July 21, 1973: Jim Croce scored his first Number 1 song with "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown."
There really was a Leroy Brown. After Jim Croce got done with college, he signed up for the National Guard to avoid getting drafted and sent to Vietnam. At his South Carolina base, Croce met a Leroy Brown.
Jim Corce
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The two got along and liked singing together. But Leroy Brown didn’t much like the National Guard, so he went AWOL. Then, a week later, Leroy Brown came back, thinking he could pick up his paycheck, and he got himself arrested instead. That’s the story Croce told, anyway.
July 21, 1958: The Coasters' "Yakety Yak" hits Number 1.
“Yakety Yak” was a number 1 hit sung by The Coasters that landed on the 1958 R&B charts and the Top 100 pop hit list.
The Coasters
In the 1940s, the line between the rock and roll, and the rhythm and blues genre was somewhat blurred. The fact that there were fewer sub-genres and the instrumentation used between the two were very similar was a heavy contributing factor.
July 21, 1969: The Beatles began working on "Come Together" at Abbey Road Studios in London.
The John Lennon-penned ‘Come Together’ may have been a memorable opener for Abbey Road, but it was actually one of the last songs
The Beatles Abbey Road press shot
The Beatles would begin working on. Unlike the majority of the songs on the album, which had first been brought to the group during January’s “Get Back” sessions, ‘Come Together’ was written once Abbey Road was under way.
July 21,1973: Billboard listed it at number 4, but Cashbox magazine said that Three Dog Night's version of "Shambala" was the hottest selling single in the country.
"Shambala" is a song written by Daniel Moore and made famous by two near-simultaneous releases in 1973: the better-known but slightly later recording by Three Dog Night, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a version by B. W. Stevenson.
Three Dog Night
The well-known cover version of this song by the rock band Three Dog Night appeared in 1973 on the Billboard Hot 100.The song, the first one that the group had specifically cut as a single, rather than an album cut, later appeared on Cyan, Three Dog Night's ninth album, and subsequently on numerous anthologies and compilation albums.
July 21, 1984: Billy Idol's hit song, "Eyes Without A Face,' peaked at Number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Billy Idol’s single “Eyes Without a Face,” from his second album Rebel Yell, was his first Top Ten hit in the US and was his breakthrough solo single back home in the UK.
Billy Idol
Photo by Richard E. Aaron
A melodic ballad that opened with synth strings and percussion hand claps before evolving into a hard-edged rocker, “Eyes Without a Face” became known for its female chorus lyrics, which a lot of people couldn’t understand, like it was in a foreign language.
July 21,1987: Guns N' Roses release their first album, Appetite For Destruction. It's a landmark debut, featuring the hits "Welcome To The Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine."
In the 1980s, Los Angeles was a mecca for so-called “glam rock” bands and the “sex, drugs and rock and roll” lifestyle with which they came to be associated.
Guns N' Roses
On any given night inside clubs like the Troubadour and the Whisky a Go Go, you could not only hear bands like Hanoi Rocks and Mötley Crüe or, later, Winger and Warrant, but you could also witness an expression of that lifestyle as decadent as any the music world had seen.
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