Super Seventies RockSite's Seventies Daily Music Chronicle

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April 1971

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  1
Six months after his death, Jimi Hendrix's The Cry of Love goes gold. It is the last LP on which the guitarist was a willing participant, and it might have gone higher than its top spot of #3 had it not been for an LP by another deceased rock star, Pearl, by Janis Joplin.
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The Top Five
1. "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" - Temptations
2. "Me and Bobby McGee" - Janis Joplin
3. "For All We Know" - Carpenters
4. "She's a Lady" - Tom Jones
5. "What's Going On" - Marvin Gaye

4
CBS's Hogan's Heroes is canceled after six seasons, seven years before the death of its star, Bob Crane.
5
As reported by the New York Times, the New School for Social Research in New York City is one of the first -- if not the first -- institution to offer a course on rock & roll music.
6
Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, the most influential classical composer of his generation, dies.
7
Despite urging by Congress and the public to officially end the war in Vietnam, President Nixon appears on TV and claims that announcing a complete withdrawal date of U.S. forces would aid Hanoi's war effort.
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10
When a Minneapolis audience flocks to the Cafe Extraordinaire to see drummer Buddy Miles, only to find a rotund Miles imposter in his place, they initiate a small riot. Total damages: $50,000.
11
Americans delight to front-page coverage of the US ping-pong team in a country they've heard or seen little about -- Red China (later known as the People's Republic of China). The team visits the Great Wall, Summer Palace, and other ancient sites, and loses all its matches, but gracefully.
12
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's live Four-Way Street is certified gold even before it hits the LP chart. The double-record set -- half acoustic, half electric -- makes Number One, giving the quartet the distinction of two Number One albums in two tries (1970's Déjà Vu also went to the top). It is also the last LP the four will record together, although CS&N will reunite to record and tour in 1977 and 1982, and Young will briefly rejoin again for the 1988 CSN&Y album American Dream.
13
The Rolling Stones release "Brown Sugar," the first record on their own label, Rolling Stones Records, introducing the infamous licking-tongue- and-lips logo. On May 29, the song becomes the group's sixth U.S. Number One single.
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Listening to This Music May Be Hazardous to Your Health. Rolling Stone reports that the Illinois Crime Commission has issued a list of "drug-oriented rock records." Included are "Let's Go Get Stoned," "A Whiter Shade of Pale," "Hi-De-Ho (That Old Sweet Roll)" and "White Rabbit." Topping the list with three subversive entries are the Beatles: "With a Little Help from My Friends," "Yellow Submarine" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which John Lennon claims was inspired by a painting by his son Julian. Most ironic of all: the inclusion of "Puff the Magic Dragon," which was awarded a Grammy for Best Record for Children in 1964.

Patton marches to the top of the Academy of Motion Pictures heap, claiming seven Oscars, including Best Actor, Picture and Director, while Glenda Jackson grabs Best Actress for Women in Love. The most famous no-show tonight is Patton star and best actor winner George C. Scott, who has already tried, unsuccessfully, to rescind his nomination. On this night, he's back in his apartment in New York, reportedly watching a hockey game on TV. Also absent is Jackson, who is home in London, and best supporting actress winner Helen Hayes (for Airport), who is doing a play in Washington, D.C.

16
The Rolling Stones hold an informal celebration in Cannes, France, to mark the formation of their label, Rolling Stones Records.
17
Carly Simon's mesmerizing "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" charts, eventually reaching #10. It will become the first of 23 hits through 1989 for the New York City-born daughter of one of the cofounders of the Simon & Schuster publishing empire.

The Top Five
1. "Joy to the World" - Three Dog Night
2. "What's Going On" - Marvin Gaye
3. "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" - Temptations
4. "She's a Lady" - Tom Jones
5. "Another Day"/"Oh Woman Oh Why" - Paul McCartney

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The Supreme Court upholds the validity of busing and redistricting as means for integrating schools, opening the door for years of protest to follow.
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Decca Records, the Rolling Stones' previous label, releases an LP titled Stone Age, comprised of old Stones catalog material like covers of Chuck Berry's "Around and Around," and several Jagger-Richards tunes. Last month, the Rolling Stones had placed an ad in the British music papers that read: "Re: The Decca LP Stone Age: We didn't know this record was going to be released. It is, in our opinion, below the standard we try to keep up, both in choice of content and cover design." The statement was signed by all five members of the group.
24
Bill Wyman describes the Rolling Stones' sixteenth LP, Sticky Fingers, as a move "back with the blues that made us."

Over 200,000 antiwar protesters march through Washington, D.C. (and other cities) to rally support for ending the U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia. Protests continue a week later in the nation's capital, as 30,000 people gather on the banks of the Potomac, and a record 7,000 are arrested as they try to disrupt traffic.

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Baseball player Curt Flood, who sacrificed his career to test the legality of the game's reserve clause (which keeps players beholden to the teams that originally signed them), retires after sitting out the 1970 season during his legal battle. The Supreme Court eventually rules in favor of baseball on a technicality. Targeted for his groundbreaking stance, Flood is vindicated in 1975 when the clause is struck down, leading to a new era of free agency.
28
Barbra Streisand gets a gold album for Stoney End, one of her rare forays into rock music. That album, along with 1969's What about Today?, featured material by such writers as John Lennon, Randy Newman, Paul Simon and Carole King. At twenty-eight, Streisand seems intent on changing her image ("The Jeaning of Barbra Streisand" is how Rolling Stone titles a 1971 piece on the singer), and even takes to lighting joints onstage in Las Vegas.
29
The U.S. death toll in Indochina crests at 45,019, a total exceeded only in World Wars I and II.
30
The New York Times reports that Bill Graham plans to close the Fillmore East, New York City's rock music mecca since 1968. Although the volatile Graham has issued similar declarations before, this time he's serious. The former movie theater is set to shut down in late May.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar leads the Milwaukee Bucks in their domination over the Baltimore Bullets to capture the NBA championship.

 

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