Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
1
3
4
Jefferson Starship
receive a platinum record for
Earth,
what will be their last LP with
Grace Slick
and
Marty Balin
. Just a few weeks later, both will be gone, and leader
Paul Kantner
will be forced to revamp the entire band, eventually taking on singer
Mickey Thomas
and drummer
Aynsley Dunbar
.
5
In a converted gas station at the corner of St. Paul and College Streets in Burlington, Vermont, Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream begins dishing it out. Scraping up $12,000, longtime pals Ben Cohen
and Jerry Greenfield
begin making their rich, dense ice cream with quirky names like Chunky Monkey and Dastardly Mash, later paying tribute to Grateful Dead
frontman Jerry Garcia
with Cherry Garcia. The original store goes under in 1982, but by then Ben & Jerry's is already a profitable force for social change and environmental responsibility.
6
At a joint news conference at United Nations headquarters in New York City with TV talk-show host
David Frost
and RSO Records chief
Robert Stigwood
, the
Bee Gees
announce the launching of a unique concept: Music for UNICEF benefit concerts by major rock and pop music stars.
7
The 90,000 tickets on sale for
Bob Dylan
's upcoming concerts at London's Wembley Empire Pool sell out in less than eight hours.
After Rolling Stone
magazine takes especial pleasure in mentioning, several times, that the Eagles
had lost a softball game to a team led by rock impresario Bill Graham
, the band challenges the scribes to a game. If the Eagles lose, they'll grant an interview. Intensely competitive publisher Jann Wenner
puts his team through several weeks of rigorous practices, but to no avail: today the Eagles beat the "Stones" at USC. For the rock rag, it's gonna be a heartache tonight, but no interview.
8
9
Lead singer
Fee Waybill
of the
Tubes
falls off the stage during a concert in England and breaks his leg.
The corpse of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro
is found in the trunk of a Renault 4 in Via Caetani, in the historic centre of Rome, after 55 days of imprisonment. After being kidnapped by a group of Red Brigades terrorists on March 16, Moro was submitted to a political process and the Italian government was asked for an exchange of prisoners. Later a plaque will be erected in the location where his body was found commemorating the Christian Democratic statesman.
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14
Bianca Jagger
files for divorce from Mick
.
15
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17 Lou Reed
begins a week-long series of concerts at the Bottom Line club in New York City, portions of which are recorded for his forthcoming live album,
Take No Prisoners.
The highlight of the album is an extended verbal rap in which Reed castigates rock critics like
Robert Cristgau
of the
Village Voice
and
John Rockwell
of the
New York Times.
Thank God It's Friday,
the cinematic celebration of disco that is Casablanca Records chief
Neil Bogart
's response to
Saturday Night Fever,
premieres in Los Angeles. Directed by
Robert Klane
and set in a "typical" Hollywood disco on a "typical" Friday night, the film stars
Donna Summer
as a singer looking for her big break, and introduces her hit song "The Last Dance," which goes on to top the pop chart and wins the 1978 Academy Award for Best Song. The film also stars
Paul Jabra
and the
Commodores
, and its soundtrack features
Diana Ross
, the
Village People
and others. Despite all this, the film will be a resounding flop.
18 The Buddy Holly Story,
a film directed by
Steve Rash
and starring
Gary Busey
as Holly, has its world premiere in Dallas, Texas. The film will be a critical and commercial success, with Busey -- who sings such Holly classics as "That'll Be the Day," "Maybe Baby," "Peggy Sue," "Rave On" and "It's So Easy" -- being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Midnight Express,
a film based on American tourist Billy Hayes
's book about his hellish five year stay in a Turkish prison for drug smuggling and his eventual escape, is shown to an audience of world press at the Cannes Film Festival. Forty-three days later the United States and Turkey will enter into formal negotiations for the exchange of prisoners.
19
Italy passes a new abortion law allowing doctors to refuse the procedure that angers feminists, however it is not expected to reduce illegal abortions significantly.
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24 Heavy metal is dead and buried -- or so they say. In blacklit basements everywhere, though, copies of
Black Sabbath
's
Paranoid
are still spun at wall-shattering volume.
Van Halen
, a young bar band-cum- heavy-rock group from Pasadena, score their first time out with
Van Halen.
But the band differs from early Seventies hard-rock groups; its songs offer a surprising degree of melody, topped with
Hollies
-like harmonies. And then there's
Eddie Van Halen
, whom lead vocalist
David Lee Roth
calls "the first guitar hero of the Eighties." Many agree. The album goes gold on this date.
25 The
Who
perform a second "secret" concert in London to be filmed for their documentary movie on the band's career,
The Kids Are Alright.
This is Keith Moon's last performance with the band before his death.
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30 Swan Song Records announces that
Led Zeppelin
have entered a recording studio for the first time since the death of
Robert Plant
's son in July 1977. The sessions will result in the band's final album, 1979's
In through the Out Door.
31
One of the biggest disco hits of the year belongs to the
Trammps
: "Disco Inferno" (#11). Their
Disco Inferno
LP does just as well, turning gold on this date.