Featuring the music of 1976
Tag: 1976
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MAY 1976
May 1 – Neville Wran becomes Premier of New South Wales.
May 4
The first LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite) is launched.
A train crash in Schiedam, the Netherlands, kills 24 people.
May 6 – An earthquake hits the Friuli area in Italy, killing more than 900 people and making another 100,000 homeless.
May 9 – Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction is found hanged in an apparent suicide, in her Stuttgart-Stammheim prison cell.
May 11
U.S. President Gerald Ford signs the Federal Election Campaign Act.
An accident involving a tanker truck carrying anhydrous ammonia takes place in Houston, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 7 people.
May 16 – The Montreal Canadiens sweep the Philadelphia Flyers in four games to win the Stanley Cup. Flyers’ forward Reggie Leach became the only non-goaltender from a finals losing team to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs after scoring a record 19 goals in 16 playoff games.
May 13 – The video arcade game Breakout is released.
May 21
The Yuba City bus disaster, the worst bus crash in U.S. history to date, with 28 students and one teacher killed.
The “Famous Fire” in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, destroys seven downtown structures, damages more than 12 others, and starts fires in at least 10 homes.
May 24
Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
The Judgment of Paris pits French vs. California wines in a blind taste-test in Paris, France. California wines win the contest, surprising the wine world and opening the wine industry to newcomers in several countries.
May 25 – U.S. President Gerald Ford defeats challenger Ronald Reagan in 3 Republican presidential primaries: Kentucky, Tennessee and Oregon.
May 30 – Indianapolis 500-Mile Race: Johnny Rutherford wins the (rain-shortened) shortest race in event history to date, at 102 laps or 408 kilometers (254 mi).
May 31 – Syria intervenes in the Lebanese Civil War in opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization, whom it had previously supported.
June 1976
June 1 – The UK and Iceland end the Cod War.
June 2
A car bomb fatally injures Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles.
The Philippine government opens relations with the Soviet Union.
June 4 – The Boston Celtics defeat the Phoenix Suns 128–126 in triple overtime in Game 5 of the NBA Finals at the Boston Garden. In 1997, the game is selected by a panel of experts as the greatest of the NBA’s first 50 years.
June 5 – The Teton Dam collapses in southeast Idaho in the US, killing 11 people.
June 6 – The Double Six Crash, a plane crash in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, kills everyone on board, including Sabahan Chief Minister Tun Fuad Stephens.
June 12 – Alberto Demicheli, a jurist, is inaugurated as a civilian de facto President of Uruguay after Juan María Bordaberry is deposed by the military.
June 13 – Savage thunderstorms roll through the state of Iowa, spawning several tornadoes, including an F-5 tornado that destroys the town of Jordan, Iowa.
June 14 – The trial begins at Oxford Crown Court of Donald Neilson, the killer known as the Black Panther.
June 16
The Soweto uprising in South Africa begins.
Francis E. Meloy Jr., newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, and two others are kidnapped in Beirut and killed.
June 17 – The National Basketball Association and the American Basketball Association agree on the ABA–NBA merger.
June 20
Hundreds of Western tourists are moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the U.S. military, following the murder of the U.S. Ambassador.
General elections are held in Italy.
Czechoslovakia beats West Germany 5–3 on penalties to win Euro 76, when the game had ended 2–2 after extra time.
June 25 – Strikes start in Poland (Ursus, Radom, Płock) after communists raise food prices; they end on June 30.
June 26 – The CN Tower is built in Toronto; the tallest free-standing land structure opens to the public.
June 27
G-6 is renamed “Group of 7” (G-7).
Palestinian militants hijack an Air France plane in Greece with 246 passengers and 12 crew. They take it to Entebbe, Uganda.
June 29
Seychelles gains independence from the United Kingdom.
The Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe convenes in East Berlin.
July 1976
Italian tall ship Amerigo Vespucci in New York Harbor during the United States Bicentennial celebration.
July 2 – North Vietnam dissolves the Provisional Government of South Vietnam and unites the two countries to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
July 3
Gregg v. Georgia: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment overturning the Furman v. Georgia case of 1972.
The great heat wave in the United Kingdom, which is currently suffering from drought conditions, reaches its peak.
July 4
The U.S. celebrates its bicentennial, in recognition of the 200th anniversary of the 1776 adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom.
Entebbe Raid: Israeli airborne commandos free 103 hostages being held by Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport; Yonatan Netanyahu and several Ugandan soldiers are killed in the raid.
July 6 – The first class of women is inducted at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
July 7
German left-wing women terrorists Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escape from the Lehrter Straße maximum security prison in West Berlin.
David Steel becomes leader of the UK’s Liberal Party in the aftermath of the scandal which forced out Jeremy Thorpe.
July 10
Four mercenaries, three British and one American, are shot by firing squad in Angola, following the Luanda Trial.
An explosion in Seveso, Italy, causes extended pollution to a large area in the neighborhood of Milano, with many evacuations and a large number of people affected by the toxic cloud.
July 12
Barbara Jordan is the first African-American to keynote a political convention.
Family Feud debuts on ABC-TV.
California State University, Fullerton massacre: seven people are shot and killed, and two others are wounded in a mass shooting on campus at California State University, Fullerton.
Price Club, as predecessor of Costco, a membership-registration-only retailer on worldwide, founded in California, United States.
July 15
Jimmy Carter is nominated for U.S. president at the Democratic National Convention in New York City.
Twenty-six Chowchilla schoolchildren and their bus driver are abducted and buried in a box truck within a quarry in Livermore, California. The captives dig themselves free after 16 hours. The quarry-owner’s son and two accomplices are arrested for the crime.
July 16 – 20 – Albert Spaggiari and his gang break into the vault of the Société Generale Bank in Nice, France.
July 17
The 1976 Summer Olympics begin in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
East Timor is declared the 27th province of Indonesia.
July 18 – Nadia Comăneci earns the first of seven perfect scores of 10 at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
July 19 – Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
July 20
Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
American criminal Gary Gilmore is arrested for murdering two men in Utah.
July 21 – An IRA bomb kills Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to the Irish Republic, and Judith Cooke, a Northern Ireland Office private secretary; two others are seriously wounded but survive.
July 26 – In Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan announces his choice of liberal U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker as his vice presidential running mate, in an effort to woo moderate Republican delegates away from President Gerald Ford.
July 27
The United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with its former colony Uganda in response to the hijacking of Air France Flight 139.
Delegates attending an American Legion convention at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, US, begin falling ill with a form of pneumonia: this will eventually be recognized as the first outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and will end in the deaths of 29 attendees.
July 28 – The Tangshan earthquake flattens Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 people, and injuring 164,851.
July 29 – In New York City, the “Son of Sam” pulls a gun from a paper bag, killing one and seriously wounding another, in the first of a series of attacks that terrorize the city for the next year.
July 30
Caitlyn Jenner (at the time, Bruce Jenner) wins the gold medal in the men’s decathlon at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
In Santiago, Chile, Cruzeiro from Brazil beats River Plate from Argentina and are the Copa Libertadores de América champions.
July 31
NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1.
The Big Thompson River in northern Colorado floods, destroying more than 400 cars and houses and killing 143 people.
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March 1976
March – The Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is released by Seymour Cray’s Cray Research, with the first purchaser being the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
March 1
U.K. Home Secretary Merlyn Rees ends Special Category Status for those sentenced for scheduled terrorist crimes relating to the civil violence in Northern Ireland.
Bradford Bishop allegedly murders five of his family members in Bethesda, Maryland. The crime goes undiscovered for 10 days and the suspect is never caught. In 2014, he is placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
March 4
The Maguire Seven are found guilty of possessing explosives and subsequently jailed for 14 years.
The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland, resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London via the British Parliament.
March 9 – A cable car disaster in Cavalese, Italy leaves 43 dead.
March 9 – March 11 – Two coal mine explosions claim 26 lives at the Blue Diamond Coal Co. Scotia Mine, in Letcher County, Kentucky.
March 14 – After eight years on NBC, The Wizard of Oz returns to CBS, where it will remain until 1999, setting what was likely then a record for the most telecasts of a Hollywood film on a commercial television network. That record is broken by The Ten Commandments in 1996, which began its annual network telecasts on ABC in 1973 and is still (as of 2020) telecast by that network.
March 16 – Harold Wilson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
March 17 – Rubin “Hurricane” Carter is retried in New Jersey.
March 20 – Patty Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery of a San Francisco bank.
March 22 – Star Wars begins filming in Tunisia.
March 23 – Mitsuyasu Maeno attempted to assassinate Yoshio Kodama by flying a plane into his Tokyo house, kamikaze-style.
March 24
Argentina military forces depose president Isabel Perón.
A general strike takes place in the People’s Republic of the Congo.
March 26
The Toronto Blue Jays are created.
The Body Shop, a well known retail chain of skin care and cosmetic products, opens its first branch in Brighton, England.
March 27
The South African Defence Force withdraws from Angola and concludes Operation Savannah.
The first 7.4 kilometres (4.6 mi) of the Washington Metro subway system opens.
March 29 – The military dictatorship of General Jorge Videla comes to power in Argentina.
March 30 – The events which inspired the Land Day took place in Israel
March 31 – The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that patient in a persistent vegetative state in the Karen Ann Quinlan case can be disconnected from her ventilator. She remains comatose and dies in 1985.
April 1976
April 1
Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Conrail (Consolidated Rails Corporation) is formed by the U.S. government, to take control of 13 major Northeast Class-1 railroads that had filed for bankruptcy protection. Conrail takes control at midnight, as a government-owned and operated railroad until 1986, when it is sold to the public.
The Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect is first reported by astronomer Patrick Moore.
April 2 – Norodom Sihanouk is forced to resign as Head of State of Kampuchea by the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot and is placed under house arrest.
April 3 – The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 is won by Brotherhood of Man, representing the United Kingdom, with their song Save Your Kisses for Me.
April 5
James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Tiananmen Incident: Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing’s Monument of the Martyrs to commemorate the death of Premier Zhou Enlai. Poems against the Gang of Four are also displayed, provoking a police crackdown.
Segovia prison break: in Spain’s largest prison break since the Spanish civil war, 29 political prisoners escape from Segovia prison.
Howard Hughes, Millionaire businessman and aviator dies at age 70.
April 10 – Frampton Comes Alive!, the multi-platinum selling live album by English rock musician Peter Frampton hits #1 in the Billboard 200 and remains there for 10 weeks, becoming the best-selling album of the year.
April 11 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak create and release the first apple computer, the Apple 1
April 13
The Lapua Cartridge Factory explosion in Lapua, Finland kills 40.
The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson’s 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.
April 16 – As a measure to curb population growth, the minimum age for marriage in India is raised to 21 years for men and 18 years for women.
April 21 – The Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne: Bandits steal A$1.4 million in bookmakers’ settlements from Queen Street, Melbourne.
April 23
The punk rock group the Ramones release their first album, Ramones.
Jethro Tull release their album Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die!.
April 25 – Portugal’s new constitution is enacted.
April 29 – Sino-Soviet split: A concealed bomb explodes at the gates of the Soviet embassy in China, killing four Chinese. The targets were embassy employees, returning from lunch, but on that day they returned to the embassy earlier.
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Music Related Deaths
January 23 – Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, writer and activist (b. 1898)
January 29 – Jesse Fuller, American one-man band musician (b. 1896)
February 9 – Percy Faith, Canadian bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor (b. 1908)
February 22 – Florence Ballard, American singer (The Supremes) (b. 1943)
March 19 – Paul Kossoff, British rock guitarist (Free) (b. 1950)
April 1 – Alfred Lennon, father of musician John Lennon (b. 1912)
April 9 – Phil Ochs, American singer-songwriter (b. 1940)
May 12 – Keith Relf, British rock musician (The Yardbirds) (b. 1943)
June 7 – Bobby Hackett, American jazz musician (b. 1915)
August 29 – Jimmy Reed, American blues musician (b. 1925)
December 28 – Freddie King, American rock musician (b. 1934)
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HARD ROCK ALBUMS
MARCH
15 Kiss – Destroyer
23 Judas Priest – Sad Wings of Destiny
25 Nazareth – Close Enough for Rock ‘n’ Roll
26 Thin Lizzy – Jailbreak
31 Led Zeppelin – Presence
APRIL
1 Rush – 2112
MAY
3 Aerosmith – Rocks
14 AC/DC – High Voltage
17 Rainbow – Rising
21 Blue Öyster Cult – Agents of Fortune
JUNE
25 Alice Cooper – Alice Cooper Goes to Hell
AUGUST
25 Boston – Boston
SEPTEMBER
20 AC/DC – Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (Australian edition)
25 Black Sabbath – Technical Ecstasy
28 Led Zeppelin – The Song Remains the Same
29 Rush – All the World’s a Stage
OCTOBER
9 Scorpions – Virgin Killer
16 Thin Lizzy – Johnny the Fox
NOVEMBER
11 Kiss – Rock and Roll Over
DECEMBER
10 Queen – A Day at the Races
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Number One Hits of 1976 (Weeks)
“Saturday Night” – Bay City Rollers (1)
“Convoy” – C. W. McCall (1)
“I Write the Songs” – Barry Manilow (1)
“Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)” – Diana Ross (1)
“Love Rollercoaster” – Ohio Players (1)
“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” – Paul Simon (3)
“Theme from S.W.A.T.” – Rhythm Heritage (1)
“Love Machine” – The Miracles (1)
“December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) – The Four Seasons (3)
“Disco Lady” – Johnnie Taylor (4)
“Let Your Love Flow” – The Bellamy Brothers (1)
“Welcome Back” – John Sebastian (1)
“Boogie Fever” – The Sylvers (1)
“Silly Love Songs” – Paul McCartney & Wings (5)
“Love Hangover” – Diana Ross (2)
“Afternoon Delight” – Starland Vocal Band (2)
“Kiss and Say Goodbye” – The Manhattans (2)
“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” – Elton John & Kiki Dee (4)
“You Should Be Dancing” – Bee Gees (1)
“(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” – KC and the Sunshine Band (1)
“Play That Funky Music” – Wild Cherry (3)
“A Fifth of Beethoven” – Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band (1)
“Disco Duck” – Rick Dees & His Cast Of Idiots (1)
“If You Leave Me Now” – Chicago (2)
“Rock’n Me” – Steve Miller Band (1)
“Tonight’s The Night” – Rod Stewart (7 weeks 1976 + 1 week 1977), best seller of the year
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November 18 – Former Tower of Power lead singer Rick Stevens and another person are found guilty on two counts of murder.
November 23
Thin Lizzy are forced to cancel their U.S. tour when guitarist Brian Robertson injures his hand in a bar fight.
Jerry Lee Lewis is arrested after showing up drunk outside Graceland at 3 a.m., waving a pistol and loudly demanding to see Elvis Presley. Presley declined his request.
November 25 – The Band gives its last public performance; Martin Scorsese is on hand to film it.
November 26 – The Sex Pistols’ debut single “Anarchy in the U.K.” is released by EMI.
December 1 – The Sex Pistols appear on Thames Television’s Today show as a last-minute replacement for Queen. The group causes a national outcry after swearing on the show.
December 2 – The Bee Gees perform at Madison Square Garden and donate the proceeds to the Police Athletic League in New York. In January 1979, they will receive the Police Athletic League’s “Superstars of the Year” award.
December 3
A Pink Floyd album cover shoot in South London goes awry when a large inflatable pig balloon being used for the shoot breaks free of its moorings and drifts out of sight.
Bob Marley and several others are injured when gunmen burst into his home in Kingston, Jamaica and open fire.
December 8
The Carpenters air their “Very First Television Special” on ABC.
The Eagles release Hotel California.
December 12 – Ace Frehley is shocked on stage during a Kiss concert in Lakeland, Florida after touching an ungrounded metal railing. The incident inspires the song “Shock Me”.
December 31 – The fifth annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve special airs on ABC, with performances by Donna Summer, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, The Four Seasons, and KC and the Sunshine Band.
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September 1 – Ode Records president Lou Adler is kidnapped at his Malibu home and released eight hours later after a $25,000 ransom is paid. Two suspects are soon arrested.
September 3 – Rory Gallagher joins the short list of Western popular musicians to perform behind the Iron Curtain with a show in Warsaw, Poland.
September 8 – In a candid interview appearing in the October 7 edition of Rolling Stone published today, Elton John publicly discloses his bisexuality for the first time.
September 14 – The one-hour Bob Dylan concert special Hard Rain airs on NBC, coinciding with the release of the live album of the same name.
September 18
Queen performs a massive free concert at London’s Hyde Park for over 150,000 people.
The second annual Rock Music Awards air on CBS. Peter Frampton wins Rock Personality of the Year, while Fleetwood Mac wins for Best Group and Best Album.
September 20-21 – 100 Club Punk Festival, the first international punk festival is held in London. Siouxsie and the Banshees play their first concert.
September 25 – Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. form a band called Feedback in Dublin. The band would later be renamed U2.
October 2 – Joe Cocker performs a duet of “Feelin’ Alright” with himself (as portrayed by John Belushi) on Saturday Night Live.
October 8 – English punk rock group the Sex Pistols sign a contract with EMI Records.
October 11 – Irish singer Joe Dolan is banned for life by Aer Lingus after an air rage incident en route to Corfu from Dublin.
October 20 – The Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same premieres at Cinema I in New York.
October 22 – The Damned releases their debut single “New Rose”, considered to be the first release from a British punk group.
October 31 – George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic begin “The P-Funk/Rubber Band Earth Tour” in Houston, a national live series highlighting one of the biggest and revolutionary stage shows in the history of the music industry (the rock group Kiss would be the other group to do a similar act), relying on elaborate costumes, special lighting and effects, and extremely large props including “the Mothership”, which would arrive and land on stage, all of what this band is generally known for. This live set would vary in length (on average of 3 to 5 hours long) and at high volume.
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July 2
Composer Benjamin Britten accepts a life peerage, only a few months before his death.
Brian Wilson performs on stage with The Beach Boys for the first time in three years at a Day on the Green concert in Oakland, California.
July 4 – Many outdoor festivals and shows are held all over the United States as the country celebrates its bicentennial. Elton John performs for 62,000 at Shaffer Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, while The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac play for 36,000 at Tampa Stadium, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top draw 35,000 at Memphis Memorial Stadium and Elvis Presley performs for 11,974 at the Mabee Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
July 7 – 50,000 fans brave the rain in New York to attend a free Jefferson Starship concert in Central Park.
July 27 – Tina Turner files for divorce from husband Ike.
August 5 – Eric Clapton provokes an uproar over comments he makes on stage at a Birmingham concert, voicing his opposition to immigration using multiple racial slurs while exhorting the audience to support Enoch Powell and to “keep Britain white”.
August 11 – Keith Moon is rushed to hospital for the second time in five months, collapsing after trashing his Miami hotel room.
August 13 – The official ABBA logo with the reversed ‘B’ is adopted.
August 16 – Cliff Richard becomes one of the first Western artists ever to perform in the Soviet Union when he gives a concert in Leningrad.
August 21 – An estimated 120,000 fans pack Knebworth House to see The Rolling Stones. Todd Rundgren, Lynyrd Skynyrd and 10cc also perform.
August 25 – Boston release their eponymous debut studio album, Boston.
August 31 – A U.S. district court decision rules that George Harrison had “subconsciously” copied The Chiffons’ hit “He’s So Fine” when he wrote the song “My Sweet Lord”
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Top 40 Hits from October 9, 1976 with Ron Kovacs
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Ron Kovacs with the Top 50 Hits of 1976
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January 5 – Former Beatles road manager Mal Evans is shot dead by Los Angeles police after refusing to drop what police only later find is an air rifle.
January 7 – Kenneth Moss, a former record company executive, is sentenced to 120 days in the Los Angeles County Jail and four years probation for involuntary manslaughter in the 1974 drug-induced death of Average White Band drummer Robbie McIntosh.
January 13 – A trial begins for seven Brunswick Records and Dakar Records employees. The record company employees are charged with stealing more than $184,000 in royalties from artists.
January 19 – Concert promoter Bill Sargent makes an offer of $30 million to the Beatles if they will reunite for a concert.
February 15 – Bette Midler bails seven members of her entourage out of jail after they are arrested on charges of cocaine and marijuana possession.
February 19 – Former Tower of Power lead singer Rick Stevens is arrested and charged with the drug-related murders of three men in San Jose, California.
February 20 – Kiss have their footprints added to the sidewalk outside Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theater. February 24 – Having been released one week before, The Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) compilation becomes the first album in history to be certified platinum by the RIAA. The new platinum certification represents sales of at least 1 million copies for albums and 2 million copies for singles.
March 4 – ABBA arrive at Sydney airport for a promotional tour in Australia.
March 6 – EMI Records reissues all 22 previously released British Beatles singles, plus a new single of the classic “Yesterday”. All 23 singles hit the UK charts at the same time.
March 7 – A wax likeness of Elton John is put on display in London’s Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.
March 9 – The Who’s Keith Moon collapses onstage ten minutes into a performance at the Boston Garden.
March 15 – Members of The Plastic People of the Universe are arrested in communist Czechoslovakia. They were sentenced from 8 to 18 months in jail.
March 20 – Alice Cooper marries Sheryl Goddard in an Acapulco restaurant.
March 25 – Jackson Browne’s wife Phyllis commits suicide.
March 26 – In Paris, France, Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch breaks one of his fingers when he slips in his hotel bathroom after the final performance on the band’s European tour. The injury ended up delaying the band’s United States tour by three weeks.
April 3 – British pop group Brotherhood of Man win the 21st Eurovision Song Contest in The Hague, Netherlands, with the song “Save Your Kisses For Me”. It goes on to be the biggest selling Eurovision winner ever.
April 14 – Stevie Wonder announces that he has signed a “$13 million-plus” contract with Motown Records.
April 24 – Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels makes a semi-serious on-air offer to pay the Beatles $3000 to reunite live on the show. In a 1980 interview, John Lennon stated that he and Paul McCartney happened to be watching the show together at Lennon’s apartment in New York and considered walking down to the SNL studio “for a gag” but were “too tired”. On May 22, Michaels raises his offer from $3000 to $3,200.
April 28 – The Rolling Stones open their European tour in Frankfurt, Germany.
April 29 – When his tour stops in Memphis, Tennessee, Bruce Springsteen jumps the wall at Elvis Presley’s mansion, “Graceland”, in trying to see his idol. Security guards stop Springsteen and escort him off the grounds.
May 3 – Paul McCartney and Wings start their Wings over America Tour in Fort Worth, Texas. This is the first time McCartney has performed in the US since The Beatles’ last concert in 1966 at Candlestick Park. Paul Simon puts together a benefit show at Madison Square Garden to raise money for the New York Public Library. Phoebe Snow, Jimmy Cliff and the Brecker Brothers also perform. The concert brings in over $30,000 for the Library.
May 19 – Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is involved in a car accident northwest of London. Cocaine is found in his wrecked car. Richards is given a court date of January 12, 1977. Rumor spread by German press: ABBA members killed in plane crash, only Anni-Frid survived.
May 25 – Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour ends.
June – Former Spring Canyon keyboardist Mark Cook joins Daniel Amos.
June 6 – Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg suffer tragedy when their 10-week old son Tara dies of respiratory failure.
June 10 – Alice Cooper collapses and is rushed to UCLA Hospital in Los Angeles, three weeks before the Goes To Hell tour would begin. The tour is cancelled.
June 18 – ABBA perform “Dancing Queen” for the first time on Swedish television in Stockholm on the eve of the wedding of King Carl XVI Gustaf to Silvia Sommerlath.
June 25 – Uriah Heep performs its last show with David Byron as lead singer in Bilbao, Spain. Byron is sacked shortly afterward.
July 2 – Composer Benjamin Britten accepts a life peerage, only a few months before his death. Brian Wilson performs on stage with The Beach Boys for the first time in three years at a Day on the Green concert in Oakland, California.
July 4 – Many outdoor festivals and shows are held all over the United States as the country celebrates its bicentennial. Elton John performs for 62,000 at Shaffer Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, while The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac play for 36,000 at Tampa Stadium, and Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top draw 35,000 at Memphis Memorial Stadium.
July 7 – 50,000 fans brave the rain in New York to attend a free Jefferson Starship concert in Central Park.
July 27 – Tina Turner files for divorce from husband Ike.
August 5 – Eric Clapton provokes an uproar over comments he makes on stage at a Birmingham concert, voicing his opposition to immigration using multiple racial slurs while exhorting the audience to support Enoch Powell and to “keep Britain white”.
August 11 – Keith Moon is rushed to hospital for the second time in five months, collapsing after trashing his Miami hotel room.
August 13 – The official ABBA logo with the reversed ‘B’ is adopted.
August 16 – Cliff Richard becomes one of the first Western artists ever to perform in the Soviet Union when he gives a concert in Leningrad.
August 21 – An estimated 120,000 fans pack Knebworth House to see The Rolling Stones. Todd Rundgren, Lynyrd Skynyrd and 10cc also perform.
August 31 – a U.S. district court decision rules that George Harrison had “subconsciously” copied The Chiffons’ hit “He’s So Fine” when he wrote the song “My Sweet Lord”.
September 1 – Ode Records president Lou Adler is kidnapped at his Malibu home and released eight hours later after a $25,000 ransom is paid. Two suspects are soon arrested.
September 3 – Rory Gallagher joins the short list of Western popular musicians to perform behind the Iron Curtain with a show in Warsaw, Poland.
September 8 – In a candid interview appearing in the October 7 edition of Rolling Stone published today, Elton John publicly discloses his bisexuality for the first time.
September 14 – The one-hour Bob Dylan concert special Hard Rain airs on NBC, coinciding with the release of the live album of the same name.
September 18 – Queen performs a massive free concert at London’s Hyde Park for over 150,000 people. The second annual Rock Music Awards air on CBS. Peter Frampton wins Rock Personality of the Year, while Fleetwood Mac wins for Best Group and Best Album.
September 20 & September 21 – 100 Club Punk Festival, the first international punk festival is held in London. Siouxsie and the Banshees play their first concert.
September 25 – Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr form a band called Feedback in Dublin. The band would later be renamed U2.
October 2 – Joe Cocker performs a duet of “Feelin’ Alright” with himself (as portrayed by John Belushi) on Saturday Night Live.
October 8 – English punk rock group the Sex Pistols sign a contract with EMI Records.
October 11 – Irish singer Joe Dolan is banned for life by Aer Lingus after an air rage incident en route to Corfu from Dublin.
October 20 – The Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same premieres at Cinema I in New York.
October 31 – George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic begin “The P-Funk/Rubber Band Earth Tour” in Houston, a national live series highlighting one of the biggest and revolutionary stage shows in the history of the music industry (the rock group Kiss would be the other group to do a similar act), relying on elaborate costumes, special lighting and effects, and extremely large props including “the Mothership”, which would arrive and land on stage, all of what this band is generally known for. This live set would vary in length (on average of 3 to 5 hours long) and at high volume.
November 18 – Former Tower of Power lead singer Rick Stevens and another person are found guilty on two counts of murder.
November 23 – Thin Lizzy are forced to cancel their U.S. tour when guitarist Brian Robertson injures his hand in a bar fight. Jerry Lee Lewis is arrested after showing up drunk outside Graceland at 3 a.m., waving a pistol and loudly demanding to see Elvis Presley. Presley denied his request.
November 25 – The Band gives its last public performance; Martin Scorsese is on hand to film it.
November 26 – The Sex Pistols’ debut single “Anarchy in the U.K.” is released by EMI.
December 1 – In the UK, the Sex Pistols cause a national outcry after swearing on Thames Television’s Today show.
December 2 – The Bee Gees perform at Madison Square Garden and give the proceeds to the Police Athletic League in New York. In January 1979, they will receive the Police Athletic League’s “Superstars of the Year” award.
December 3 – A Pink Floyd album cover shoot in South London goes awry when a large inflatable pig balloon being used for the shoot breaks free of its moorings and drifts out of sight.
Bob Marley and several others are injured when gunmen burst into his home in Kingston, Jamaica and open fire.
December 8 – The Carpenters air their “Very First Television Special” on ABC. The Eagles release Hotel California.
December 12 – Ace Frehley is shocked on stage during a Kiss concert in Lakeland, Florida after touching an ungrounded metal railing. The incident inspires the song “Shock Me”.
December 31 – The fifth annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve special airs on ABC, with performances by Donna Summer, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, The Four Seasons, and KC and the Sunshine Band.
Also in 1976
– The last practitioner of the rekuhkara form of throat-singing dies, in Hokkaido, Japan.
– Tenor Franco Corelli retires from the stage at the age of 55.
– Cheryl Byron performs rapso in calypso tents for the first time, beginning the popularization of rapso.
– Peter Brown’s solo career begins.
– Peter Tosh’s solo career begins.
– Bunny Wailer’s solo career begins.
– Leif Garrett’s solo career begins.
– .38 Special’s musical career begins.
– Y&T (Yesterday & Today)’s musical career begins.
– Sergio Franchi becomes TV spokesman for Chrysler Corporation’s Plymouth “Volare” and media spokesman for Hills Brothers coffee.
– Steve Martin signs a contract with Warner Bros.
– Eddie Money signs a contract with CBS.
– “Ten Percent”, by Double Exposure, becomes the first 12-inch single commercially available to the public (as opposed to DJ-only promotional copies).
– The Chinese Music Society of North America is founded.
– Gabin Dabiré embarks on a tour of Italy.
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We are pleased to be back with all new installments of the Classic Countdown. This week we count down the Top 40 Hits from December 25, 1976. Join Ron Kovacs Live on RadioMaxMusic.
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