Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
1
Judge Sirica
hands down grand jury indictments against seven former Richard Nixon
aides involved in the Watergate break-in. On Mar. 26, the same grand jury gives the House Judiciary Committee a secret report regarding possible impeachment of Nixon for his role in the cover-up.
2 Stevie Wonder
wins five Grammy Awards, in Los Angeles. The singer takes the honors for Album of the Year (
Innervisions
), Best Pop Vocal Performance ( "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
), Best R&B Song ( "Superstition"
), Best R&B Vocal Performance ("Superstition"), and Best Engineered Recording (
Innervisions
). Says Wonder on his five trips to the podium that night: "I would like to thank you all for making this the sunshine of my life tonight." Roberta Flack
wins three for "Killing Me Softly With His Song."
The Top Five
1. "Seasons in the Sun"
- Terry Jacks
2. "The Way We Were"
- Barbra Streisand
3. "Spiders and Snakes" - Jim Stafford
4. "Boogie Down" - Eddie Kendricks
5. "Jungle Boogie" - Kool & the Gang
3
Thirteen of 29 professional baseball salary disputes are settled in favor of the players, including the Oakland A's star Reggie Jackson
.
4 A heavily coiffed Mia Farrow
graces the cover of the first People
magazine. Farrow, who is shown biting a string of pearls, is starring in the lavish new Paramount remake of The Great Gatsby
opposite Robert Redford
. From venerable publishers Time, Inc., People
also bows with features on Gloria Vanderbilt
and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
. With deep pockets, a 35 cent cover price, and a circulation base of one million, thanks to painstaking pre-launch research and marketing, People
proves to be such a smashing success that it spawns several imitators including the bimonthly Us,
from the New York Times company (it is later sold to Rolling Stone
publisher Jann Wenner
).
5 Gregg Allman
's first solo album,
Laid Back,
attains gold status, and sets off rumors that the
Allman Brothers
are breaking up. Guitarist
Dickey Betts
will release his own solo album later in the year.
6 The Watergate scandal continues to trigger shock waves. In Washington, D.C., President Nixon
finally admits that the Watergate burglars were paid hush money -- edging him even closer to the precipice from which he'll soon fall. Meanwhile, on the other coast Robert Redford
pays $450,000 for the film rights to Carl Bernstein
and Bob Woodward
's Pulitzer Prize-winning book All the President's Men,
which Redford will adapt into a movie
and in two years become the second highest-grossing movie of 1976.
7
8
9 Grand Funk Railroad
releases its latest single, a remake
of Little Eva
's 1962 chart-topper "The Loco-Motion." Grand Funk's revival of the Gerry Goffin
and Carole King
-penned tune, which becomes the band's crowd-pleasing concert finale, will also reach the No. 1 spot on May 4.
10 David Bowie
records an in-concert album titled David Live
at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia. Still a year away from his first #1 and biggest hit, "Fame,"
Bowie will go on to chart 26 times through 1995 in America. David's first love was art, and before becoming a rock idol, he was an art teacher.
11
12
John Lennon
is involved in an altercation with a photographer outside the Troubador club in Los Angeles. Lennon and
Harry Nilsson
had been heckling comedian
Tommy Smothers
, and were ejected from the club. Lennon later apologizes.
13
14
The Hawaii state legislature is streaked by hairstylist Gary Rogers
, who declares himself "Streaker of the House" and is arrested for "open lewdness."
15
Still under investigation by House and Senate committes, a federal grand jury and a special independent prosecutor, President Nixon
announces that he will not resign and will continue to resist demands for White House information about alleged scandals and cover-ups.
16 The Grand Ole Opry moves from the old Ryman Auditorium to the new $28-million Opryland complex, where it resumes regular broadcast and telecasts. Special guest President Nixon
performs three songs on the piano and then shuffles offstage to the tune of "Hail to the Chief."
Veteran Los Angeles police detective Joseph Wambaugh, Jr.
, whose novels were the bases for many 1970s films and television programs (1972's The New Centurions,
1973's The Blue Knight,
1977's The Choirboys,
1979's The Onion Field,
the Police Story
TV series), resigns from the L.A.P.D. due to increased publicity and to pursue his writing career full-time.
17
18
Seven of nine Arab states participating in the U.S. oil embargo agree to end all of the petroleum export restrictions imposed after the Yom Kippur War. No immediate effect on prices appears, however, as petroleum companies continue to rake in the profits.
19
The
Jefferson Airplane
begin their first tour under the name
Jefferson Starship
. Included in the lineup is
Paul Kantner, Grace Slick
, drummer
Johnny Barbata, David Freiberg, Peter Kaukonen, Papa John Creach
and
Craig Chaquico
. By next year, the band will coax Marty Balin
into returning and set the stage for their 1975 comeback.
20
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22
CIA estimates of 11,000 Chileans dying as a direct result of the previous fall's military coup are reported.
24
25
26 David Essex
, "England's
David Cassidy
," enjoys his one and only successful U.S. single, "Rock On" (from the U.S. album of the same name
), which turns gold on this date. Essex's overseas popularity mostly stems from his film roles, which include playing Jesus in "Godspell," and the lead roles in "That'll Be the Day" and "Stardust." Comparisons are made to the late James Dean, of which Essex says, "I really loved
James Dean
, but being David Essex is enough for me right now."
Mike Oldfield
's
Tubular Bells
turns gold. Part of the work by the British teenage prodigy is used as the score for the film
The Exorcist.
Heavyweight champion George Foreman
defeats Ken Norton
in Caracas, Venezuela.
27
28 The
Raspberries
have split in two.
Rolling Stone
reports that the rhythm section of
Jim Bonfanti
and
Dave Smalley
have left and have formed a band called
Dynamite
. Original members
Eric Carmen
and
Wally Bryson
, meanwhile, plan to continue, and have added drummer
Mike McBride
and bassist
Scott McCarl
.
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
dies at the age of 69 from a stroke. Crudup, born in Mississippi, was the composer of "That's All Right (Mama)," which
Elvis Presley
heard on a jukebox and cut in 1954 as his first record for Sun, eight years after Crudup's own recording of the song. Unfortunately, Crudup was victimized by shady deals through his career and died in poverty. "Credit is all I ever got," he once said.
"Hooked on a Feeling"
by
Blue Swede
turns gold. The group's novel version of the
B.J. Thomas
1968 hit is best remembered for its "ooga-chugga, ooga-chugga" background chant. It hits Number One in April.
29
31
Three Miami Dolphins: Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick
and Paul Warfield
, sign lucrative contracts with the newly created World Football League. Various NFL teams go to court in attempts to prevent their players from defecting, but a U.S. District Court decision on May 14 prohibits further NFL injunctions.