This Day in Music History: December 4

December 4, 2016

We cover all sorts of news, facts and historical and interesting facts that happened on this day in music history.

 

Today: December 4.

 

1956: The so-called 'Million Dollar Quartet' impromptu jam session took place at Sun Studios in Memphis. They were: Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

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1962: The Beatles made their London-area debut on television. They appeared in a live broadcast from Wembley on Tuesday Rendezvous, on ITV station Rediffusion. The band members performed live, yet doing lip-sync performances of the songs 'Love Me Do' and 45 seconds of ‘P.S. I Love You.’

 

1964: The Beatles released 'Beatles For Sale', their fourth album. It featured the songs: ‘No Reply’, ‘I'm a Loser’, ‘Baby's in Black’, ‘Rock and Roll Music’, ‘I'll Follow the Sun’, ‘Mr. Moonlight’, ‘Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey’, ‘Eight Days a Week’, ‘Words of Love’, ‘Honey Don't’, ‘Every Little Thing’, ‘I Don't Want to Spoil the Party’, ‘What You're Doing’, and ‘Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby’. It topped the UK album chart for 11 weeks.

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1971: The Montreux Casino in Switzerland burnt to the ground during a show by Frank Zappa. The incident is immortalized by Deep Purple's song 'Smoke On The Water'. In 1967, this Casino became the venue for the Montreux Jazz Festival, which was the brainchild of music promoter Claude Nobs. On the night of the fire, Nobs saved several young people who thought they would find shelter from the flames by hiding in the casino. A recording of the outbreak and fire announcement can be found on a Frank Zappa Bootleg album titled 'Swiss Cheese / Fire'.

 

1971: Led Zeppelin started a two-week run at the top of the UK album chart with the 'Four Symbols' album, otherwise known as 'Led Zeppelin IV'. The album also features the 8-minute track 'Stairway To Heaven'. It stayed on the US album chart for one week short of five years, and sold over 23 million copies in the US alone.

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1971: T Rex scored their first No.1 album with their 6th release 'Electric Warrior'. This album became the biggest seller of the year in the UK and contained two of the band's most popular songs: 'Get It On' and 'Jeepster.'

 

1976: American guitarist, Tommy Bolin, died from a heroin overdose at the age of 25, the day after opening a show for Jeff Beck in Miami, Florida. He was a member of Zephyr (1969 to 1971), The James Gang (1973 to 1974) and Deep Purple (1975 to 1976).

 

1988: Roy Orbison played his final ever concert, when he appeared in Cleveland, Ohio. He died two days later of a heart attack.

 

1993: Frank Zappa, who was a multi-instrumentalist, producer and, composer, died of prostate cancer. He recorded many albums with The Mothers Of Invention as well solo recordings including the 1969 album 'Hot Rats' and the 1974 album 'Apostrophe'. Frank Zappa recorded one of the first concept albums, 'Freak Out' which was released in 1966. This album was one of the earliest double albums in rock music (although Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde preceded it by a week). Zappa married Adelaide Gail Sloatman, in 1967 and the two had four children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen.

 

Think we left some interesting fact out? You have anything to add? Is there anything else worth mentioning that happened on this day in music history? Write us in the comments below.

 

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