September 1972

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  1
The O'Jays receive a gold record for their first hit single, after fourteen years together. "Back Stabbers" goes all the way up to #3 on the pop chart.

David Bowie releases "John, I'm Only Dancing" in the U.K., but presumably becuase of the song's supposedly gay lyrics, it isn't released in the U.S. until 1976 on the greatest hits LP Changesonebowie. And in 1979, a six-minute disco-dance version of the song is released.
 2
Roads are jammed throughout the area as rock fans flock to Indiana for a rock festival on Bull Island in the Wabash River. Indiana State Police Lieutenant N. Burnsworth estimates that 100,000 rock fans already are on the island, with another 30,000 or 40,000 on the way. By the next day, attendance figures will reach 200,000 and despite widespread and flagrant drug abuse, the crowd is described as well-behaved. Appearing at the festival are Canned Heat, Pure Prairie League, Black Oak Arkansas and Brownsville Station, among others.
3
Atlanta Brave "Hammerin'" Hank Aaron breaks Stan Musial's career hitting record with 6,135 total bases, as he singles in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies.
 4
Another rock concert tragedy occurs when concessionaire Francisco Caruso is killed at a Texas Wishbone Ash show becuase he refuses to give a patron a free sandwich.
 5
The Palestinian terrorist group Black September breaks into the lodgings of the Israeli Olympic athletic team in Munich, Germany, killing two and taking nine hostages. As the games are suspended and the world watches in horror, a gun battle erupts the following night between West German police and the terrorists, leaving four Palestinians, all nine captives and one policeman dead.

The London Art Spectrum, held at the Alexandria Palace, is the showcase for five of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's avant-garde films: Cold Turkey, The Ballad of John and Yoko, Give Peace a Chance, Instant Karma and Up Your Leg.
 6
 7
Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly goes gold and later becomes the country's Number One album. The soundtrack LP also includes "Freddie's Dead (Theme from Superfly)," a #4 hit in October.
 8
A son, Zeke, is born to Neil Young and actress Carrie Snodgrass at Young's ranch near San Francisco.

John Sinclair organizes the Ann Arbor Jazz and Blues Festival. What makes this festival different from all others, boasts the noted political activist, is that "it's gonna be a real people's festival -- produced by freaks and for the community." And he actually pulls it off, with a bill including Dr. John, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bonnie Raitt, Sun Ra, Junior Walker, Freddie King, Otis Rush, Luther Allison and Bobby "Blue" Bland.
 9
The ever-changing Miles Davis premieres his new nine-piece band at Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall in New York. Unlike some of Davis' other outfits, which were made up of such stalwart players as Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul, this one is comprised of eight "largely unknown musicians."

England's BBC-TV premieres The Old Grey Whistle Test, a rock & roll program that will serve as a showcase for rock talent.
10
 11
A suit against Maurice Stans, finance head of CREEP, and other staff members is filed by the Democratic party. Four days later, seven defendants -- inlcuding Richard Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt -- are indicted on federal grand jury on conspiracy charges stemming from the Watergate break-in.
 12
The Faces headline Madison Square Garden. Although the show is described as lackluster, the group does show some imagination in selecting its opening acts: a Dixieland band, a group of Charleston dancers and a Scottish bagpiper, who, some later claim, turns in the best performance of the evening.
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Richard Nixon leads challenger George McGovern in the presidential race by a solid 28%, according to a Harris survey.
 26
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Rory Storme, the leader of one of Liverpool's earliest beat groups, kills himself in what is presumed to be a suicide pact with his mother. Rory Storme and the Hurricanes are probably best remembered as the group Ringo Starr left, in 1962, for the Beatles. But they were also one of the era's best. Friends interviewed after his death say that Storme couldn't accept that he never enjoyed the same success as many of his peers from the early-Sixties Liverpool scene.
 28
 29
Cat Stevens opens his new tour before a sold-out crowd of 6,500 at L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium. Sharing the bill with Stevens are Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Cat's own cartoon short, Teaser and the Firecat. Stevens is backed by an eleven-piece orchestra for the thirty-one-date tour, scheduled to end in Toronto.

Under the Bob Woodward-Carl Bernstein byline, the Washington Post reveals the existence of a "dirty tricks" slush fund controlled by former attorney general John Mitchell for the purpose of gathering information on the Democrats and disrupting their campaigns.
 30
Columbia Records, which signed expensive deals with several artists in 1972, announces that it is closing down its four Hollywood studios, meaning unemployment for twenty-eight engineers and other staff members.


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