May 1973

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  1
Bachman-Turner Overdrive, featuring former Guess Who guitarist Randy Bachman, releases its first LP. Public reaction to this Canadian quartet is slow to come: It takes the album six months to even chart, and it's a year before the first single, "Let It Ride," will become a Top 25 hit.
 2
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 4
Led Zeppelin open their 1973 U.S. tour, which is billed in pretour publicity as the "biggest and most profitable rock & roll tour in the history of the United States." Group spokesmen predict that the tour will gross over $3 million. The first of the thirty-four dates is in Atlanta.
 5
Top of the charts: Tony Orlando & Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree" (pop single); Elvis Presley's Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite (pop album).
6
Paul Simon begins his first tour without Art Garfunkel, at Boston's Music Hall. For most of his set, he performs unaccompanied, but later is joined by Urubama, a Latin American quartet, and the Jesse Dixon Singers, a gospel group Simon heard at the 1972 Newport Festival. It is this tour that is recorded for the 1974 album Live Rhymin'.
 7
George Harrison releases "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)," which will become his second Number One single. It's the first release from Living in the Material World, Harrison's second Number One LP.
 8
 9
Mick Jagger adds $150,000 of his own money to the $350,000 raised by the Rolling Stones' January concert for the benefit of Nicaraguan earthquake victims.
 10
The New York Knicks take the NBA title again, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, 102-93.
 11
The Pentagon Papers trial ends with all charges against Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo dismissed. Government misconduct had come to light two weeks earlier, with proof that Watergate conspirators E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy had burglarized Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to obatain damaging information.
 12
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 14
Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina's first LP, titled Sittin' In, goes gold. The successful duo actually got together by accident. Messina, recently out of Poco, had been tabed to produce a Loggins solo effort, but the two developed such a rapport that Messina was persuaded to return to performing. The partnership will last five years.

The U.S.'s first orbiting lab, Skylab 1, is launched and is damaged upon deployment. Eleven days later, the crew blasts off to repair the station and sets a space endurance record of 28 days.
 15
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 17
Yes receive gold records for both Yessongs, their triple-record live set (recorded in 1972), and The Yes Album, recorded in 1970 with a lineup that was two-fifths different. Yessongs makes #12; The Yes Album made #40 in 1971.

As the Watergate Committe begins public hearings in Washington, D.C., the Washington Post reports that the Watergate affair was only a small part of a larger program of illegal activities that the White House has led against its political "enemies" since 1969.
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Sylvia (nom de record for Sylvia Robinson) has a novelty smash with "Pillow Talk," a 45 with suggestive lyrics. Robinson was once of the duo Mickey and Sylvia ("Love Is Strange," 1957) and later sill form her own label, Sugarhill Records. "Pillow Talk" hits #3 and goes gold.
 22
 23
Clive Davis is fired as president of Columbia Records, for allegedly using company money for personal use, such as $53,700 for alterations on his apartment and approximately $20,000 to pay for his son's bar mitzvah. Davis, who successfully led CBS through the Sixties rock years, will reemerge just a few years later as head of Arista Records.
 24
 25
Carole King gives back "a little something" to her favorite city, New York: a free concert in Central Park before an estimated 100,000 fans. Although King can be seen only by a small portion of the crowd, she is able to be clearly heard, as sound man Chip Monck uses six times the amount of equipment carried on the Rolling Stones' 1972 U.S. tour.

The New York Times reports that the CIA informed the White House as early as 1969 that no connection existed between foreign governments and U.S. radical groups, despite the Nixon administration's claims.
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Ronnie Lane, a charter member of the Small Faces (now just Faces), quits the band for his own group, Slim Chance. His replacement is Tetsu Yamauchi. The Faces recently released their fourth album, Ooh La La.
 29
Roger McGuinn makes a solo debut at New York's Academy of Music just prior to the release of his first album. McGuinn also confirms rumors that the Byrds have been grounded -- unless, that is, he can coax the rest of the original Byrds to reunite.

Columbia Records president Clive Davis is fired for inappropriate use of company funds (such as spending $20,000 for his son's bar mitzvah). Davis will later bounce back to head Arista Records.
 30
 31
Steely Dan, an eclectic outfit fronted by keyboardist Donald Fagen and bassist Walter Becker, have a gold LP the first time out with Can't Buy a Thrill. The album includes the hits "Do It Again" and "Reeling in the Years."
  


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