DJ Fred’s Rock N’ Roll Factoids For July 9th

It was on this date in 1972 that Paul McCartney played his first live show with his new band Wings, it happened in the small town of Chateauvillon in France.

McCartney had not toured since 1966 when he was a Beatle.  Traveling accommodations for Wings were unique, as the band utilized a double Decker London bus with a far out psychedelic interior.

The most popular song by The Police it #1 on the Billboard Chart on this date in 1983,  "Every Breath You Take" would stay there for nine straight weeks and sell over 10 million copies.  In 1984, The Police won two Grammy Awards for the song including "Best Pop Song."

Cheap Trick, a band that's played here in Maine recently, scored a #1 song on this date in 1988, "The Flame" has been the band's only #1 song, so far.

Today in 1995 Jerry Garcia played his last concert with the Grateful Dead.  Following the show he went into drug re-hab to battle, among other things,  a heroin addiction. Within days Garcia died of a heart attack.  Fellow band mate Bob Weir said that the last thing Garcia ever said to him happened following that concert at Chicago's Soldier Field. Garcia slapped Weir on the back and said, "It's always a hoot!"