May 1977

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1
The Clash kick off their first tour of the U.K. with a May Day celebration at the Roxy in London. The forty-date White Riot tour -- on which the Clash will be accompanied by the Buzzcocks, the Slits, the Subway Sect and (on some dates) the Jam -- will spread as "the scourge of punk" (as one provincial reporter will put it) outside of London before bringing it home for a concert at London's Rainbow Theatre. At that event, fans will rip out seats bolted to the floor to make room for dancing; the news media will see that as a fulfillment of the tour's billing and will describe it as a "riot."
 2
More than three years after its release, Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle goes gold.
 3
 4
 5
Rolling Stone reports that A&M Records has established a perpetual scholarship in Peter Frampton's name for students of contemporary muisc at San Francisco's State University. It is also reported that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will become the first American rock band to perform in the Soviet Union, performing 24 concerts during a monthlong tour.
 6
Attracting 76,229 fans to the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, Led Zeppelin break their own world record for largest audience at a single-act concert.
 7
8
Olivia Newton-John makes her New York City debut with a concert at the Metropolitan Opera House.
 9
 10
The Eagles sue former manager David Geffen over the sale to Warner Bros. of his record and publishing companies, to which the Eagles were signed.
 11
 12
Portland, Oregon, is the site of rock's first-ever quadraphonic concert, as Pink Floyd surrounds its audience sonically on four sides.
 13
EMI in Britain and Capitol in the U.S. release The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, an album culled from live recordings made during the Beatles' American tours of 1964 and 1965. The album proves that, under the earsplitting din of thousands of screaming Beatlemaniacs, the Beatles could perform on stage as well as they did in the studio. In the meantime, the Beatles are losing their court effort to prevent Lingasong Records from releasing Live! At the Star Club, Hamburg, Germany, 1962, an album recorded by Ted "Kingsize" Taylor, whose signed affidavit states that the Beatles agreed to let him tape a Hamburg gig with the words "It's okay by us, Ted, but you get the beer in."

Dolly Parton makes her New York City debut with a concert at the Bottom Line.

Linda Ronstadt denies reports that she has agreed to be photographed nude for the centerfold of Hustler magazine for a fee of $1 million. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt offered that sum to ten famous women, none of whom accepted. "I got the offer in the mail," said Ronstadt. "I laughed at it, and then threw it in the wastebasket."
 14
15
 16
No one paid much notice when ex-Spooky Tooth veteran Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson Ian McDonald joined together to form a band in 1976. The half-English, half-American sextet, called Foreigner, quietly released a debut LP in early 1977 and watched it soar to #4. On this date, it goes gold.
 17
An American jazz tour of Cuba featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and Earl "Fatha" Hines arrives in Havana, the tour is the first of its kind since Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
 18
 19
Interviewed by David Frost, former president Richard Nixon defends his illegal activities as executive necessities in the face of domestic threats and compares himself to Abraham Lincoln.

Deceased Texas millionaire Sandra West is buried according to her wishes, dressed in a lace nightgown at the wheel of her 1964 Ferrari.
 20
Blondie makes its U.K. stage debut with an appearance at the London Roundhouse the night before setting off on a tour of Britain with fellow New Yorkers Television.
 21
22
West Coast jazz pianist Hampton Hawes dies.
 23
The NBA names Kareem Abdul-Jabbar MVP for the fifth time.
 24
 25
 26
William Powell of the O'Jays dies at age thirty-five in Canton, Ohio, after a long bout with cancer. Powell was an original member of the O'Jays (formed in 1958 as the Mascots) and sang with them until he was forced to quit the group in 1976 because of his health.

Extreme sportsman and toy designer George Willig illegally climbs the south tower of New York City's World Trade Center in less than four hours.
 27
Two weeks after signing the Sex Pistols, Virgin Records releases "God Save the Queen" to coincide with Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee celebration in June. The song, which begins, "God save the Queen, she ain't no human being," will forthwith be banned from British airplay because of its "treasonous sentiments." Nonetheless, it will hit Number One on the British chart, listed in some reports with a blank line where the title should be.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger notes a significant increase in the number of lawyers in the U.S., urging out-of-court settlements of civil disputes to prevent "hordes of lawyers hungry as locusts."
 28
Bruce Springsteen and his former manager, Mike Appel, reach an out-of-court settlement on Springsteen's July 1976 suit and Appel's countersuit, which have prevented the New Jersey rock & roller from recording for almost a year. The settlement grants Springsteen rights to his songs, the privilege of choosing his own producer, and the power to renegotiate his contract with Columbia Records. Appel, Appel, whose ties with Springsteen are severed, will receive a cash payment reported to be close to a million dollars.
29
Goddard Lieberson, an executive of Columbia Records for over thirty-five years, dies in New York City at age sixty-six. Lieberson oversaw Columbia's rise to prominence in the pop music field in the Sixties by opening the company to talent brought in by his associates, John Hammond and Clive Davis.

An overweight Elvis Presley, after having eaten five banana splits before the show, nearly collapses and walks off stage in the middle of a concert in Baltimore, Maryland -- the first time in his twenty-three-year career he has done so except in the case of illness.
 30
Jazz saxophonist Paul Desmond dies.
 31
Emerson, Lake and Palmer, having recently finished recording their ambitious Works, Volume One, begin one of the most audacious rock tours to date. Accompanied by a 70-piece orchestra and nearly 125 people, the tour is an international, yearlong tour de force, but due to canceled shows and production-cost overruns, the orchestra departs after only a few performances in the Midwest.
  


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