Super Seventies RockSite's Seventies Daily Music Chronicle

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June 1978

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ABC airs Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry, a three-part TV movie series based on Mildred Taylor's 1976 award winning children's book and filmed on location in Mississippi, and featuring an early Morgan Freeman appearance. Parts two and three air on June 3 and 4, respectively.
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The Top Five
1. "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" - Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams
2. "You're the One That I Want" - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John
3. "Shadow Dancing" - Andy Gibb
4. "With a Little Luck" - Wings
5. "Feels So Good" - Chuck Mangione

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5
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ABC debuts the newsmagazine 20/20, its answer to CBS's successful 60 Minutes.

In Monell v. Department of Social Services for the City of New York, the Supreme Court rules that government bodies can also be held liable for government abuses and neglect, including civil rights deprivations.

7
The Washington Bullets overcome the Seattle Supersonics, 105-99, in the seventh game of the finals and grab their first NBA title.
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The Rolling Stones releases their latest album, Some Girls, the title tune of which will once again stir up controversy around rock's baddest boys -- the outcry stemming from the song's lyric "Black girls just like to f--- all night." Privately frontman Mick Jagger apologizes to civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, but refuses to rerecord the song. The controversy continues as actresses like Raquel Welch and Farrah Fawcett threaten to sue over the images of their altered faces on the cover, so the band quickly pulls the artwork and substitutes an expurgated version. Tommorrow, the Stones kick off a 25-date US tour behind the new LP in Lakeland, Florida.

The Mormon Church opens its priesthood to blacks for the first time.

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The Top Five
1. "You're the One That I Want" - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John
2. "Shadow Dancing" - Andy Gibb
3. "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" - Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams
4. "Feels So Good" - Chuck Mangione
5. "Baker Street" - Gerry Rafferty

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12
"Son of Sam" serial murderer David Berkowitz is sentenced to six life sentences in prison.
13
In an attempt to make it into the Guinness World Book of Records, several thousand middle schoolers in Harrisburg, Penn., take part in a large-scale tug-of-war. But when the long, industrial-quality braided nylon rope snaps under the pressure of more than 4,000 straining hands, bloody hell breaks loose. More than 200 are injured, the most serious being a half-dozen students who lose fingers or parts of fingers. Plus there's plenty of cuts, heavy-duty rope burns, and broken limbs. Guinness later discontinues the category, and families file a lawsuit naming the school district, principal and teacher who conceived the idea, and Pennsylvania Power and Light, which supplied the rope.
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Bob Dylan begins his first British tour in several years at London's Wembley Empire Pool before a capacity throng.

The Supreme Court halts construction of Tennessee's Tellico Dam because it would destroy the only known habitat of the snail darter, a tiny, endangered fish.

16
The Clash's reggae-inflected single "White Man in Mammersmith Palais" is released in the U.K. on CBS Records.

Ex-
Sex Pistol Sid Vicious' version of "My Way" is released on an EP titled The Biggest Blow on Virgin Records in England. The EP's flip side is "The Biggest Blow - a Punk Prayer," by fugitive great train robber Ronnie Biggs, backed by ex-Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook. Vicious' "My Way" will later appear on the Virgin LP Sid Sings (featuring Vicious recorded live at club Max's Kansas City in New York City) and the Barclay EP Sid Vicious' Heritage.

The film
Grease, directed by Randall Kleiser and starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, opens in theaters across America. This Hollywoodized look at Fifties adolescents will be a critical bombshell and a box-office smash. The soundtrack will be the second chart-topper for Robert Stigwood's RSO label in 1978 (following Saturday Night Fever), spending 12 weeks at #1. Frankie Valli's title track will also reach #1 and become his top career hit.
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At the Lorely Festival in St. Goarhausen, Germany, the Jefferson Starship fail to appear as scheduled because singer Grace Slick, currently in the midst of a long bout with alcoholism, is unable to go onstage. Fans riot, causing over one million US dollars' worth of damage. Two days later, Slick will leave the band. On June 24, Marty Balin will assume lead vocal duties in her place at Britain's Knebworth Festival, following which the band will cancel the rest of its European tour.

The
Rolling Stones begin another U.S. tour, in Philadelphia. The tour will end July 20 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, amid rumors that lead singer Mick Jagger will leave the band to embark on an acting career.

The Top Five
1. "Shadow Dancing" - Andy Gibb
2. "You're the One That I Want" - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John
3. "Baker Street" - Gerry Rafferty
4. "It's a Heartache" - Bonnie Tyler
5. "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" - Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams

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Cat lovers across America rejoice as cartoonist Jim Garfield debuts his new strip, "Garfield."
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21
The Punk Rock Movie -- consisting of 8mm film clips of London's early punk days at the Roxy Club, shot by guerrila filmmaker Don Letts -- premieres in London. It features the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Slits, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Ex-Ray Spexs, Generation X, Slaughter and the Dogs, Subway Sect, Shane, Wayne County, Eater, Alternative TV and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. It will have a very brief run in New York City later this year.
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Were the Rolling Stones challenged into creating their finest LP in years, Some Girls? That's the theory of many, who see the LP as a response to the taunts of Britain's punks. Besides inspired bar band thrashing, there's the misunderstood country parody "Far Away Eyes" and the jagged dance hit "Miss You," which makes Number One. The record turns platinum on this date.

The American Nazi Party calls off its scheduled march through Skokie, Illinois, preferring to ask permission to demonstrate in Marquette Park in Chicago. The Nazi rally will take place July 9, as 2,000 spectators cheer and jeer.

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To celebrate the end of Gay and Lesbian Pride Week, thousands march in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., among many cities, both inland as well as coastland.
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Ex-Genesis vocalist Peter Gabriel's second eponymously titled solo album is released on Atlantic Records. Produced by ex-King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, it will yield a minor hit single for Gabriel in "D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself)."

Bonnie Tyler's "It's a Heartbreak" is one of the most talked-about songs of the spring: Is that Rod Stewart singing? Tyler's gravelly voice is almost identical to Stewart's, and the resulting notoriety turns the single into a hit and the LP into gold.

Bruce Springsteen's career had been thought to be damaged by the legal difficulties that prevented him from releasing a followup to Born to Run, but Darkness on the Edge of Town dispels those fears, going to #5. It's a dark, haunting album, and almost a lyrical sequel to Born to Run. Springsteen is awarded a platinum album on this date.
28
Pseudoclassical rock band Kansas are named Deputy Ambassadors of Goodwill by UNICEF.

The Supreme Court declares fixed racial quotas unconstitutional and helps introduce the term "reverse discrimination" in a case involving a white man who denied entrance to a California medical school.

29
Pop-rock singer/songwriter Peter Frampton is injured in a car crash in the Bahamas.

Bob (Robert) Crane, 49, of Hogan's Heroes, is found beaten to death in Scottsdale, AZ.

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