It’s the best day of the week! Today on Throwback Thursday, we’re traveling way, way back to 1977! Hold onto your hats!
January 20th – Jimmy Buffett’s Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes is released, featuring the biggest single of his career, Margaritaville, which helps establish Buffett as a popular artist, and earns him much of the rabid fanbase (“Parrotheads”) for which he eventually became known.
February 14th – The B-52’s give their first public performance at a party in Athens, Georgia.
http://youtu.be/DnU3WoQZHJE
April 22nd – Pink Floyd open the North American leg of their Animals tour in Miami, Florida.
http://youtu.be/p-tumi1y7-Q
April 26th – New York’s disco Studio 54 opens.
June 12th – The Supremes perform for the last time together at Drury Lane Theatre in London before officially disbanding.
July 9th – Donna Summer’s hit record I Feel Love is released in the UK. It was massively influential in pop music as it was the first hit record ever to have an entirely synthesised backing track and helped propel the use of synthesisers in music greatly, especially in the 1980s.
http://youtu.be/C2q2bis6eLE
August 16th – Elvis Presley is found dead at his home Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.
September 16th – T Rex frontman Marc Bolan is killed in an automobile accident.
http://youtu.be/GpVqWS-cUKc
September 29th – Billy Joel’s The Stranger is released. Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song), Just the Way You Are and Only the Good Die Young all become hits, and the album also features the beloved medley Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.
October 20th – A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in Mississippi, killing songwriter & vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and background vocalist Cassie Gaines.
November 30th – Bing Crosby’s final Christmas special, Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas, airs on CBS. The special was taped in September, one month before Crosby’s death at age 74. The most memorable scene consists of the surreal sight of Crosby being joined by David Bowie for the duet Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy.
December 17th – Elvis Costello makes his American television début on Saturday Night Live, but is banned after substituting the scheduled performance of Less than Zero with Radio, Radio instead.