1973: A rock ‘n’ roll dream came true on this day when 19-year-old Scot Halpin is invited onstage on The Who concert at San Francisco's Cow Palace to play the drums for the band’s last three songs of the show.

It seems drummer Keith Moon had apparently ingested seven horse tranquilizers prior to the gig and was unable to finish the set (surprise, surprise). Halpin fills in on "Smokestack Lightning," "Spoonful," and "Naked Eye," also taking a final bow onstage with his idols at the close of the concert.

A few months later, Rolling Stone awards Halpin their "Pick-Up Player of the Year Award."

1995: Are you going to the after party?

On this day, after performing at an all-star 80^th birthday tribute to Frank Sinatra at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan are invited back to the crooner’s home for a private celebration.

Neither mentions the fact that the Chairman of the Board once called rock ‘n’ roll artists “cretinous goons” and the music itself, “brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious.” (Of course it was, Frank, why do you think we were listening to it?)

1926: Happy Birthday to the man who contributed more to the founding of rock ‘n’ roll than perhaps any other artist: Chuck Berry would have been 99 today. Make sure and tell Tchaikovsky the news.

1957: On this day Elvis Presley’s third film (and some say, his best film) Jailhouse Rock has its world premiere at the Loews State Theatre in Memphis. It’s the exact same movie theater where Elvis worked as an usher just five years earlier.

Break-Ups and Make-Ups

1972: Creedence Clearwater Revival calls it quits when the other band members resent the creative control exerted by leader John Fogerty.

2003: Paul Simon reunites with Art Garfunkel as they kick off Simon & Garfunkel’s “Old Friends” tour in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

The Life & Times of Howdy Doody – Part 3

We all remember that we spent our afternoons, and later, our Saturday mornings in the 50’s with Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody, but how much do you really remember about the show itself and the strange cast of characters who kept us entertained throughout a good portion of our childhoods?

C’mon backstage because once again, it’s Howdy Doody time!

Most of us remember that the show took place in the fictional town of Doodyville with the set at first resembling a circus, then a Wild West Show, and finally, just various locations within Doodyville. There was a full cast of puppets including Howdy Doody, his best friend Dilly Dally, and perennial villain, Mayor Phineas T. Bluster. Even as a kid, we all wondered how that old swindler kept getting re-elected by the otherwise genteel and benign citizens of Doodyville. (In addition, we wondered why Howdy wasn’t the mayor of a town obviously named after him.)

How many of these other “denizens of Doodyville” do you recognize?

• Don José Bluster (Phineas’ brother)
• John J. Fadoozle (America’s # 1 – BOING! - Private Eye)
• Heidi Doody (Howdy’s sister)
• Hyde & Zeke (twin bears)
• Windy Scuttlebutt
• Sandra the Witch
• Mambo the Elephant
• Paddle the Gnu

And of course, the Flub-a-Dub, who combined the parts of eight animals: a duck’s bill, spaniel’s ears, cat’s whiskers, giraffe’s neck, dachshund’s body, seal’s feet, a pig’s tail, and an elephant’s memory.

The show also provided a sturdy launch pad for two other non-human stars. Zippy the Chimp joined the cast in 1952 and eventually became a media star in his own right, complete with an abundance of authorized merchandise. For some reason, the talented chimpanzee hated the Mr. Bluster puppet and would attack him on sight. Apparently, the little simian was an excellent judge of character.

Almost forgotten now is the fact that another huge superstar got his start with Buffalo Bob and the gang. Gumby (dammit) made his network debut on The Howdy Doody Show in 1956. The little guy proved so popular that NBC was able to spin him off into his own series a year later. The rest, as they say, is show biz history.

Along with Zippy, Gumby and the stringed performers, Doodyville boasted a full cast of human actors as well. It was these human actors that caused the most trouble behind the scenes. Next time, we’ll pull back the curtain on the notorious “Christmas Eve Massacre” that almost derailed The Howdy Doody Show in 1953.

1960: While in Hamburg, Wally Eymond, a guitarist in the Liverpool band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, decides to record a version of the Gershwin brothers’ song “Summertime.”

For some reason, he wants the Beatles to be his back-up band at the recording session. The lads are fine with that, but drummer Pete Best can’t make it. So Eymond brings along the Hurricanes drummer, Ringo Starr. Today marks the first day the Beatles would play with Ringo on drums.

The boys would not ask him to formally join the group until 1962.

1969: A bored writer for a college newspaper unintentionally starts one of the biggest rock hoaxes of all time.

Fred LaBour is asked to write a review of the new Beatles album Abbey Road for the University of Michigan student newspaper. Instead he turns in a piece he clearly thinks no will take seriously, headlined “McCartney Dead: New Evidence Brought to Light.”

The “Paul Is Dead” furor grows so great, Life magazine actually runs a cover story a few weeks later featuring photos of Paul McCartney, very much alive at his farm in the UK.

Some of the classic rock songs recorded on this day:

1958: “Problems” (Everly Brothers)

1965: “Drive My Car” (The Beatles)

1965: “My Generation” (The Who)

1957: After surviving a scary plane ride to Sydney, Australia, where one of the engines caught fire, Little Richard vows he is giving up rock ‘n’ roll, telling the audience at his concert that night, “If you want to live for the Lord, you can't take rock 'n' roll, too.”

1962: On this same day five years later, Little Richard, rocking and rolling again, meets the Beatles who are one of his opening acts. He dislikes John and George, finding them “rude.” But he’s quite smitten with young Paul, allegedly to the point of trying to seduce him.