January 1974

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Bob Dylan and the Band commence their six-week tour, at Chicago Stadium. The Band, once Dylan's backup group, are accorded their own room in the set, and they excel. Dylan is in fine form, performing both solo, on acoustic guitar, and with the Band; their electric versions of Dylan classics inpires Dylan to sing with a gutsiness rarely before heard. One expecially ironic moment: his rendition of "It's Alright Ma," which contains the line "even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." The crowd of 18,500 explodes.

Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" goes gold, the second of three posthumous hits for the late singer/songwriter. "I Got a Name" went Top Ten just one month after Croce was killed in a plane crash, and "Time" reached Number One in December. Yet another song, "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song," goes Top Ten in spring 1974.
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The Carpenters' greatest-hits collection, The Singles 1969-1973, hits #1. The brother-and-sister duo of Karen and Richard Carpenter had, by this year, charted eight Top Ten hits, including a pair of Number Ones, "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (1970) and "Top of the World" (1973). By the time their career ended with Karen's death in 1983, the Carpenters had become one of the most successful duos in pop.
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James Taylor and Carly Simon have their second child, Sarah Martin, in New York.
 8
Kiss give a special dress rehearsal after being signed to Casablanca Records. The group, a Rolling Stone correspondent reports, "play very heavy, loud and ultimately monotonous rock in the Black Sabbath tradition... A sure crowd pleaser. The crowds of kiddies, that is."

The Early Beatles turns gold nine years after its release, and nearly four years since the group's disbanding.
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The Miami Dolphins win their second consecutive Super Bowl, defeating the Minnesota Vikings, 24-7.
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Brownsville Station, described by leader Cub Koda as "Chuck Berry 1973 filtered through three madmen," earn themselves a gold record for their only hit single, "Smokin' in the Boys' Room." "It was written," Koda says straight-faced, "by two guys deep into toilet slavery."

Technicians determine that the 18-minute gap in President Nixon's White House tapes, evidence in the Watergate investigation is the result of several intentional erasures, not a single accidental rerecording as claimed.

The first modern telephone answering machine is made available to the American public by Dictaphone, introducing to common usage the apparent contradiction: "Hello, I'm not here..."
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Dino Martin, singer and son of Dean Martin, is arrested on suspicion of possession and sale of two machine guns. The arrest is made at Martin's home in Beverly Hills, where Martin allegedly attempts to sell an AK-47 machine gun to an undercover agent. Martin, who was one-third of Dino, Desi and Billy, the celebrity-sons group who had several mid-Sixties hits, is arraigned and released the next day on $5,000 bail. He now faces indictment by a federal grand jury.
 18
Maine ratifies the ERA, becoming the 32nd state to do so; Ohio follows suit on Feb. 7
 19
Two Bob Dylan-the Band shows cause a nine-mile-long traffic jam in Miami that keeps many ticket-holders from entering the Sportatorium until the show is half over. A few demonstrators are on hand for the concerts, clutching signs that read: "$9.50--A Ripoff" and "Dylan: Master of War," a reference to recent rumors that the singer has become a Zionist.
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At the insistence of his son Chip, then-governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter invites Bob Dylan to a postconcert party at his mansion. Says Carter of Dylan: "He never initiates conversation, but he'll answer a question if you ask him."
 22
Carly Simon receives a gold record for Hotcakes, her Top Five album highlighted by her duet with busband James Taylor on "Mockingbird," also a Top Five hit.

Bob Dylan's Planet Waves goes gold while the troubador is in the middle of his first tour since 1965. The LP, released on Asylum Records, not Dylan's original label Columbia Records, later goes to Number One, the first Dylan LP to top the charts.
 23
Oil company representatives testify before a Senate commmittee that the oil shortage has not been contrived. Within a week, Hawaii becomes the first state to institute gas rationing, and all major oil companies reveal record-breaking profits for 1973.
 24
Ex-White House aide Egil Krogh Jr. receives a six-month sentence for his part in breaking into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office.
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As fighting continues between South Vietnamese and Communist forces, the U.S. admits providing more than $280 million worth of arms to South Vietnam since the Jan. 1973 peace agreement.
 28
Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in 12 rounds in New York City.
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