Pick a Day

Music History Events: Recordings

April 11, 1956 Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps record "Be-Bop-a-Lula."

April 2, 1956 Johnny Cash records "I Walk The Line" at Sun Studio in Memphis. His label boss, Sam Phillips, has him speed up the tempo, which is a good call: The song becomes Cash's first #1 Country hit.

February 19, 1956 The Platters record "Magic Touch."

February 12, 1956 "Screamin'" Jay Hawkins records "I Put A Spell On You."

February 10, 1956 Little Richard records "Long Tall Sally."

January 30, 1956 Billy Lee Riley records "Red Hot."

January 30, 1956 Elvis Presley records "Blue Suede Shoes," "My Baby Left Me," "One-Sided Love Affair," and "So Glad You're Mine."

December 23, 1955 Fats Domino records "My Blue Heaven" at J&M Studios in New Orleans.

December 19, 1955 Carl Perkins records "Blue Suede Shoes" two days after writing the song.

December 12, 1955 Bill Haley and His Comets record "See You Later Alligator."

November 9, 1955 The Everly Brothers, recently signed to Columbia as a country act, cut their first tracks in a studio lodged in Nashville's Old Tulane Hotel. The four recordings, which take only 22 minutes to lay down, yield no hits, and the duo is soon dropped from the label.

November 1, 1955 James Brown's group The Famous Flames record "Please Please Please" at the radio station WIBB in Macon, Georgia.

October 20, 1955 Harry Belafonte records "The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)."

September 28, 1955 Louis Armstrong records "Mack the Knife," a song from the play The Threepenny Opera. Armstrong is the first to chart with a vocal version of the song; in 1959, Bobby Darin takes it to #1.

September 14, 1955 Little Richard records "Tutti Frutti" in New Orleans for Specialty Records. Originally "Tutti Frutti, Good Booty," a female lyricist at the label rewrites it to take out the prurient references.

May 21, 1955 Chuck Berry records his first single, "Maybellene," at Chess Records in Chicago.

March 17, 1955 Sarah Vaughan records "Whatever Lola Wants."

March 15, 1955 Fats Domino records "Ain't That A Shame" at Master Recorders in Los Angeles.

March 2, 1955 Bo Diddley records "Bo Diddley" and "I'm A Man."

December 16, 1954 Bill Hayes records "The Ballad of Davy Crockett."

November 6, 1954 Elvis Presley, who has been playing a radio concert show called the Louisiana Hayride, records a radio commercial for Southern Maid Doughnuts, who sponsors the show. It was the only commercial he ever recorded and was not false advertising: He really did love those hot donuts.

October 20, 1954 LaVern Baker records "Tweedle Dee."

September 24, 1954 Sarah Vaughan records "Make Yourself Comfortable."

August 23, 1954 Perez Prado records "Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White."

July 5, 1954 Elvis Presley makes his first professional recording, putting down "That's All Right" at Sun Studio in Memphis.

April 12, 1954 At his first session for Decca Records, Bill Haley records "Rock Around The Clock" and "Thirteen Women" (a post-nuclear song that was originally the A-side of the single).

March 15, 1954 The Chords record "Sh-Boom."

February 15, 1954 Big Joe Turner records one of the first rock songs, "Shake, Rattle And Roll," at Atlantic Records studios in New York.

February 4, 1954 The Drifters record "Bells Of Saint Mary's," "White Christmas," "Honey Love," and "What'cha Gonna Do."

January 7, 1954 Muddy Waters records "Hoochie Coochie Man" at Chess Records in Chicago. It becomes a blues standard, with a feral energy that influences a new sound that's emerging: rock and roll.