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1
Former
Soft Machine
drummer
Robert Wyatt
is seriously injured in England when he attempts to leave a party by climbing down a drainpipe and falls three stories, breaking his spine. Although Wyatt is permanently crippled, confined to a wheelchair and unable to drum, he will continue making music as a solo artist.
3
4
Murray Wilson
, father of
Beach Boys Brian, Carl
and
Dennis
, and the group's original manager-producer, dies of a heart attack in Whittier, California, at age fifty-five. The Wilson brothers often spoke of their father as a stern disciplinarian. The elder Wilson also loved music, and in fact had released his own instrumental record in 1967,
The Many Moods of Murray Wilson.
5
6 Soul singer Curtis Mayfield
, after leaving his group The Impressions
, has two solo albums certified gold today: 1970's Curtis,
on which he experimented with longer jams, and his latest effort, Back to the World,
which finds him taking a cue from Marvin Gaye
's What's Going On
and focusing on socially conscious funk. Mayfield's biggest success, 1972's Superfly,
has already been certified gold on Sept. 9, 1972, just two months after its release.
7
Rolling Stone
reports -- a bit prematurely -- that
John David Souther, Chris Hillman
and
Richie Furay
are about to form a sort of country-rock supergroup. Only problem is, Furay hasn't yet told the members of his band,
Poco
, and denies the story (which eventually turns out to be true).
8
9
Winning the Belmont Stakes, thoroughbred racehorse Secretariat claims the first triple crown since 1948, only the ninth horse ever to do so. Secretariat leads the way for two other Triple Crown winners in the 1970s: Seattle Slew in 1977, and Affirmed in 1978. Secretariat also posts the highest non-human ranking on ESPN's Top 100 Atheletes of the Twentieth Century list, coming in at No. 35 just ahead of basketball's Big O, Oscar Robertson
. After a 37-year drought, American Pharoah [sic] finally becomes the 12th triple crown winner in 2015.
10
11
12 Just after giving his first interview since his infamous snubbing of the Oscar for The Godfather
on Dick Cavett
's talk show, Marlon Brando
slugs paparazzi photographer Ron Galella
as the notoriously private actor strolls through New York's Chinatown with Cavett. Brando's punch breaks Galella's jaw and requires nine stitches to close a cut lower lip. "Brando's upset about the mistreatment of Indians. What about the mistreatment of photographers?" says Galella. But there's little public sympathy for for the celeb shutterbug, who was recently ordered by a judge to keep a distance from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
and her children after he "relentlessly invaded" their privacy near their home in Greece.
13
After months of bombing, ground attacks, refusals to allow inspectors into POW camps and other cease-fire violations on both sides, the U.S., North and South Vietnam and the Viet Cong sign new agreements in Paris. Nonetheless, air strikes and fighting continue.
14
15 The film American Graffiti
, with its classic rock 'n' roll soundtrack, opens in New York.
16
17
Joe Salyers
, 40, business manager for
Three Dog Night, Steppenwolf
and
Black Oak Arkansas
, is shot in the arm after a confrontation with two strangers in his West Hollywood apartment building. Cause of the attack is unknown.
19
Hockey legend Gordie Howe
skates out of retirement to sign with the World Hockey Association's Houston Aeros. His primary motivation, beside the money, is to play alongside sons Mark and Marty, but even wife Colleen gets a job as an amateur hockey consultant. Struggling for recognition, fans, and box-office dollars, the Aeros sign the NHL's most prolific scorer to a four-year, $1 million contract, after Howe turns down a last-ditch offer from the NHL to serve as a roving public relations ambassador for $500,000. The rejuvenated Howe, 45, plays for another seven years and eventually retires with a record 1,071 goals and 1,518 assists.
20
Dick Clark
's
American Bandstand
celebrates its twentieth with a TV special that features
Little Richard, Paul Revere and the Raiders
, the comedy team of
Cheech and Chong
, and
Three Dog Night
. The ninety-minute special also includes film clips of Fifties favorites
Fabian, Annette Funicello, Johnny Mathis
and
Conway Twitty
.
21
Soft-rockers
Bread
play their final show at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City before a sell-out crowd of 13,075. Earlier in the day, the band's equipment truck blew a tire and overturned near Flagstaff, Arizona, destroying $30,000 worth of equipment, and forcing Bread to play their last concert with borrowed guitars, amps and drums.
In Miller v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court rules local standards define what is obscenity and what it is pornography.
22
23
24
The original
Blues Project
--
Al Kooper, Steve Katz, Danny Kalb, Roy Blumenfeld
and
Andy Kulberg
-- reunite for the first time since 1967, in Central Park. The Project, who recorded three albums of progressive blues during 1966 and 1967, were one of the first acts to build its commercial game plan around albums, rather than hit singles. The concert is recorded and released later in the year.
25
Former President Nixon
lawyer John Dean
's televised hearings before the Watergate Committee begin. In intensely watched testimony, Dean will submit a voluminous White House "enemies list," and offer the most damaging evidence yet, arguing that Nixon was an active participant in the cover-up.
New York City mayor John Lindsay
helps establish a white trailer in Times Square that sells same-day, half-price tickets to Broadway shows in an attempt to help clean up the area's image. It's an overnight and lasting success, and soon the trailer is replaced by a stronger structure that won't blow away. The booth will serve memorably and admirably until a major rehab of Times Square in the early twenty-first century.
26
Mick Jagger
is named in a London paternity suit by
Marsha Hunt
, who claims that Mick is the father of her two-year-old daughter. Jagger will take a blood test when he returns to England. Hunt is a model who once was cast in the show "Hair," and also sang with a group called
White Trash
. Says she of Jagger, "He was just a friend." The suit will prove unsuccessful.
Leon Russell
's
Leon Live
goes gold. It is the last major hit for the enigmatic Russell, who, in the next decade, will release a series of tongue-in-cheek experimental country & western and jazz albums, but will never regain his huge following.
27
28
You know you're getting old when golden oldie shows are no longer confined to the Fifties.
Herman's Hermits
headline a bill of British Invasion acts at Madison Square Garden. Thirteen thousand paying customers turn out for an evening of blasts from the none-too-distant past by
Wayne Fontana, Gerry and the Pacemakers
, the
Searchers
(who inexplicably perform an extended version of
Neil Young
's "Southern Man") and the Hermits, who run through a medley of their twenty-one gold singles in addition to a full version of "I'm into Something Good."
29
Deep Purple
play their last show with singer
Ian Gillan
and bassist
Roger Glover
, in Japan. Gillan is replaced by
David Coverdale
, Glover by
Glenn Hughes
. Both cite exhaustion as their reason for leaving the group.