This Day in History: 2025-03-22
MARCH 22nd
“Physical Graffiti” begins a six-week run at #1 on the U.S. album chart. The Led Zeppelin album goes on to sell more than 16-million copies. 1975
Iron Maiden issue “The Number Of The Beast.” The group’s third studio album, their first album with vocalist Bruce Dickinson, is considered one of the most influential Heavy Metal albums of all time. 1982
The film adaptation of Mötley Crüe’s biography, “The Dirt – Confessions Of The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band,” premieres on Netflix. “It’s not just sex, drugs and car crashes,” says Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx. “Those things happen – and, in our case, more than usual. But what’s at the core of it all is the creativity and the personal relationships between each band member.” 2019
MORE TODAY IN ROCK…
Yardbirds’ vocalist/harmonica player, Keith Relf, is born. 1943
Carl Perkins is seriously injured in a car accident while on his way to New York to sing his new single “Blue Suede Shoes” on The Ed Sullivan Show. Though Perkins recovers his career doesn’t. 1956
The Beatles release their debut album, “Please Please Me,” in the U.K. The set contains 14 songs including eight John Lennon/Paul McCartney originals; the title track and the group’s first single “Love Me Do” among them. 1963
The Allman Brothers Band gets busted in Jackson, Alabama. At a truck stop state troopers notice band members acting ‘erratically’. A search turns up heroin and marijuana. The charges are later reduced to disturbing the peace with over $5,000 in fines and expenses. 1971
The Eagles’ “On The Border” is their third studio album but the first to feature guitarist Don Felder. The set includes “Already Gone,” “James Dean” and “Best Of My Love.”1974
Limp Bizkit drummer John Otto is born. 1977
“We don’t need no education.” Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall” is the top song on the Hot 100. The track is from the group’s epic album, “The Wall.” 1980
Bob Dylan and Liberace appear on Late Night With David Letterman. And no, they don’t perform together. Too bad, that image might have shocked a lot of late-night viewers off drugs. 1984
Heart’s “These Dreams” tops the pop chart. At #2 is another Rock ballad, “Sara” (Starship). John Mellencamp’s “R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.” holds the #5 spot. 1986
“Among The Living” is the third album from Anthrax and their second with singer Joey Belladonna. The set enters the Billboard album chart at #62, which at the time is impressive for a Thrash Metal band. 1987
Pantera release their first #1 album “Fall Beyond Driven.” Frontman Philip Anselmo calls the effort a “Heavy-Metal record with no compromising.” 1994
Dan Hartman (Edgar Winter Group) dies of a brain tumor – he wrote “Free Ride.” 1994
U2’s ninth album, “Pop,” featuring the single “Discothéque,” is #1 on the Billboard 200. 1997
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson is charged with two counts of battery more than three months after a New Year’s Eve scuffle with sheriff’s deputies at a Naples, FL, hotel. Deputies say the fight started when the guitarist’s son refused to get off the stage at The Ritz-Carlton, where the house band was performing. Lifeson tried to intervene when deputies escorted his son off the property. 2004
Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger reports that the band’s charity single “If Everyone Cared” has raised more than $200,000 for Amnesty International and International Children’s Awareness Canada. “If you can take that power and turn it toward positivity and awareness and trying to make a world a better place that’s a great motive,” says Kroeger. 2007
Soundgarden unfurl their first live album, “Live On I-5” (named after the West Coast interstate). 2011
The Foo Fighters play the first of two shows that raise over $1-million for victims of the Australian floods and New Zealand earthquakes. The show at the Auckland Town Hall is followed five days later by a performance at the Riverstage in central Brisbane. “The Foo Fighters were determined to help New Zealand and Australia in the aftermath of these terrible disasters,” comments charity show organizer Michael Gudinski. 2011
My Chemical Romance announce they’ve broken up. “We’ve been able to see and experience things we never imagined possible,” reads a band statement. “We shared the stage with people we admire, people we look up to, and best of all, our friends.” Frontman Gerald Way adds that the band wanted to end it before moving in uncomfortable directions. 2013
A rare set of 61 black-and-white photos photographs taken during The Beatles’ ’65 concert at Shea Stadium are auctioned for approximately $46,000. Photographer Marc Weinstein used a fake press pass to get backstage. 2013
A 10-inch vinyl record cut by The Beatles in ’62 is bought by an anonymous British collector for $110,000. It features “Hello Little Girl,” the first song John Lennon ever wrote. 2016
Former Boston drummer John Thomas “Sib” Hashian dies at the age of 67 while performing on the Legends Of Rock cruise. 2017
The Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” is screened in China despite the country’s restrictions on LGBT content. The film is approved for a limited release with gay references and scenes deleted. 2019
The Offspring rework their ‘94 classic, “Come Out And Play” to promote COVID vaccines (“you gotta go get vaccinated” replaces the original line “keep ‘em separated”). The revised version is shared on Instagram. 2021
Linkin Park’s “Numb” surpasses the one-billion streams on Spotify. It’s the band’s second track to reach that mark, following “In The End.” Four years earlier, the video for “Numb” surpassed one-billion views on YouTube. 2022
Jon Bon Jovi endorses a video that shows the citizens of Odessa (in Ukraine) ready to battle the Russian invasion spurred on by Bon Jovi’s ‘00 hit, “It’s My Life.” “This is for the ones who stood their ground…” states Bon Jovi, a native of New Jersey, that has the fourth largest Ukrainian population in the U.S. 2022
Failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake once again undertakes an unauthorized use of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” In a tweet after the Arizona Supreme Court declines to hear most of Lake’s challenge of her 2022 defeat, she lifts four lines from the song. Petty’s estate slammed Lake the previous November after she used the same song in a video. 2023
Wayne Swinny, Saliva guitarist and co-founder, passes away from a brain hemorrhage at age 59. The band is on the Pittsburgh stop of its Spring Mayhem Tour. 2023
Pattie Boyd, the former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton and the inspiration for the latter’s “Layla,” sells her private collection of letters, photos and items from Harrison and Clapton (a total of 111 artifacts) at auction for $3.6 million. 2024
As singer Eric Martin deals with an unspecified vocal issue, Mr. Big recruits Whitesnake’s Michele Luppi to assist with the lead vocals during the band’s current U.K. tour. 2024
