June 1972

June 1972
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
				1	2 Dion and the Belmonts reunite for one show at Madison Square Garden. The event is recorded and released as Reunion in the following year.	3 The Rolling Stones begin their first North American tour since 1969 in Vancouver, with Exile on Main Street approaching Number One. The eight-week tour is the happening of the year, and tickets sell out in all of the thirty cities the Stones will play. The first show is more likea dress rehearsal in which the band gets to audition its material in front of 17,000 fans. Keith Richards blows out two guitars during the tepidly received one-hour-and- forty-minute set. Opening for the Stones is Stevie Wonder. Sally Priesand becomes the second female rabbi in the history of Judaism and the first in the U.S. Top of the charts: the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There" (pop single); Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick (pop album).
4 Black activist Angela Davis is acquitted of murder and other charges relating to a court escape and murder case in which guns were traced to her.	5	6 The George McGovern juggernaut rolls on, with triumphs over Hubert Humphrey in New Jersey, California, New Mexico and his native South Dakota.	7 "Grease" opens at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway, after a four-month run off Broadway. It runs continuously until April 13, 1980, and its 3,388 performances break "Fiddler on the Roof"'s longest-running- show-on-Broadway record.	8 Jimmy Rushing, who rose to fame in the Thirties as the blues singer with the Count Basie Band, dies at age sixty-eight after a short illness. Rushing's voice was once described by novelist Ralph Ellison as "steel bright in its upper range and, at its best, silky smooth." Rushing remained with Basie until 1950, and later led his own band. He was still singing on weekends at New York's Half Note club up until his death. Big-band blues vocalist Jimmy Rushing dies.	9 John Hammond of Columbia Records signs a singer/songwriter from an undiscovered bastion of rock & roll -- Asbury Park, New Jersey. The new recording artist is a veteran of the Jersey shore scene. His name: Bruce Springsteen.	10 Elvis Presley performs a public concert in the Big Apple for the first time, recordings of which will later be released as Elvis as Recorded at Madison Square Garden.
11	12 John Lennon and Yoko Ono release Some Time in New York City, a two-record set full of self-conscious politicism that even Lennon himself will later regret. Two sides of the four-record set consist of the Lennons' live jam with Frank Zappa at the Fillmore East in 1971. The LP comes packages as a newspaper, another self-conscious reminder of the songs' contemporary bent. Song titles include: "Sisters, O Sisters," "John Sinclair," "Attica State" and "Angela," a song written for black activist Angela Davis. The album only makes it to #48. Creedence Clearwater Revival, pared down to a trio after the departure of Tom Fogerty in 1971, recieve a gold album for Mardi Gras, the final LP of their recording career. Most CCR LP's were packed with hits, but Mardi Gras contains only one, "Someday Never Comes," the last of their thirteen Top Twenty-five hits. Later this year, Creedence will announce that they are splitting up.	13 Clyde McPhatter dies of complications of heart, liver and kidney diseases at age thirty-eight in the Bronx. McPhatter was lead vocalist on some of the Drifters' biggest hits, including "Money Honey" and "Such a Night." After leaving the group, he gegan a solo career that started out promisingly, but which began to wane by the mid-Sixties. Problems with drugs and alcohol followed.	14 The fifth show organized by actor Warren Beatty for presidential candidate George McGovern is held at Madison Square Garden. Beatty coaxes several defunct acts to runite: Simon and Garfunkel, Peter, Paul and Mary and the comedy duo of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. A crowd of 18,000 attends, raising several hundred thousand dollars for the McGovern campaign. Tuscon, Arizona, police are forced to use tear gas to disperse a crowd of 200 to 300 youths who attempt to crash a Rolling Stones concert. After years of studies and warnings, the EPA outlaws nearly all uses of the pesticide DDT. The fifth concert organized by actor Warren Beatty in support of the George McGovern campaign takes place in New York City and features performances by Simon & Garfunkel, Peter, Paul & Mary and the comedy duo Elaine May & Mike Nichols.	15	16	17 Five men are arrested for breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at Washington, D.C.'s swank Watergate Hotel. Over the next few days, it will be revealed that all are somehow linked to the CIA, and that at least one is connected to an assistant to Nixon campaign manager and former attorney general John Mitchell. The FBI announces its intention to investigate.
18	19	20 The Tallahatchie Bridge, immortalized in Bobbie Gentry's 1967 hit "Ode to Billy Joe," collapses. George McGovern wins the New York primary, virtually ensuring his nomination as the Democratic candidate in the presidential race.	21 Janis Joplin's Joplin in Concert, released posthumously, is awarded a gold record. The two-record set includes material that Joplin recorded as far back as 1968 with Big Brother and the Holding Company and as late as the summer of 1970 with the Full-Tilt Boogie Band. The LP makes it to #4. Billy Preston has his first gold hit with "Outa-Space," the first of his three hit instrumentals. Preston first achieved recognition for his keyboard work with the Beatles on Let It Be. He will go on to tour and to record with the Rolling Stones. "Outa-Space" reaches #3 on the U.S. pop chart in May, and Preston will top the chart almost exactly one year later with "Will It Go Round in Circles."	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29 The Supreme Court upholds former decisions that capital punishment is unconstitutional, deeming he death penalty cruel and unusual.	30

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