September 1976

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday
  1
Ode Records president Lou Adler and employee Neil Silver are kidnapped at the former's house in Malibu. The two are released eight hours later after paying out $25,000 in hundred dollar bills. A week later, a California couple -- their motivation seemingly only the money -- are charged with the crime, while a search continues for another accomplice in the scheme.
 2
 3
 4
5
 6
 7
 8
Rock and election year politics mix strangely again when Steve Ford, the president's son, invites Briton Peter Frampton, his girlfriend Penny McCall and manager Dee Anthony to the White House. Frampton and company receive a grand tour of the place, and the day concludes with a visit to the First Family's living quarters, mostly spent watching television with the president.

Disco band Wild Cherry's self-titled debut album, which features their Number One hit single "Play That Funky Music," goes gold.

The debut album by Vancouver- based rock band Heart, Dreamboat Annie, goes gold. The album features their hit singles "Magic Man" (which will hit #9 on the pop chart next month) and "Crazy on You" (which hit #35 two months ago).
 9
Mao Tse-tung, leader of Communist China since its inception in 1949, dies. Five weeks later, the so-called "Gang of Four," including Mao's widow, will be charged with attempting to stage a coup d'état, and will be imprisoned.
 10
 11
12
 13
Ex-Humble Pie singer/guitarist Peter Frampton's fourth solo album, Frampton, goes gold. It is his commercial breakthrough album, containing the hit singles "She Me the Way" (#6, a few months ago) and "Baby, I Love Your Way" (#12, this month).
 14
Wired, the second jazz-rock-fusion album by British guitar hero Jeff Beck (after 1975's Blow by Blow), goes gold.

Fourteen Czech rockers, including members of Plastic People of the Universe and DG 307, face trial on various charges, including antisocial behavior and anarchism.
 15
Steely Dan's fifth album, The Royal Scam, goes gold. It contains the hit singles "The Fez" (which will reach #59 next month) and "Kid Charlemagne" (#82, in July), while many of the album's other songs, including the title track and "Haitian Divorce," are very popular on FM radio.
 16
Episcopalian leaders approve the ordination of women into the priesthood.
 17
 18
The second annual Don Kirshner -produced Rock Music Awards program broadcasts on CBS-TV. Winners in the program, generously labeled a fiasco by critics for both its spirit and presentation, include Fleetwood Mac for Best Group and Best Album, and Peter Frampton as Rock Personality of the Year. Rock promoter Bill Graham, nominated a year earlier for a special Public Service award, continues his criticism of the event this year by likening it to "a soup that's out there for three weeks and you open it and these maggots come out."
19
Promoter Sid Bernstein, the man responsible for handling the Beatles' 1965 and 1966 Shea Stadium shows, takes out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times extending his hopes of reuniting the Beatles for a concert. While labeling the would-be event a "symbol of hope" that would offer solace to a world "so hopelessly divided," he takes care to point out that revenues could reach $230 million.
 20
In a controversial Playboy interview (controversial for appearing in that publication), Democratic presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter admits, "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

The Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Clash, the Buzzcocks, the Vibrators, Subway Sect and Siouxsie & the Banshees (with future Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious on drums) are featured at London's first punk-rock festival, which takes place over two nights at the 100 Club.
 21
The Bee Gees' twentieth album, Children of the World, goes gold. It contains their two latest singles, "You Should Be Dancing" (Number One, two weeks ago) and "Love So Right" (which will hit #3 in two months).
 22
Bob Dylan's album Hard Rain, a live document of his 1976 tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue, goes gold.

No more red M&M's: The FDA bans the use of red dye #4 -- common in foods, drugs and cosmetics -- because of its carcenogenic properties.

Charlie's Angels premieres on ABC, and a feathered-back harido craze soon follows.
 23
Rolling Stone reports on the first officially available major rock album on the U.S.S.R.'s Melodiya label: Paul McCartney & Wings's Band on the Run.
 24
 25
Wings play a benefit and raise $50,000 for the restoration of water-damaged art treasures in Venice's St. Mark's Square. A reported 25,000 people attend the performance and unknowingly set back the cause of the Italian town's reclamation from water when their combined weight loosens some paving stones and allows water to seep through into the Square.

The eponymous debut album by the band Boston enters the album chart. It will eventually reach #3 and become the fastest-selling debut album in history. The album, which features the hit single "More Than a Feeling" (which will reach #5 early in 1977), actually consists of demo tapes produced by the band's guitarist Tom Scholz, a senior production manager for Polaroid Corporation. It will be certified platinum on November 22, 1976, and will go on to sell over 7.5 million copies worldwide. It will be two-and-a-half years before the band's next album, Don't Look Back.
26
 27
The Runaways are detained by London police on suspicion of theft of a hairdryer during their U.K. tour.
 28
 29
Jerry Lee Lewis, a.ka. "the Killer," shoots two bullets into the chest of his bass player, Norman "Butch" Owens, while target-shooting holes in an office door. Memphis authorities charge him with firing a gun within city limits.
 30
A Gallup Poll following the first of three televised presidential candidates' debates finds that 33% considered it a tie, 32% thought President Ford prevailed and 25% favored Jimmy Carter.
  


  Previous Month  |  Next Month  






 Main Page | Music Chronicle Intro | 1976 Almanac | Top 100 Seventies Singles | Search The RockSite/The Web