. On board is Mike Stoller, who becomes half of the famous Lieber-Stoller songwriting team.

July 7, 1956 A riot breaks out at a Fats Domino concert in San Jose, California, with twelve injured.