February 1974

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday
  1
 2
Keith Emerson injures his hands when a rigged piano explodes prematurely during a concert in San Francisco. Emerson suffers various cuts and a broken fingernail.
3
 4
 5
Patricia Hearst, college student and heiress to the William Randolph Hearst fortune, is kidnapped from her apartment by Berkeley by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Within a week, her kidnappers are identified and her father receives a taped demand to provide food to poor communities in the Bay Area. On Feb. 19, Randolph Hearst begins a $2 million food distribution program. The SLA demands an additional $4 million on Feb. 23.
 6
Former Richard Nixon lawyer John Dean is disbarred as the House reconfirms its Watergate Committee's subpoena powers in the continuing battle for the White House tapes and papers.
 7
Soul artist Barry White receives four gold records on this date: for the singles "Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up" (#7), "Love's Theme" (Number One, by the Love Unlimited Orchestra, conducted by White), and the albums Under the Influence of Love Unlimited (#3) and Stone Gon' (#20).

Ex-Hot Licks John Girton and Maryanne Price are married at the home of a judge in Zephyr Cove, Nevada. Price is due shortly to fly to England to record and tour with the Kinks.
 8
 9
10
Legendary producer Phil Spector is injured in a serious car accident, but details are, for unknown reasons, kept secret. The accident takes place somewhere between L.A. and Phoenix, and according to a statement released by Spector's office, he suffered multiple head and body injuries. Even some of Spector's closest friends know nothing more about the crash and Spector's condition.
 11
 12
The trial of Wounded Knee activists Russell Means and Dennis Banks begins in St. Paul.
 13
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is expelled from Russia for his dissident writings; this year The Gulag Archipelago, his non-fictional account of the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system, is also published in the West.
 14
Rolling Stone reports that David Bowie has turned down a Gay Liberation group who asked him to compose "the world's first Gay National Anthem."

Albert Grossman, manager of the late Janis Joplin, has filed suit in New York against Associated Indemnity Corporation of San Francisco, in an effort to collect a $200,000 life insurance police, $47,500 interest and $50,000 in attorney's fees. Grossman claims the company has not honored the policy, taken out about a year before the singer's death. The company contends that Joplin's death was a suicide, thus nullifying the claim.

After thirty-nine shows in twenty-one cities, the Bob Dylan-the Band tour comes to an end in Los Angeles at the Forum. Many celebrities turn out for the final performance, including Ringo Starr, Carole King, Neil Young, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty. "It was bloody fantastic," enthuses Ringo after the two-and-a- half-hour set, "the best concert I've ever been to."

Rolling Stone reveals two signings by Neil Bogart's new label, Casablanca Records: Kiss and Parliament
 15
The Bottom Line, a new rock club, opens in New York. Attending the opening of the 500-seat club are Mick Jagger, Johnny Winter, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor and Carly Simon and many other music-biz luminaries.
 16
Top of the charts: Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" (pop single); Bob Dylan's Planet Waves (pop album).
17
 18
Yes play the first of two nights at Madison Square Garden. What's remarkable about the engagement is that the first date sold out without the benefit of a single advertisement. Fans learned of the show from listings at ticket outlets and bought out the house within a few days.

Kiss, a New York heavy-metal pseudoglitter group, release their debut album, Kiss. It will take the band three more albums to establish itself; Kiss barely cracks the Top 100.

Ringo Starr releases the third hit single from his Ringo LP, "Oh My My," which hits #5 in April.
 19
In response to the Grammy Awards, Dick Clark stages his own awards show, the American Music Awards. The program, hosted by Helen Reddy, Roger Miller and Smokey Robinson, is held just days before the Grammy Awards are announced, and its purpose, explained by Clark, is: "I kind of like the idea of asking the guy on the street who listens to radio and maybe buys an album. He has no vested interest, no label allegiance." Winners include Reddy, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, and the late Jim Croce. NARAS officials have no comment about Clark's show.

The trial of former attorney general John Mitchell and CREEP financial chief Maurice Stans opens in New York City.
 20
 21
 22
 23
24
President Nixon announces in a press conference that he has declined another request to testify before Judge Sirica's grand jury investigating Watergate, and that although the energy crisis is over, a gasoline shortage remains.
 25
 26
A still-hypothetical -- but public -- argument over the legality of impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon heats up. The White House maintains that impeachment is possible only for an indictable crime; Congress begins to debate that point.
 27
Joni Mitchell has her biggest hit album with Court and Spark (#2), which turns gold on this date. Court and Spark features Mitchell in more of a band situation, with Tom Scott and the L.A. Express, the sound is slick but successful, and includes Mitchell's two highest charting singles, "Help Me" (#7) and "Free Man in Paris" (#22).

People magazine, featuring Mia Farrow on the cover, is launched by Time, Inc.
 28
Bobby Bloom, whose "Montego Bay" made the pop Top Ten in 1970 and "Heavy Makes You Happy" took the Staple Singers to the Top Thirty in 1971, shoots himself to death in West Hollywood. He was twenty-eight.
  


  Previous Month  |  Next Month  






 Main Page | Music Chronicle Intro | 1974 Almanac | Top 100 Seventies Singles | Search The RockSite/The Web