July 7, 1959: Rock and Roll’s 1st “Supergroup”?

Phil (left) and Don Everly

July 7, 1959: A recording session is held at RCA Records' Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. From 1957 to 1977, this studio, at 1611 Roy Acuff Place (at the time, Sigler Street), was the site of the recording of some of the greatest songs in the history of rock and roll and country music.

This session may have been the first of what would later be known as rock "super sessions," and, possibly, rock's first "supergroup."

The song is "(Till) I Kissed You," by The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil. The song is written by Don. Among the other musicians on it were guitarist Sonny Curtis and drummer Jerry Allison, who were members of Buddy Holly's band, The Crickets. As a result, the song sounds like a tribute to Holly, who was killed in a plane crash 5 months earlier.

The song also has the man regarded as country music's greatest guitarist (and also as one of its best producers), Chet Atkins; Hank Williams' bass fiddle player, Floyd "Lightnin'" Chance; and Elvis Presley's pianist, Floyd Cramer, in one of his best performances.

The producer is Archie Bleyer, The Everlys' usual producer, who was also the producer for pre-rock acts The Chordettes (which included his wife, Janet Ertel), Julius La Rosa and Andy Williams. So the song has representatives from several of the top music "franchises" of the 1950s -- pop, rock and country. It is recorded on the label that Bleyer founded, Cadence Records, who rented the studio from RCA.

According to Billboard magazine, "Till I Kissed You" -- or "Till I Kissed Ya," in the Brothers' Kentucky accent -- hit Number 4 on their main popular music chart, the Hot 100; Number 8 on their C&W (Country & Western) chart; and, although everybody involved was white, not black, Number 2 on their R&B (Rhythm & Blues) charts.

The song was covered by reggae singer Jimmy London in 1975, and a version by Connie Smith reached Number 10 on Billboard's country chart in 1976.

Steve Beisser, a friend of mine who was a professional musician, cited the December 4, 1956 "Million Dollar Quartet" at Sun Records in Memphis, with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, as the first great rock jam session. But he added, "Really, as a record, though, and not just as a jam session, this might be one of the first recordings to feature that many people who were marquee names on their own working together."

Later "supergroups" would be intentionally formed. In the 1960s, these included Cream; Blind Faith; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and the 1968 "Super Session" brought together by Al Kooper, with Stephen Stills and Michael Bloomfield. In the 1970s: Humble Pie; The Eagles; Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Beck, Bogert & Appice; Journey; and Bad Company. In the 1980s: Asia, The Honeydrippers, The Highwaymen, Rollins Band, The Traveling Wilburys and Bad English. And, in the 2000s: Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, Gorillaz, and, in a one-shot deal for the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge!, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya and Pink.

Archie Bleyer died in 1989, Floyd Cramer in 1997, Chet Atkins in 2001, Lightnin' Chance in 2005, Phil Everly in 2014, and Don Everly in 2021. As of July 7, 2022, Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison are still alive. (UPDATE: Allison died later in the year, and Curtis died in 2025.)

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July 7, 1959 was a Tuesday. Only one game was played on this day: Major League Baseball's All-Star Game. For the 1st time, MLB played 2 All-Star Games in 1 season, added to make money for the players' pension fund. This 1st game was played at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. A home run by Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves gives the National League a 5-4 win.

The 2nd All-Star Game of the year was played on August 3, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The American League won that one, 5-3.

February 3, 1959: The Day the Music Died

Left to right: Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson.

February 3, 1959: A small airplane, a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza 35, crashes near Mason City, Iowa. All 4 people on board are killed:

* Roger Peterson, of Alton, Iowa, the pilot, age 21.

* Charles Hardin Holley, a.k.a. Buddy Holly, of Lubbock, Texas, age 22, one of the leading figures in the early years of rock and roll music, who, with his band the Crickets, had recorded the enormous hits "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue," and a number of other songs which, with their lyrics, harmonies and arrangements, would inspire many later performers, including the Beatles.

* Ricardo Esteban Valenzuela Reyes, a.k.a. Richard Valenzuela, a.k.a. Ritchie Valens, of the Pacoima section of Los Angeles, California, age just 17, a Mexican-American guitar whiz who was only beginning to show what he could do, led by his one true hit record, a double-sided hit containing the slow love song "Donna" and a raved-up version of the Mexican folk song "La Bamba."

* Jiles Perry Richardson Jr., a.k.a. J.P. Richardson, a.k.a. Jape Richardson, a.k.a. The Big Bopper, of Beaumont, Texas, age 28, a disc jockey who, like so many deejays before him (such as Jim Lowe, "The Green Door") and after him (such as Rick Dees, "Disco Duck"), had so much fun playing the music that he decided to record some of it himself, including the 1958 hit "Chantilly Lace."

Holly, Valens and Richardson had been the headliners of the Winter Dance Party tour, making stops all over the Midwest. The last show was at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2. Built in 1948, the Ballroom still hosts shows, with a seating capacity of 2,100.

The tour bus' heater broke down, and Holly wanted to get to the next stop quickly, to sleep in a warm hotel bed instead of on the cold bus, and to get his laundry done. So he hired the plane to get them to Moorhead, Minnesota. But it was snowing, and Peterson was a terribly inexperienced pilot. The plane only flew 6 miles before crashing, at about 1:00 AM, Central Time (2:00 Eastern).

In 1971, singer Don McLean wrote "American Pie," in which he called the event "The Day the Music Died."

I disagree with this assessment: The reaction to the crash showed, rather, that this was the day the music grew up, that those who opposed it saw that rock and roll could generate the same kind of devotion from its fans that previous forms had, that it was not going to go away.

In the next few years, the music would mature. Elvis Presley would return from serving in the U.S. Army with "grownup" hits like "It's Now Or Never" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and proving that, given the same kind of break that he got, he would have been a music star even if rock and roll had never happened.

Roy Orbison, already 24 when he had his 1st national hit, would be a rocker that even grownups could love. (My grandmother, who was 36 when "Only the Lonely" hit in 1960, was crazy about him.) The folk music movement had already kicked into gear by the time the Beechcraft went down, and would grow to the point where Bob Dylan and Joan Baez would make it a huge phenomenon.

Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller with the Drifters, Berry Gordy with his Motown acts, and Phil Spector with lots of groups backed by his "Wall of Sound," were creating recordings far more sophisticated than some of the early rock records, some of which sounded like they were recorded in closets and stairwells -- and some of literally were, because it was considered an improvement over the kinds of studios the performers could afford to rent.

And, as I said, Holly inspired the Beatles, and much of Holly's work also filtered into that of the Beach Boys. Think of how many acts those 2 groups inspired.

Dion & The Belmonts, the Bronx-based doo-wop group, were also on the Winter Dance Party tour. Lead singer Dion DiMucci was offered one of the seats on the plane. He was told that it cost $36. But that amount -- about $342 in 2022 money -- was a month's rent at the apartment where he grew up on East 183rd Street, and the number stuck in his mind, so he decided that he couldn't pay it.

Dion would go on to have a few hits with the Belmonts, and a few more as a soloist, before a struggle with substance abuse curtailed his career. He recovered, and is alive today, at age 81. He has gone out of his way to clear up some of the misconceptions about that fateful night.

Valens was on the plane because he "won" a coin flip with guitarist Tommy Allsup. Richardson had a cold, and so Holly's lead guitarist gave up his seat for him. That guitarist was Waylon Jennings, and he became a country music superstar, and he lived on until 2002. Allsup lived until 2017.

Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens in 1959; Jim Reeves, in 1964; Otis Redding, in 1967; and Jim Croce, in 1973: All died in the crashes of Beechcraft planes. Maybe, since 1973, rock-and-rollers have finally learned.

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February 3, 1959 was a Tuesday. It was the off-season for baseball and football. And there were no NHL games played that day. But there were 3 NBA games:

* The New York Knicks beat the Syracuse Nationals, 115-114 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Celtics beat the St. Louis Hawks, 104-97 at the Boston Garden. Cliff Hagan scored 32 points, but the Celtics shut them down.

* And the Cincinnati Royals beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 120-103 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Jack Twyman scored 31 points.