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October 1979 | ||||||
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1 Elton John performs the first of eight consecutive shows at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Pope John Paul II makes his first ever visit to America, beginning in Boston and ending on Oct. 7th in Washington, D.C., after visiting President Carter in the White House. During his first U.N. visit in New York City (Oct. 2nd), he delivers a speech denouncing concentration camps and torture that rattles many delegates at the U.N. whose nations' rulers practiced both for "state security." |
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4 Rolling Stone reports that Eagles' guitarist Joe Walsh has announced his candidacy for president on the "free gas for everybody" platform, boasting that he has "never lied to the American public." On Nov. 1, the magazine will report on Jello Biafra's campaign for mayor of San Francisco. The Dead Kennedys frontman pledges municipal rent rollbacks, the auction of public offices and the establishment of a Board of Bribery to set fair prices for building-code exemptions, liquor licenses and other privileges. |
5 The soundtrack to the Who's The Kids Are Alright -- a loving history of the band -- turns platinum, a little more than a year after the death of drummer's Keith Moon. |
6 Fleetwood Mac rocks onto the pop charts with "Tusk," an eventual Top 10 single from their new Top 5 double-LP of the same name recorded with the University of Southern California Marching Band at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Funk band Fatback enter the soul chart with "King Tim III (Personality Jock)," which will peak at #26 in its eleven weeks on the chart, and which will later be seen by many observers as a seminal pre-rap song. 10, director Blake Edwards's comedic take on male sexual insecurities, opens and gives Englishman Dudley Moore the most timely of career resuscitations, but it's comely leading lady Bo Derek, the film's title star, who catches the most attention. Within a month Derek, the wife of actor/director/cinematographer John Derek, will sell not only millions of tickets but also a half-million posters, and make the first of many appearances in Playboy starting with the March 1980 issue (her first pictorial was photographed by her husband on a secluded beach along an unnamed area of the Colorado River). While her career proves fleeting, her fame and fortune remain. "Whoever said money can't buy happiness," she says, "simply didn't know where to go shopping." Moore, who was cast in 10 after original lead George Segal had a "difference of opinion" with Edwards on the first day of shooting, will move on to his signature role as the drunken playboy in two Arthur films in 1981 and 1988. The Top Five 1. "Sad Eyes" - Robert John 2. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" - Michael Jackson 3. "Rise" - Herb Alpert 4. "My Sharona" - The Knack 5. "Sail On" - Commodores |
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10 The Rose, starring Bette Midler as a rock singer transparently based on Janis Joplin, premieres in Los Angeles. The film also stars Frederick Forrest and Alan Bates, and will be moderately successful. The city of Los Angeles declares this "Fleetwood Mac Day," giving the superstar rock band its own star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame -- right in front of legendary lingerie emporium Frederick's of Hollywood. |
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12 At a Madison Square Garden concert in New York City, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull suffers a minor eye injury when a fan throws a rose at him and one of its thorns pierces his eye. Two shows have to be canceled before Tull resumes its tour. |
13 Chaka Khan and Rufus enter the soul chart on the way to another Number One soul hit, with "Do You Love What You Feel," which will top the soul chart for two weeks starting December 15. Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" debuts on the R&B charts. The Top Five 1. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" - Michael Jackson 2. "Rise" - Herb Alpert 3. "Sad Eyes" - Robert John 4. "Sail On" - Commodores 5. "My Sharona" - The Knack |
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14 Postpunk rocker Tom Robinson performs solo at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. NBC premieres a TV adaptation of the 1962 Helen Keller biopic The Miracle Worker with Patty Duke in the title role of teacher Anne Sullivan, a reversal of her appearance as a young Helen Keller in the earlier film, and Little House on the Prairie's Melissa Gilbert as Helen Keller. CBS airs the first part of the two-part series Flesh and Blood based on Pete Hamill's controversial incest themed novel of the same name. It stars Tom Berenger and its second part airs on Oct. 16. |
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17 Fleetwood Mac's two-record set Tusk, a highly experimental album that cost the band nearly $1 million to record, is released on Warner Bros. Records. Its offbeat title track, featuring the USC Trojan Marching Band, will become a minor hit single, and Tusk will take just a little longer than usual to earn another gold disc, though it will fail to go platinum. The Pittsburgh Pirates clip the Baltimore Orioles' wings in seven games to win the World Series. |
18 Fifteen black youths are arrested at an Earth, Wind and Fire concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City and are charged with having beaten and robbed patrons on their way into the concert. |
19 Journey continue on the course begun by 1978's Infinity with the release of Evolution. This second record with singer Steve Perry does even better, surpassing sales of 1 million on this date. |
20 George Clinton's Funkadelic enter the soul LP chart with Uncle Jam Wants You, which in its nineteen weeks on the chart will rise to #2. The album also yields the group's Nunber One soul hit "(not just) Knee Deep" -- which hit the top of the soul chart one week ago and will stay there for two more weeks. Bob Dylan introduces his born-again gospel-rock to the nation as he performs "Gotta Serve Somebody" on NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live. His religious fervor will also surface on his Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love albums. Brooklyn-born Patricia Andrzejewski, better known as Pat Benatar, releases her debut LP, In the Heat of the Night. The album will climb to No. 12, remain on the charts for 122 weeks, and sell over a million copies. The sultry hard-rock singer will chart five more platinum albums, including the No. 1 Precious Time, between 1980 and 1984. The Top Five 1. "Rise" - Herb Alpert 2. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" - Michael Jackson 3. "Pop Music" - M 4. "Sail On" - Commodores 5. "I'll Never Love This Way Again" - Dionne Warwick |
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22 In a preliminary court hearing, actress Carrie Snodgress claims that veteran keyboardist and arranger Jack Nitzsche did not rape her with a pistol, as previously reported, but did "threaten to destroy part of me." Faced with charges of assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and false imprisonment, Nitzsche says of Snodgress, "I still feel friendly toward her." After much politicking and under a death threat from Ayatollah Khomeini, the exiled Shah of Iran arrives in the U.S. for cancer surgery. Although he will later leave for Panama, this American hospitality fuels anti-U.S. sentiment in Iran. |
23 NBC airs the TV movie Undercover with the KKK, based on a true story about an FBI informant who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the mid 1960s Civil Rights era. |
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27 Funk band Cameo enter the soul chart with their second soul Top Ten hit this year, "Sparkle," which in twenty weeks on the chart will peak at #10. Their other hit this year was "I Just Want to Be," which hit #3 in August. The Great Santini, a film about a generational clash that erupts between a tough-as-nails marine fighter (Robert Duvall) and his loyal but conflicted eldest son (Miles O'Keefe), opens. Adapted from Pat Conroy's best-seller, the Southern drama veers toward melodrama with a ponderous subplot about racial tolerance, but wins plaudits for its two leads, each of whom wins Oscar nominations. |
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31 The sexual-fantasy movie, 10, starring Bo Derek, and the horror flick Halloween are the first and second box-office draws. |
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