1971: New York radio station WNBC bans the Brewer & Shipley song “One Toke Over the Line” because they are shocked – shocked I tell you – to discover that the song may refer to drug use!

The ban doesn’t hurt sales as the song eventually reached the Billboard Top 10.

1966: In a photo session, the Beatles pose in butcher’s smocks with dismembered doll parts and pieces of meat. The lads decide to use that photo as the cover for an American album called “Yesterday… And Today.”

For the boys, it’s a cheeky commentary on what their American label, Capitol Records, did to their British albums, cutting them up, omitting some songs, adding other tracks never intended for a particular album and changing the playing order of other songs.

American parents are horrified when the album hits the stores. Capitol pulls the album. It replaces the photo with a more sedate shot of the group sitting in and around a steamer trunk.

However, many of the original “butcher covers” were simply pasted over with the new photo, creating a collector’s item that is still highly sought after today.

1955: A “daring” Hollywood expose of the surging problem of juvenile delinquency, The Blackboard Jungle opens in movie theaters across the U.S.A. A pretty good film, featuring Glenn Ford and a very young Sidney Poitier, gains more notoriety for the music playing behind the opening titles.

Bill Haley & the Comets‘ “Rock Around the Clock” had been released on its own a year earlier, but hadn’t really attracted much airplay. The movie’s popularity sends “Rock Around the Clock” to the top of the charts, kicking off the rock ‘n’ roll era in earnest and establishing a link between Hollywood and the sales of rock music that continues to this day.

1956: On his way to perform his song “Blue Suede Shoes” on The Perry Como Show, Carl Perkins is involved in a serious car accident that takes the life of his brother and lands Carl in the hospital. While he’s recovering Elvis Presley’s version of Carl’s song overtakes his in the record charts.

While Carl goes on to a fairly successful career, many wonder how things might have been different had he gotten to national TV with “Blue Suede Shoes” before Elvis.

1952: What many consider the very first rock & roll concert took place on this day in Cleveland. Legendary DJ Alan Freed stages his Moondog Coronation Ball at the Cleveland Auditorium. Billy Ward and the Dominoes, Tiny Grimes, and Paul Williams and the Hucklebuckers are the featured attractions.

The event draws 20,000 fans to a 10,000 seat venue causing police to shut down the show early. That touches off the first rock concert near-riot as well.

1959: On that afternoon’s broadcast of American Bandstand, Dick Clark introduces his newest discovery, Bobby Rydell. Rydell will go on to a successful recording career, a part in the film version of Bye Bye Birdie and the namesake for Rydell High in the musical Grease!

1966: The final episode of The Donna Reed Show airs on ABC-TV. The episode features Lesley Gore, playing a pop singer named Lesley Gore.

1965: One of the most famous arrests in the history of rock and roll took place on this day when 3 of the Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger, Brian Jones & Bill Wyman) are busted for urinating on the side of a gas station.

The arrest cements their reputation as rock’s “bad boys” and makes them definitely the #1 alternative to the far better-behaved Beatles.

Today, many people believe the whole stunt was conceived by the Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham purely as a publicity stunt.

1957: Elvis Presley closes a huge real estate deal on this day when he purchased the Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. He paid $102,500 for the 13-acre estate.

The land was originally purchased by Stephen Toof, owner of a successful printing firm, in the late 19^th Century. Toof named the grounds Graceland Farms, after his daughter Grace. The mansion was built in 1939 by Grace’s niece, Ruth Moore and her husband, Dr. Thomas Moore.

Today, it is an Elvis museum that draws more than 600,000 visitors a year, second only to the White House.

1967: Pink Floyd arrives at the Abbey Road studios in London to record their debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn.