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The first record to sell a million copies was "Chattanooga Cho-Cho" by The Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1942.
The first group to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame were The Coasters.
When Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" finally fell off of Billboard's Hot 200 Album list in October 1988, it had set a record of 741 weeks on the chart.
The longest-charting single in rock history is "December 1963 (Oh What A Night)" by The Four Seasons. The song stayed on Billboard's Hot 100 for fifty weeks in 1976.
More than 2,500 cover versions of The Beatles' "Yesterday" exist, making it the most recorded song in history.
The first CD pressed in the United States for commercial release was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."
The shortest number one song of the rock and roll era is Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs' 1960 hit, "Stay" at only 1:37.
Bill Haley and the Comets first hit record, "Rock Around The Clock" had initial sales of just 75,000, until it was used as the title track of "The Blackboard Jungle", 12 months later. It would eventually sell over 25 million copies.
Barry Manilow was once a page boy at CBS and was later Bette Midler's musical director. Before having his first hit record, Barry earned a living writing commercials, including the jingles for State Farm Insurance , Band Aids, Stridex, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dr. Peper, Pepsi, and McDonalds.
"Are You Lonesome Tonight?" the 1960 hit for Elvis Presley was written by Roy Turk and Lou Handman in 1926 as a vaudeville recitation and first recorded by Al Jolson.
"La Bamba" , the 1958 million seller for Ritchie Valens is a traditional song that can be traced back as far as the 14th century. The tune was picked up by the people of Mexico after they heard homesick African slaves singing about their village of "Mamamba" in the 1800s.
"Wild Thing", the 1966 hit by the Troggs was written by Chip Taylor, the brother of actor Jon Voight.
Monkee Mike Nesmith's mother, Bette Nesmith Graham was the inventor of Liquid Paper correction fluid. She sold the rights to the Gillette Corporation in 1979 for $47.5 million and when she died in 1980, she left half her fortune to her son Michael.
The title of the Byrds' 1966 hit "Eight Miles High" is not a drug reference. It actually refers to the altitude reserved for military air craft.
Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, died in the same apartment that had previously belonged to Harry Nilsson and earlier, Mama Cass Elliot.
In 1974, when 32 year old Mama Cass Elliot died in London, a postmortem the following day said that she died as a result of choking on a sandwich and from inhaling her own vomit. It was later revealed that she actually suffered a fatal heart attack.
The real life "Peggy Sue" that Buddy Holly sang about was Peggy Sue Gerron, the girlfriend of his drummer, Jerry Allison. The song was initially titled "Cindy Lou", but Allison convinced Buddy to change the title just before the recording session. Allison and Gerron were later married.
Elton John played piano on the Hollies hit, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".
Three members of the Young Rascals, Felix Cavaliere, Gene Cornish and Eddie Brigati were once members of Joey Dee and The Starlighters, who scored a number one hit in 1961 with "The Pepperming Twist".
Roy Orbison's trademark look came about when he misplaced his regular glasses and had to rely on a pair of prescription sun-glasses. His management liked the mysterious look it gave him and soon, they were the only ones he wore.
James Brown's wife tried to get her traffic tickets dismissed because of "diplomatic immunity" in June of 1988. She claimed her husband is the official "ambassador of soul". She lost the case
Barry Manilow's hit, "I Write The Songs" was actually written by Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys.
Singer Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses married Erin Everly, Don Everly's daughter. The marriage lasted 27 days.
Florence Ballard, one of the original Supremes died of a heart attack in 1975. She was on welfare at the time.
Before he was convicted of murder, Charles Manson befriended Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson, who convinced the rest of the band to record a Manson composition called "Cease To Exist". The title was changed to "Never Learn Not To Love" and was released as the "B" side of the single "Bluebirds Over The Mountain", which eventually climbed to number 61 in early 1969, giving Manson a hit record on Billboard's Hot100.
Eric Clapton was born to an unwed mother and to shield him from the shame, Eric grew up believing that his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister.
Stevie Wonder was placed in an incubator when he was born and given too much oxygen, causing permanent sight loss.
"Alice Cooper" was originally the name of the entire band, before lead singer Vince Furnier assumed the name for himself.
Telma Hopkins of Tony Orlando and Dawn is the voice you hear on Issac Hayes' song "Shaft", that tells him, "Shut your mouth".
Before he became a rock star, Dave Clark of The Dave Clark Five worked as a stuntman in over 40 films.
The original Eagles, Glen Frey, Don Henley, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon first met when they were members of Linda Ronstadt's backup band.
Elvis Presley had a twin brother named Jesse Garon Presley, who was stillborn.
Chuck Berry holds a degree in cosmetology.
Jimi Hendrix was thrown out of high school for holding the hand of a white girl in class.
England's "The Hollies" took their name in honor of Buddy Holly.
Grand Funk Railroad , took their name from a Michigan landmark, "The Grand Trunk Railroad".
Country singer Waylon Jennings was a guitar player in Buddy Holly's backup band. He gave up his plane seat to J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) just moments before it took off. The plane crashed, killing all on board, including Holly.
On December 12, 1957, 22 year old Jerry Lee Lewis married 14 year old Myra Gale Brown, his second cousin.
Gene Simmons of KISS is a former elementary school teacher.
John Phillips of The Mamas and Papas had a daughter with his first wife, Susan, that they named Laura. She would later become known as MacKenzie, and would grow up to co-star in the 1970's sit-com, "One Day At A Time".
Over 400 musicians applied for a part in The Monkees, including Stephen Stills, John Sebastian and Harry Nilsson.
Even though he has recorded some of the most memorable rock and roll classics, the only gold record that Chuck Berry ever received was for "My Ding-a-ling".
John Lennon and Harry Nilsson were ejected from L.A.'s Troubadour club for disrupting The Smother's Brothers act in the mid 1970's.
Just hours before murdering John Lennon, Mark David Chapman got Lennon's autograph.
Kenny Rogers was once a member of the New Christy Minstrels, and can be heard singing the chorus of their hit record, "Green, Green", behind the lead vocal of Barry McGuire, who would later have a solo smash himself with, "Eve Of Destruction".
Sonny and Cher were initially known as Caesar and Cleo.
Steppenwolf's lead singer, John Kay , made a perilous midnight escape from post-war East Germany when he was a child.
Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston are cousins.
Martha Reeves of The Vandellas worked at Motown Records as a secretary. Her duties included supervising a very young Stevie Wonder.
Among those who sang the chorus of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" were Marianne Faithful, Graham Nash, Jane Asher, Patti Boyd, Keith Moon and Mick Jagger.
In 1978, ABBA was Sweden's most profitable export. Car maker Volvo was number two.
Barry Manilow's first hit, "Mandy", was written as "Brandy", but was changed when a band named "Looking Glass" had a chart hit with that name.
Throughout their career, Ringo received far more fan mail than any of the other Beatles.
The Everly Brothers "Bye Bye Love," was rejected by 30 labels before Cadence Records picked it up. The song went to #2 on the pop chart and #1 on the Country & Western chart.
Hoyt Axton wrote Three Dog Night's "Joy To The World". His mother, Mae Axton wrote "Heartbreak Hotel" for Elvis Presley.
The lead vocal of the Beach Boys hit, "Barbara Ann" was actually sung by Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean.
Chuck Berry has spent time in prison on two different occasions. First, he served a two year sentence between 1962 and 1964 for violation of the Mann Act, then a four month term in 1979 for income tax evasion.
British singer Cilla Black, best remembered for her number one U.K hit "Anyone Who Had a Heart", had her stage name changed by accident. A reporter for the local paper remembered the wrong color as her surname. Her real name is Cilla White.
The piano player on Art Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" is Larry Knechtel of the group "Bread".
Rocker Ted Nugent autographed a man's arm with a bowie knife after the fan had requested it.
Fleetwood Mac's former guitarist, Lindsay Buckingham has a brother named Greg who won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics.
Glen Campbell played lead guitar on the Beach Boys "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Good Vibrations".
When she was just four years old, Gladys Knight won first prize on TV's Ted Mack's Amature Hour.
Bobby Gentry, who scored a huge hit in 1967 with "Ode To Billy Joe", married Jim Stafford, who recorded "Spiders and Snakes".
The Bee Gees' Robin Gibb survived one of England's worst train wrecks. More than fifty people were killed and over a hundred injured, while Robin escaped unharmed.
Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous Brothers once had a tryout with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Gene Simmons of Kiss has a tongue that is seven inches long, two inches longer than most men.
In 1972, Berry Oakley, bass player for the The Allman Brothers band, was killed in a motorcycle accident, just three blocks away from the site of Duane's Allman's fatal crash.
Anne Murray's hit, "Danny's Song" was written by Kenny Loggins for his brother Danny Loggins. Dave Loggins, whos "Please Come To Boston" was a 1974 hit, is their cousin.
Steve Miller got his first guitar as a gift from the legendary Les Paul.
David Gates of the soft rock band "Bread" was one of the musicians on Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash".
Millie Small's 1964 hit, "My Boy Lollipop" features a very young Rod Stewart on harmonica.
Glen Frey of the Eagles played rhythm guitar on Bob Seger's "Ramblin', Gamblin' Man".
The Starland Vocal Band, who charted with "Afternoon Delight" in 1977, sang background vocals for John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" while they were still known as Fat City" in 1971.
Sly Stone, leader of Sly and the Family Stone, was the producer of the Beau Brummels hits "Laugh, Laugh" and "Just A Little".
Jay and The American's 1965 number 6 hit, "Cara Mia" was originally a number 4 hit for a singer named David Whitfield and a female choir accompanied by Mantovani's Orchestra in 1954.
At age 47, the Rolling Stones' bassist, Bill Wyman, began a relationship with 13-year old Mandy Smith, with her mother's blessing. Six years later, they were married, but the union only lasted seventeen months. Not long after, Bill's 30-year-old son Stephen married Mandy's mother, age 46. That made Stephen a stepfather to his former stepmother, Mandy.
Paul McCartney is the kazoo player on Ringo Starr's 1974 version of "You're Sixteen".
Before R. Dean Taylor scored a number one hit with "Indiana Wants Me" in 1974, he was originally signed to Motown Records as a songwriter. He penned the hits "I'll Turn To Stone" for The Four Tops, "Love Child" and "I'm Livin' In Shame" for The Supremes, and "All I Need" for The Temptations.
Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys spent most of the years 1971 to 1975 in bed.
Brian Hyland's 1960 Number One hit, "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini" was co-written by Paul Vance after seeing his 2-year old daughter Paula play at the beach in her bathing suit.
Timothy B. Schmit replaced Randy Meisner in Poco in 1969 and replaced him again in the Eagles when Meisner quit them in 1977.
Paul Simon's 1973 U.S. hit, "Kodachrome" was banned from airplay on Britain's BBC because the song contains a product brandname.
Maurice Gibb of The Bee Gees wasn't tall enough to see over the hood of his Rolls-Royce and had to sit on a phone book while driving.
"Islands In The Stream" by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton was the 1985 American Music Awards winner for Favorite Country Single. The song was written by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb especially for Diana Ross.
Fats Domino has had 18 singles that were million sellers, yet he has never had a number one record.
The Beach Boys' original name was The Pendletones, after a popular shirt manufacturer.
Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker once covered all bases by selling both "I Love Elvis" buttons as well as "I Hate Elvis" buttons.
The Carpenters hit, "We've Only Just Begun" was written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols as a radio jingle for a California bank.
While playing at Hollywood's Palladium in 1972, the guitarist in Chuck Berry's backup band was replaced by another waiting backstage. The new musician played so loudly that Berry stopped in the middle of a song and asked the first guitar player to come back out. Unknown to Berry, the one he kicked off stage was Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones.
Shelley Fabares, who's 1962 hit "Johnny Angel" topped the U.S. charts, married The Mamas and Papas producer Lou Adler in 1964. In 1984, she married actor Mike Farrell, who played Captain B.J. Hunnicutt in the tv series M*A*S*H.
In 1965, Gary Lewis was Cash Box magazine's "Male Vocalist of the Year", winning the honor over other nominees Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Cher ended her marriage to Gregg Allman in 1979 after he had passed out in an Italian restaurant, face first in a bowl of spaghetti.
Eddie Van Halen played guitar on Michael Jackson's hit, "Beat It".
At the end of the Beatles' song "A Day in the Life," an ultrasonic whistle, audible only to dogs, was recorded by Paul McCartney for his Shetland sheepdog.
Don Mclean's "American Pie" is the longest #1 hit in Rock history at 8 minutes and 32 seconds.
David Lee Roth's 1985 hit "Just A Gigolo", was originally recorded by jazz artist Ted Lewis in 1931.
Ringo Starr's first wife, Maureen Cox, later married Isaac Tigrett, one of the founders of the Hard Rock Cafe chain.
Although it is often considered a Rock and Roll anthem, "My Generation" by The Who, only reached # 74 on the U.S. record chart.
Elvis Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker was not really a colonel at all, it was an honorary title given to him in 1948 by Governor Jimmie Davis of Louisiana. He was a flamboyant promoter whose pre-Elvis experience included shows called "The Great Parker Pony Circus" and "Tom Parker and His Dancing Turkeys" and was a veteran of carnivals, medicine shows and various other entertainment enterprises.
When The Beach Boys "Kokomo" went to number one in the U.S. in 1988, it had been 22 years since their last chart topper, "Good Vibrations".
Gary Lewis of Gary Lewis and the Playboys was supposed to be named "Carey" at birth, after actor Cary Grant, but the hospital made a mistake and recorded his name as "Gary".
In 1996, Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for apple sauce, which coincidentally is what "Ringo" means in Japanese.
Elvis Presley made only one television commercial, an ad for "Southern Maid Doughnuts" that ran in 1954.
The cover art for the album "America's Greatest Hits" was created by a graphics designer by the name of Phil Hartman, the same funny-man who later appeared on Saturday Night Live, and then News Radio, before he was murdered by his wife in 1998.
When Steve Winwood left the Spencer Davis Group in the summer of 1967, one of the rejected applicants to be auditioned was a young piano player named Reginald Dwight, who would later launch a solo career, re-naming himself, Elton John.
Petula Clark's hit, "This Is My Song" was written by movie actor Charlie Chaplin.
Shock Rocker, Alice Cooper was once elected Homecoming Queen for the University Of Houston.
Ray Sawyer, lead singer of Dr. Hook, wears an eye patch because he lost an eye in an auto accident.
The first musical guest on TV's "Saturday Night Live" was Janis Ian.
Despite all of the hits that they've had, The Who have never had a number one record in the UK or the US.
In 1955, Billboard Magazine published its annual disc jockey poll that named Elvis Presley as "the most promising country and western artist".
"Surf City", a 1963 number one hit by Jan and Dean was recorded in a converted garage underneath their apartment in Bel Air, California.
Paul Revere of The Raiders, was married on the fourth of July, 1976, on America's Bicentennial at King's Island Amusement Park in Cincinnati.
Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson once had a giant sandbox built around his piano, so he could feel the sand beneath his feet for song writing inspiration.
While playing in front of a large lake at the Crystal Palace Bowl in London in 1970, Pink Floyd played so loud, a number of fish were killed.
Tony Orlando recorded his first two hits in separate studios from backup singers Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson. By the time they met, "Candida" and "Knock Three Times" had sold a total of nine million records.
Jan Berry of Jan and Dean has an I.Q. of 185, which puts him in the genius catagory.
When Tina Turner left her husband and former bandmate, Ike Turner in 1975, she was carrying nothing more than thirty-six cents in change and a gas station credit card. In August, 1984, she was awarded a gold record for "What's Love Got To Do With It".
"The Chipmunks", Alvin, Simon and Theodore were named after executives at Liberty Records by their creator, Ross Bagdasarian, who used the stage name, David Seville.

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