Can you believe it?

After Capitol records had rejected “Love Me Do”, “Please Please Me” and “From Me To You” for American release, label president Alan Livingston sent a memo to their parent company, EMI in Britain that said: “We don’t think The Beatles will do anything in this market.” A year later, in January, 1964, when “I Saw Her Standing There” was issued, it became the fastest selling single in the history of recorded music and Capitol’s pressing plant was forced to run 24 hours a day, trying to fill more than one million orders.

On Sunday, February 10th, 1964, the night that the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, an estimated 73 million viewers watched on TV, with over 45 percent of all sets in the US tuned in. The crime rate among American teenagers dropped to nearly zero that night.

Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead was brought in as a session musician to play steel guitar on Brewer and Shipley's March, 1971 hit, "One Toke Over The Line".

According to producer Mickie Most, The Animals went into a recording studio at 8 A.M. to cut "House Of The Rising Sun" and 15 minutes later, the track was complete. With studio time costing the equivalent of $20 an hour, the song cost $5 to record, but would go on to top both the US and UK charts.

According to guitarist Robbie Robertson, Bob Dylan's backup band resisted all conformity, even naming their ensemble. After landing their own recording contract, record company executives pressed them for a group name, but had to settle for simply The Band.

On The Beatles 1970, #1 hit, "The Long and Winding Road", Paul McCartney played the piano, and John Lennon played bass. George and Ringo do not appear on the track at all.

The term "rock and roll", which was black slang for sexual intercourse, appeared on record for the first time in 1922 on Trixie Smith's "My Baby Rocks Me With One Steady Roll".

The term "rhythm & blues" was coined in 1948 by a young Billboard reporter and future Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, to replace the negative term "Race Records".

Listen carefully to the beginning of The Beatles' song "Come Together", from their Abby Road album. The bass guitar riff nearly obliterates John Lennon saying "Shoot me".

Steppenwolf's lead singer, John Kay is seldom seen without sun glasses due to the fact that he has been legally blind since childhood.

"I Heard It Through The Grapevine" has reached the Billboard Hot 100 six times in versions by Marvin Gaye (#1), Gladys Knight (#2), Creedence Clearwater Revival (#43), Roger Troutman (#79), King Curtis (#83) and The California Raisins (#84). The song has also been recorded by dozens of other artists including The Temptations, Ike and Tina Turner, Paul Mauriat and Elton John.