Seventies Daily Music Chronicle - July 1978

July 1978
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
						1 Disco-funk band Con Funk Shun enter the soul chart with "Shake and Dance with Me," which will peak at #5 in its seventeen weeks on the chart. Michael Henderson, who had won critical praise for his bass playing in Miles Davis' electric-fusion units recently, enters the soul charts with "Take Me I'm Yours." Henderson's disco move will prove successful: the single will stay on the chart for twenty weeks, peaking at #3. Martha & the Vandellas reunite for the first time in ten years for a benefit concert for actor Will Geer in Santa Cruz, Calif. Before Martha became a fabled Motown diva, she worked as a clerk at a Detroit dry cleaners.
2	3 In a blow to the First Amendment, the Supreme Court upholds the FCC's punitive action against New York City's WBAI-FM for broadcasting George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine (a diatribe against the FCC's "dirty words" list).	4	5 The EMI Record pressing plant in Britain stops printing the album cover for the Rolling Stones' Some Girls after some celebrities (including Lucille Ball) depicted in the cover's mock-wig advertisement complain. Strapping Swedish tennis champion Bjorn Borg dismantles Jimmy Connors in straight sets to claim his third straight Wimbledon title. Since becoming the All England Club's youngest winner ever two years ago at age 20 when he beat Romanian Ilie Nastase, Borg has dominated men's tennis with his steady baseline game. Borg will go on to win Wimbledon the next two years, too, for an unprecedented five consecutive Wimbledon titles, a record that stands for a quarter century until it's matched by Switzerland's Roger Federer.	6 New Yorker Eddie Mahoney, who once aspired to be a NYPD city cop, moves to the West Coast and changes his last name to Money -- it's a fitting moniker: his debut, Eddie Money, goes gold and gives him two big hits: "Two Tickets to Paradise" and "Baby Hold on to Me."	7 Martina Navrotilova continues to dominate women's professional tennis, defeating Chris Evert for the Wimbledon title.	8 Singer/guitarist Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon of the Clash are arrested in Glasgow, Scotland, for drunk and disorderly behavior. With his three older brothers, the Bee Gees, reaping benefits from the disco movement, Andy Gibb gets into the act with his album Shadow Dancing, which will peak at #18 in its twelve weeks on the chart. The album's title single had reached Number One earlier in the year. Top of the charts: Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing" (pop single); Gerry Rafferty's City to City (pop album).
9 During a U.S. tour, the Rolling Stones (sans bassist Bill Wyman) jam with Muddy Waters at the Quiet Knight, a small blues club on Chicago's South Side. The Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta duet "You're the One That I Want" hits #1 in the U.K.	10	11	12	13 Rolling Stone reports on Neil Young's new song (recorded with conceptual new-wave act Devo), "Out of the Blue and Into the Black," the first musical tribute from rock's old guard to punk's new upstarts.	14	15 Over 200,000 fans gather at Britain's Blackbush Airport to see Bob Dylan and his band off after the completion of Dylan's British tour. Two veteran soul acts enter the soul chart this day: Tyrone Davis with "Can't Help but Say," which will peak at #65 in eight weeks on the chart; and the Dells with "Super Woman," which in thirteen weeks on the chart will go as high as #24. Disco band L.T.D. enters the soul chart with "Holding On (When Love Is Gone)," which in its seventeen weeks on the chart will peak at Number One for two weeks starting September 9. An AIM-sponsored "Longest Walk" to raise awareness of the plight of American Indians ends in Washington, D.C. Nearly 2,000 American Indians and supporters complete the march, which originated on San Francisco's Alcatraz Island.
16	17	18 John Travolta, the box-office sensation of 1978 (Saturday Night Fever and Grease), enjoys his first Number One with "You're the One That I Want," sung with his Grease costar, Olivia Newton-John. The tune is awarded a platinum single on this date. Gerry Rafferty, once a member of Stealer's Wheel, scores a gold record for "Baker Street," one of the summer songs of 1978 (#2 for six weeks). The album from which it was taken, City to City, had been certified platinum on June 20.	19	20 Dr. Peter Bourne, President Carter's chief advisor on narcotics, resigns in a scandal over a Quaalude prescription he had written for his secretary. A few days later, columnist Jack Anderson will reveal that Bourne had used cocaine at a party given by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws; Carter will issue a strongly worded memo instructing White House staff to obey all drug laws.	21	22
23 Marc Schreuder, the son of New York City socialite Frances Berenice Schreuder (née Bradshaw), murders his millionaire Utah grandfather, Franklin Bradshaw, after being induced into it by his mother, who feared she would be disinherited from her father's will because he had become tired of supporting her "Manhattan lifestyle." Marc Schreuder will be convicted of second-degree murder in 1982 and spend 12 years in the Utah State Prison. Frances Schreuder will be convicted for her part in the murder in 1983, and spend 13 years in prison before her death in 2004 at age 65. The case becomes the subject of two 1985 biography books and two 1987 TV miniseries.	24 The Robert Stigwood- produced film version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band opens in New York City. The film, which stars the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, is a critical disaster and a box-office bomb.	25 Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby, is born in England.	26	27	28 The irreverent, clever National Lampoon magazine makes its first foray into into feature films with the premiere of National Lampoon's Animal House, and comedy's never the same. The road-tripping, prank-pulling, beer-swilling, toga-partying frat brothers are led by Tim Matheson and Saturday Night Live star John Belushi in the movie, which offers a sophomoric, slapstick spoof of college life in the 1960s. It becomes the year's third highest-grossing film and spawns a spate of raunchy, inferior imitations and even a deservedly short-lived ABC sitcom, Delta House.	29 Funk-fusion group Earth, Wind and Fire enters the soul chart with their cover version of the Beatles' "Got to Get You into My Life," from the soundtrack of the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The single will peak at Number One for one week on September 23. Funk-rock fusionist Prince, at this time a virtually unknown tyro out of Minneapolis, enters the soul chart for the first time, with a song the title of which will become rather typical of his sexually, explicit oeuvre: "Soft and Wet." It will reach #12 in its twenty weeks on the chart.
30 Glen Goins, former vocalist and guitarist with George Clinton's Parliament- Funkadelic, dies at age twenty-four in New Jersey of complications relating to Hodgkins' Disease. Goins sang lead on their hit single "Bop Gun," as well as such tracks as "Funkin' for Fun," "Handcuff" and "Do That Stuff."	31 Television, one of the highly regarded and influential of New York City's punk new wave rock bands, disbands. Later, guitarist and songwriter Tom Verlaine will go on to a solo career, in which he will frequently be backed by Television bassist Fred Smith. Guitarist Richard Lloyd will also embark on a sporadic solo career. Drummer Billy Ficca will play with several bands around New York City before joining the Waitresses. Television released their most critically acclaimed album, Marquee Moon, in May 1977.

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