May

On 6/3/70 Kinks vocalist Ray Davies interrupted a U.S. tour and returned to London to change a single word on the group's classic song “Lola.” The BBC had banned the song, not because it was about a transvestite, but because it contained a reference to a commercial product — specifically, Coca-Cola. Davies changed Coca to cherry…. On 5/16/80 a Memphis court indicted the infamous “Dr. Nick” (Dr. George C. Nichopoulous) on 14 counts of illegally overprescribing addictive drugs to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and nine other patients. The doctor's story became the basis for a cartoon character of the same name on The Simpsons…. Hank Williams Jr.'s private jet was seized on 5/6/89 pending reimbursement to concert promoters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after an aborted performance. Williams had been unable to complete even a single song, cursing each time he stopped, before he finally left the stage after only 20 minutes. Williams later claimed that he had been “slipped a mickey” prior to the show…. Wilson Pickett was arrested on 5/7/91 for DWI and threatening to kill his neighbor, the then mayor of Englewood, New Jersey. Pickett, who was packing a knife and a baseball bat, had driven his van over the mayor's lawn repeatedly before being arrested. The singer had his license suspended, was given a year of probation, and was fined $1,000…. Former Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive guitarist Randy Bachman assembled more than 1,300 guitarists in Vancouver on 5/7/94 to perform a 68-minute version of BTO's “Takin' Care of Business.” The event earned two spots in the Guinness Book of World Records: one for greatest number of guitarists and the other for longest mass guitar jam.

June

When asked during an interview on 6/26/56 about the controversial new music called rock 'n' roll, swing band legend Benny Goodman said, “I guess it's okay, man; at least it has a beat.” …After 22 years of operation, Atlantic Records closed its New York recording studio on 6/7/89. The new landlord of the building — containing the studio where classic recordings by Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin had been made — said that other tenants had complained about the noise…. New Kid on the Block Donnie Wahlberg fell nine feet through a stage trap door during a concert in Saratoga Springs, New York, on 6/24/90. Wahlberg, who suffered bruises to his chest and cuts on his arms and mouth, was hospitalized for two days…. During the opening ceremonies of the World Cup soccer tournament on 6/17/94, singer Jon Secada fell through a hole just after taking the stage. An estimated 1 billion television viewers watched as Secada, lodged in the hole with his head sticking out, finished singing the first song. After the show, he was taken to a hospital, where his dislocated shoulder was snapped back into place…. On 6/30/96 two Willie Nelson and Ringo Starr impersonators gave a bogus “surprise” performance on a flatbed truck in front of 400 people at a fund-raiser for a schizophrenia group in Peterborough, Ontario. The successful hoax — arranged by the host, Ronnie Hawkins — wasn't revealed until the following day.