Category: Music

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Desmond BriscoeThe British Broadcasting Corporation, in order to meet its producers’ requests for more unusual sound effects and music than is presently held in its sound library, establishes the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in room 13 of the BBC’s Maida Vale recording studios. Concentrating on tape manipulation and found sounds altered with analog effects (and only later delving into the earliest waves of analog synthesizers), the Workshop produces music for such legendary BBC productions as The Quatermass Experiment and the theme music for Doctor Who. Founding members include Desmond Briscoe, Daphne Oram and Dick Mills.

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Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!

The Beatles and Ed SullivanIntroduced to an audience of screaming teenagers on national television, the Beatles make their American TV debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. The band, whose TV premiere takes place during their first trip to the States, play five songs to rapturous applause. (Ironically, Sullivan’s other musical act of the evening is a young actor named Davy Jones, later of the Monkees.) An audience estimated to be 73 million viewers strong watches this seismic moment in American pop culture, ushering in years of wanna-be sound-alikes both foreign and domestic referred to as the British Invasion.

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Raymond Scott: Soothing Sounds For Baby, Volume 1

SoundtrackRaymond Scott‘s experimental electronic music album Soothing Sounds For Baby, Volume 1 is released. Created entirely on electronic instruments and sequencers of his own creation – decades ahead of the widespread use of such equipment – the LP is a series of somewhat repetitive instrumentals which will supposedly help infants sleep better. Read more

Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space

SoundtrackDot Records releases the Leonard Nimoy‘s album Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space, a collection of songs both in and out of character as Spock. Aside from providing material for future Golden Throats albums, this record sparks a feud between Nimoy and Roddenberry; Roddenberry claims co-writing credit on the Star Trek theme (which is featured on the LP) and credit for creating Mr. Spock, and demands – to coin a phrase – a piece of the action. Read more

Moody Blues: Days Of Future Passed

Moody BluesDeram Records – an offshoot of UK label Decca – releases the second Moody Blues album, Days Of Future Passed, an orchestral/rock collaboration intended to show off the company’s stereo recording techniques for classical recordings (and intended to write off the band’s massive promotional debts owed to the label). The results is a perennially popular album now regarded as a rock classic, including the enduring hit singles “Nights In White Satin” and “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)”. Read more

The Move: Shazam

ShazamRegal Zonophone Records releases the second album by Birmingham rock group The Move, Shazam. (The album is simultaneously issued in the United States and Canada by A&M Records.) The final album with original lead singer Carl Wayne, Shazam is a bizarre collision of heavy metal and showtunes and standards without even the slightest hint of irony. After this album, Roy Wood takes over as the band’s leader. Read more

The Move: Looking On

Escape From The Planet Of The ApesFly Records releases the third album by Birmingham rock group The Move, Looking On. The group sports an elegant, elaborate new sound on this outing, having recruited budding songwriter/performer Jeff Lynne from another local band, the Idle Race. Lynne’s interaction with Move frontman Roy Wood will lead to the formation, a year later, of the Electric Light Orchestra. Read more

Electric Light Orchestra

ELOElectric Light Orchestra‘s self-titled debut album is released in the UK, though it proves to be the last released collaboration between founders (and former Move members) Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne; Wood leaves the band after an unpromising live debut. The album is released in the US in March 1972, where a phone call to clarify the album’s title results in a misunderstood written note that leads to the American release going out under the unintentional title No Answer. Read more

Moody Blues: Seventh Sojourn

To Our Children’s Children’s ChildrenDecca Records releases the eighth album by the Moody Blues, Seventh Sojourn (the seven, in this case, referring to the seventh album by the band since the addition of Justin Hayward and John Lodge in the 1960s). The album includes the singles “Isn’t Life Strange” and “I’m Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band”.

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Electric Light Orchestra: Eldorado

ELOElectric Light Orchestra‘s fourth album, Eldorado, is released, featuring the single “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head”. This is the first ELO album with a full orchestra (as opposed to previous albums’ practice of overdubbing three string players endlessly), and the first to be released in the US before its UK release date. Read more

Split Enz: Mental Notes

Split EnzMushroom Records releases the debut Split Enz album Mental Notes, the product of two months of concentrated recording sessions in Sydney, Australia (and three years of playing live and building a following). The album is a modest success story in Australia and the band’s native New Zealand, and is critically acclaimed for its originality. Read more

Alan Parsons Project: Tales of Mystery & Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe

PyramidA group of veteran session musicians working under producer Alan Parsons and songwriter Eric Woolfson releases its debut album, The Alan Parsons Project – Tales Of Mystery And Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe. The “group” becomes known, somewhat unintentionally, as the Alan Parsons Project, though that was intended to be part of the album title. Themed around the works of Poe, the album becomes a prog rock cult classic and sells well enough that Parsons and Woolfson begin planning a more futuristic project… Read more