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1 The controversial drama That Certain Summer, one of the first TV movies to deal frankly with homosexuality, premieres on ABC. Hal Holbrook plays a dad determined to tell his visiting teenage son (Scott Jacoby) that he's gay and living with his partner (Martin Sheen). Written and produced by the team of Richard Levinson and William Link (Mannix, Murder She Wrote), the movie presents an honest portrayal of homosexuality in a time before AIDS. Critics rave ("A giant step for television," says Judith Crist of New York magazine), but at award time the industry shows its usual timidity. Nominated for seven Emmy Awards, it wins but one for best supporting actor (Jacoby). |
2 At the end of the cross-country Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan protest march, a large group of Native American activists arrives in Washington, D.C., and occupies the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. The 500 protesters will remain there until Nov. 8. |
3 Singers James Taylor and Carly Simon are married by a judge in Simon's Manhattan apartment, in front of just the bride's and the groom's mothers. Later that night, Taylor announces the news of the wedding at his Radio City Music Hall concert and confides: "I don't know whether to be more nervous about the concert or the marriage." Carly takes a bow onstage with her new hubby after the encore. |
4 London gets its first permanent rock & roll theater, the 3,000-plus capacity Rainbow Theatre. With its art-deco decor, the forty-one- year-old building (orioginally called the Finsbury Park Astoria) becomes one of England's most popular venues. The Who are the inaugural act, playing for three consecutive nights. The Top Five 1. "I Can See Clearly Now" - Johnny Nash 2. "Nights in White Satin" - Moody Blues 3. "My Ding-A-Ling" - Chuck Berry 4. "Freddie's Dead (Theme from 'Superfly')" - Curtis Mayfield 5. "Burning Love" - Elvis Presley |
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5 Miss Christine, one of Frank Zappa's backing groupie group, The GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously), dies in Massachusetts of a heroin overdose. Christine had been hospitalized the previous year for back troubles, spending six months in a plaster cast. At the time of her death, she was hoping to become a model, and had assembled a portfolio. |
6 Billy Murcia, twenty-one- year-old drumer for the New York Dolls, dies from accidental suffocation. The freak accident occurs following a performance at London's Imperial College. According to band manager Marty Thau, Murcia had met a young woman at a London club and had gone back to her flat, where he apparently began to nod out. The girl panicked and poured coffee down his throat, causing suffocation. Chelsea police claimed it was also "brought on by exhaustion." |
7 In the largest landslide since the election of 1936, President Nixon is reelected. He carries every state except one -- Massachusetts -- to defeat Democratic challenger George McGovern, claiming more than 60% of the popular vote. The incumbent carries 49 states, representing a whopping 520 electoral votes, and buries the man derided as the candidate of "acid, amnesty, and abortion." McGovern's anti-war platform falls flat, though his vice-presidential blunder doesn't help -- selecting, then jettisoning Senator Thomas Eagleton after reports surface that he had undergone shock therapy for depression. But within a couple of years it's President Nixon who will have every right to feel depressed as the unpopular war and burgeoning Watergate scandal cause the roof to cave in on his presidency. Also tonight, Andrew Young of Georgia becomes the first black from the South elected to Congress since Reconstruction. |
8 The Home Box Office (HBO) cable channel goes on the air in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., with 365 subscribers. The first offering is the prophetically titled movie Sometimes a Great Notion, cowritten by Ken Kesey from his novel and starring and starring and directed by Paul Newman. Until now, cable systems are delivering only existing broadcast signals to rural homes with poor or non-existent on-air reception. But today pioneering broadcaster Chuck Dolan unveils this other, infinitely more promising (and profitable) application: a pay channel offering sports, Hollywood movies, and other original fare. Ushering in a brave new world of cable television, Time, Inc., soon acquires the fledgling network while Dolan goes on to build his own cable system and programming (Bravo, AMC) empire. |
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11 Allman Brothers bassist Berry Oakley is killed in a motorcycle accident, just three blocks from the site where Duane Allman was killed a year and 13 days ago. Oakley slammed into a Macon, Ga., city bus and was thrown 20 yards. At first he appeared unhurt, but died -- apparently of a brain concussion -- 20 minutes after being admitted to a hospital. Oakley was 24 years old, the same age as Allman when he was killed. |
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14 The Dow Jones Industrial Average has its first close ever above 1,000 points on the heels of President Nixon's Nov. 7 victory, the market buoyed by in improving economy and prospects of peace in Indochina. The Dow will continue a steady ascent with only occasional downturns, but hopes for peace fade and economic uncertainties continue. "I look for a higher market over the next few months, with the usual profit taking pauses," says an analyst at E.F. Hutton & Company. |
15 Singer/songwriter Harry Chapin and his wife have their first son, Joshua Burke, born in New York City. |
16 Pepsico reveals its agreement with the Soviet Union to manufacture and distribute Pepsi-Cola in the U.S.S.R. The following April, this deal will be expanded into a soda-for-vodka swap, bringing Stolichnaya vodka to American drinkers. |
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18 Danny Whitten, former singer/songwriter for Neil Young's Crazy Horse, dies in Los Angeles of a heroin overdose. Friends of the twenty-nine- year-old Whitten are saddened but not surprised; his heroin habit has been acute for some time, and was the main reason he had to leave Crazy Horse in 1971. "He had a deathwish trip," says manager Ron Stone. Whitten is later memorialized in Neil Young's lugubrious antidrug album, Tonight's the Night, released in 1975. Two Who solo LPs enter the U.S. chart: Pete Townshend's Who Came First, which makes only #69, and John Entwistle's Whistle Rhymes, which doesn't even break the Top 100. |
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22 The U.S. Navy reveals it has spent over $375,000 studying the aerodynamic qualities of the Frisbee. |
23 According to Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger has been named to Women's Wear Daily's "Cat Pack" list; also included is Henry Kissinger, Lord Snowden, Truman Capote and Aristotle and Jackie Onassis. |
24 ABC-TV premieres its late-night rock show In Concert, produced by the man who gave you the Monkees, Don Kirshner. The first show, taped earlier at Long Island's Hofstra University, stars Alice Cooper, Chuck Berry, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Poco and the Allmans (then with the late Berry Oakley). Kirshner will later leave In Concert and begin his own Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. |
25 Pink Floyd Live at Pompei, a film scheduled for a special premiere at London's Rainbow Theater, is canceled at the last minute by the theater's owner. No explanation for the decision is offered. According to Rolling Stone, Hollies lead singer Allan Clarke has announced plans to leave the group. However, his departure, as it turns out, will be short-lived. KROQ's radio spots for its rock show at the 100,000-seat L.A. Coliseum have been blasting the airwaves with bombastic boasts: "First there was Monterey, then there was Woodstock, and now KROQ presents the ultimate rock concert festival." The bill is indeed impressive: Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, Mott the Hoople, the Eagles, the Bee Gees, plus others. So many acts, in fact, that they almost outnumber the audience. The "ultimate" festival draws a mere 32,000 spectators. |
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30 Wings releases "Hi, Hi, Hi," which is banned from the BBC because of its "unsuitable lyrics." Nevertheless, the song is a sizable hit, making #5 in Britain and #10 in the U.S. in early 1973. |
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Fishinsolitude Thank you. Having this as a reference has taken me back to 1972 and the first Eagles concert I saw. That concert was held at the LA Coliseum and featured many artists including Sly and the Family Stone, The Raspberries, Mott the Hoople, and Elephants Memory. I was there to see a new band calling themselves the "Eagles." They had recently come out with a little tune that started out with "well I'm a runnin down the road trying to loosen my load." Yep, that song! There were plenty of great performers and bands that cool evening at the Colosseum, but the Eagles stole the show. ~RIP Glenn Frey. Thank you for sharing your talents, music and wonderful voice with the world. |
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