DJ Fred’s Rock N’ Roll Factoids For January 18th [VIDEOS]

Remember the hit song "Bend Me Shape Me" by the American Breed?  Well the man who sang that song died this past Saturday.  He was Gary Loizzo.

Loizzo would eventually become one of the biggest recording engineers in the Chicago area, pushing the knobs for most of the hit albums by Styx, Reo Speedwagon and Survivor.  Loizzo was 71.  RIP.

The first song by the Beatles to ever hit the chart here in America took place on this day in 1964.  It was I Want To Hold Your Hand, and it went on to spend seven weeks at #1.  The rest is rock n' roll history.

On this day back in 1965, the Rolling Stones recorded Last Time and Play With Fire in Hollywood, California.  Big time producer Phil Spector played acoustic guitar on Play With Fire.  Phil's in the big house now, because he killed someone and Ronnie Spector was glad is wasn't her.

One of rock's super-groups was officially formed on this day in 1974 when Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke formerly of Free teamed up with Mick Ralphs from Mott The Hoople and Boz Burrell from King Crimson to create Bad Company.  Their self-titled debut album hit #1 almost immediately.  All classic rock fans remember hearing the very distinctive sound of Can't Get Enough for the first time, they just don't remember what they were doing.  Bad Company is the I-95 Band Of The Day!

It was this night in 1984 that Van Halen kicked off their 103-date 1984 tour at the Jacksonville Coliseum in Florida.  Jump from the 1984 album was huge at the time.  Did I mention it was 1984?

An unfortunate incident on this night in 1991 when three AC/DC fans were crushed to death at a concert in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tickets were general admission, and so many fans pushed to the front of the stage to get a better look at the band that people were literally crushed to death.  In the video below you can hear AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson asking fans to move back "just one foot."

It was this day in 1996 that after two years of marriage Lisa Marie Presley divorced Michael Jackson, when she caught him in bed with two children and an orangutan.  Just kidding, but probably pretty close to reality.

On this day in 2011 the largest display of Beatle's memorabilia went on display in museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  The over 8.500 items included a box of condoms with John and Yoko's name on them. Thankfully they were never used, although, after thinking about it they'd probably be worth a lot more.