Today we feature six hours of Hits and Music from 1969.
January 4 – Guitarist Jimi Hendrix is accused of arrogance by British television producers after playing an impromptu version of “Sunshine of Your Love” past his allotted timeslot on the BBC1 show Happening for Lulu.
January 12 – Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut album released.
January 18 – Pete Best wins his defamation lawsuit against The Beatles. Best had originally sought $8 million, but ended up being awarded much less.
January 30 – The Beatles perform for the last time in public, on the roof of the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, London. The performance, which was filmed for the Let It Be movie, is stopped early by police after neighbors complain about the noise.
February – Eric Burdon & The Animals disband.
February 3 – John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr hire Allen Klein as The Beatles’ new business manager, against the wishes of Paul McCartney.
February 4 – Paul McCartney hires the law firm of Eastman & Eastman, Linda Eastman’s father’s law firm, as general legal counsel for Apple Records.
February 15 – Vickie Jones is arrested for impersonating Aretha Franklin in a concert performance. Jones’ impersonation was so convincing that nobody in the audience asked for a refund.
February 17 – Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan record together in Nashville, Tennessee. Only one song, “Girl from the North Country”, would be released from these sessions.
February 18 – Lulu and Bee Gee Maurice Gibb are married in the UK.
February 24 – Johnny Cash performs “A Boy Named Sue” at California’s San Quentin State Prison
March 1 – During a performance at Miami’s Dinner Key Auditorium, Jim Morrison of the Doors is arrested for allegedly exposing himself during the show. Morrison is officially charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, indecent behavior, open profanity and public drunkenness.
March 12 – The 11th Grammy Awards are presented. Paul McCartney marries Linda Eastman in London. George Harrison and his wife Pattie are arrested in the UK on charges of hashish possession.
March 20 – John Lennon marries Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.
March 25-31 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono host a “Bed-In” for peace in their room at the Amsterdam Hilton, turning their honeymoon into an antiwar event. Lennon also learns from a morning newspaper that publisher Dick James has sold his shares of Northern Songs to Lew Grade’s Associated Television (ATV).
March 26 -Lotti Golden records her debut LP Motor-Cycle (Atlantic SD 8223) at Atlantic Studios in New York City, featured in Newsweek (July 1969).
March 29 – At the 14th annual Eurovision Song Contest held at the Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain, the final result is a four-way tie for first place between Spain (“Vivo cantando” – Salomé); United Kingdom (“Boom Bang-a-Bang” – Lulu); Netherlands (“De Troubadour” – Lenny Kuhr) and France (“Un jour, un enfant” – Frida Boccara). As there was no tie-break rule in force up to this time, the four entries involved, who each scored 18 points, are declared ex-aequo winners.
April 1 – The Beach Boys file a lawsuit against their record label, Capitol Records, for $2,041,446.64 in unpaid royalties and producer’s fees for Brian Wilson. Capitol retaliates by deleting most of its Beach Boys catalog, severely limiting the band’s income.
April 8 – Opening for Ten Years After at the Fillmore East in New York City, Family perform their first U.S. concert, and the show is an unmitigated disaster. Vocalist Roger Chapman, on his 27th birthday, throws a microphone stand into the audience, unintentionally in the direction of Fillmore East impresario Bill Graham.
April 20 – The L.A. Free Festival in Venice, California ends early following a riot of audience members, 117 of which were arrested.
April 22 – The first complete performance of The Who’s rock opera Tommy during a performance in Dolton, Devon, UK John Lennon officially changes his name from John Winston Lennon to John Winston Ono-Lennon.
April 24 – The Beatles make a $5.1 million counter offer to the Northern Songs stockholders in an attempt to keep Associated TV from controlling the band’s music.
April 28 – Chicago releases its debut album, The Chicago Transit Authority.
May 3 – Sly & the Family Stone release their breakthrough album, Stand!, which became one of the top-selling albums of the decade and made the band one of the most popular acts in rock and soul music.
Jimi Hendrix is arrested by Canadian Mounties at Toronto’s International Airport for possession of narcotics. Hendrix is released on $10,000 bail.
May 6 – In London, representatives of Warner Brothers-Seven Arts discuss the purchase of fifteen percent of The Beatles’ Northern Songs.
May 10 – The Turtles perform at the White House. Singer Mark Volman falls off the stage five times.
June 2 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono host a “Bed-In” at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada. The couple records the song “Give Peace a Chance” live in their suite with Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, and several others.
June 12 – 25 – First Annual Rock & Roll Revival fifth estate Performers include amongst others MC5, Johnny Winter, Chuck Berry, Dr. John, Sun Ra, David Peel, The Stooges, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
June 13 – Mick Taylor joins the Rolling Stones.
June 29 – Bass player Noel Redding announces to the media that he has quit the Jimi Hendrix Experience, having effectively done so during the recording of Electric Ladyland.
July 3 – Brian Jones is found dead in the swimming pool at his home in Sussex, England, almost a month after leaving The Rolling Stones.
July 5 – The Rolling Stones proceed with a free concert in Hyde Park, London, as a tribute to Brian Jones; it is also the band’s first concert with guitarist Mick Taylor. Estimates of the audience range from 250,000 to 400,000.
July 31 – Elvis Presley returns to live performances in Las Vegas. The engagement ends on August 28.
August 9 – Members of would-be folk singer Charles Manson’s “family” murder film star Sharon Tate and others, in Tate’s home.
August 15-17 – The Woodstock Music and Art Festival is held at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, New York, near Woodstock, New York. Performers include Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Country Joe and the Fish, Ten Years After, and Sly & the Family Stone.
August 21-24 – The Bilzen Jazz and Pop Festival is held in Bilzen, Belgium. Performers include Deep Purple, Shocking Blue, The Moody Blues, Soft Machine, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, The Move and The Blossom Toes.
August 30-31 – The Isle of Wight Festival is held in Wootton Bridge. Performers include amongst others The Band, Blodwyn Pig, Edgar Broughton Band, Joe Cocker, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Bob Dylan, Family, The Who, Free, Mighty Baby, The Moody Blues, The Nice, The Pretty Things, Third Ear Band.
September 13 – John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band perform at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival 12-hour music festival, backed by Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann and Alan White. Other performers on the bill include Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and up-and-comers Chicago. It is Lennon’s first-ever public rock performance without one or more of The Beatles since meeting Paul McCartney in 1957. He decides before returning to the UK to leave The Beatles permanently.
September 24 – Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra perform the Concerto for Group and Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in the first elaborate collaboration between a rock band and an orchestra.
October 14 – The final single by Diana Ross & The Supremes, “Someday We’ll Be Together”, is released. The single becomes the final #1 hit of 1969 (and of the 1960s). After a farewell concert in January 1970, Diana Ross leaves the Supremes for a solo career.
October 18 – Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band Live at the Fillmore East, NY
November – Simon & Garfunkel give live concert at Iowa State University, where they record the track “Bye, Bye Love” for their upcoming album, Bridge Over Troubled Water.
November 1 – After seven years off the top of the charts, Elvis Presley hits No. 1 on the Billboard chart with “Suspicious Minds”.
November 7 – The Rolling Stones open their US tour in Fort Collins, Colorado.
November 8 – Simon & Garfunkel, on tour for the first time with a band, give live concert in Carbondale, Illinois, presumably at Southern Illinois University. The concert is not released until 1999 as part of a recording compiled by Head Records, called Village Vanguard.
November 11 – Simon & Garfunkel give live concert at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The recording is later released in the 1990s as Back to College on Yellow Dog Records and A Time of Innocence on Bell Bottom Records.
November 15 – Musik für die Beethovenhalle in Bonn, a multi-auditorium retrospective concert of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, with the world premiere of his Fresco presented in four different foyer spaces continuously over a span of four-and-a-half hours.
November 29 – Billboard Magazine changes its policy of charting the A and B sides of 45 singles on its pop chart. The former policy charted the two sides separately, but the new policy considers both sides as one chart entry. The Beatles are the first beneficiary of the new policy as their current 45 single featuring “Come Together” on one side, and “Something” on the other, accrue enough combined points to make the single a #1 pop hit. Similarly, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” and “Down On The Corner” accrue enough combined points to reach #3 three weeks later.
November 30 – Simon & Garfunkel air TV special Songs of America, ostensibly an hour-long show that is anti-war and anti-poverty featuring live footage from their 1969 tour.
December – The Jackson 5 release their debut album, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5.
December 6 – Altamont Free Concert
Zubin Mehta marries Nancy Kovack.
Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash perform together on The Johnny Cash Show.
Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker & Steve Winwood form Blind Faith.
Brian Eno’s musical career begins as a member of Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra.
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Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon is the third official compilation album of John Lennon’s solo career, coming after 1975’s Shaved Fish and 1982’s The John Lennon Collection. Because neither collection spanned Lennon’s releases up to and including 1984’s Milk and Honey, Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon – considered the definitive Lennon retrospective – was compiled to rectify the situation. It was released in the UK October 27, 1997 through Parlophone and early 1998 in the US by EMI Records.
John Lennon’s last days were filled with professional and domestic routines characteristic of both a typical wealthy New Yorker and a legendary rock star and activist: making breakfast and watching Sesame Street with his son Sean, going on epic shopping sprees, spending late nights in the studio, staging demonstrations, arguing with his retinue of servants and hangers-on. After five years in semi-retirement, or “siegelike retreat,” spent raising Sean, John Lennon seemed ready to emerge from seclusion and renew his career. On his final day, December 8, 1980, he was feeling hopeful about his creative future. He had just learned that his album with Yoko, Double Fantasy, had gone gold, and he and Yoko were engaged in promotion, and were looking forward to their next musical endeavor.
That morning, Annie Leibovitz and her assistant came to the Lennon’s apartment building, The Dakota, to shoot those now iconic photographs for Rolling Stone of the Lennons in bed. Meanwhile, a devoted fan named Paul Goresh, and Lennon’s murderer Mark David Chapman, started to hang around outside the building. Less than two hours later, a crew from San Francisco’s RKO radio arrived at The Dakota to interview John and Yoko. Interviewer Dave Sholin remembers meeting Lennon, who was getting dressed after the nude photo shoot: “the door opens and John jumps in with his arms extended, like ‘here I am folks!’ We were meeting John Lennon and we were all maybe a little nervous but that just put us right at ease in probably less than a minute.” “He was a regular guy, very, very sharp and extremely quick witted,” Sholin continued. “And he connected with all of us. He had been out of the public eye for five years and he was open to speaking about anything. He did not hold back.”
This week on Sounds of The 80s we feature your requests and music from: Boz Scaggs, John Mellencamp, Reba McEntire, Peter Gabriel, Julian Lennon, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Ramones, Steve Carlisle, Journey and more . . . 
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is the debut solo album by English musician John Lennon. It was released in 1970, after Lennon had issued three experimental albums with Yoko Ono and Live Peace in Toronto 1969, a live performance in Toronto credited to the Plastic Ono Band. The album was recorded simultaneously with Ono’s debut avant-garde solo album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, at Ascot Sound Studios and Abbey Road Studios using the same musicians and production team and nearly identical cover artwork.
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