This Month in music history
July 1
• 1970: Casey Kasem’s “The American Top-Forty” radio show debuts in eleven U.S. cities
• 1969: Sam Phillips sells Sun Records
July 2
• 1980: Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and manager Joel Rifkin of the Grateful Dead are arrested in San Diego for interfering in the drug-related arrest of a concert-goer
July 3
• 1969: Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones is found dead in his swimming pool
July 6
• 1957: 15-year-old Paul McCartney and 16-year-old John Lennon meet at a church picnic near Liverpool
July 7
• 1980: The original lineup of Led Zeppelin performs for the last time
• 1940: Ringo Starr is born
July 9
• 1995: Jerry Garcia plays with the Grateful Dead for the last time at Chicago’s Soldier Field; he will die of a heart attack in one month
• 1971: Doors lead singer Jim Morrison is buried at Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France
July 11
• 1969: David Bowie releases “Space Oddity” as an ode to American space travel to the moon
July 13
• 1985: Live Aid, a concert to benefit world hunger, takes place at Wembley Stadium in England and at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia
July 17
• 1967: The Jimi Hendrix Experience opens for The Monkees at N.Y.’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium
July 20
• 1965: Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” is released by Columbia Records
July 21
• 1990: Roger Waters performs “The Wall” at the former site of The Berlin Wall
• 1986: The album Appetite For Destruction is released by Guns N’ Roses
July 23
• 1980: Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux dies two days after a car accident
July 25
• 1969: Neil Young makes his first appearance with Crosby, Stills & Nash at The Fillmore East
• 1965: Bob Dylan plugs in his guitar and is booed at the Newport Folk Festival
July 29
• 1974: Mama Cass Elliott dies in her London apartment from a heart attack at the age of 32
• 1968: The Byrds leave for a tour of South Africa without Gram Parsons, who claimed he refuses to enter a country that allows apartheid. The decision ended Parsons tenure with The Byrds
July 31
• 1976: (More cowbell!) “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is released by Blue Oyster Cult
