JEWDAYO Rocks: Jewish Rock and Roll Dates for August
Lawrence Bush
December 8, 2020
Research by Lawrence Bush and Bennett Muraskin
August 1: Alan Freed’s first “Monday Jubilee of Stars Under the Stars” show took place at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field on this date in 1954, starring Fats Domino, The Clovers, The Orioles, Muddy Waters, and Little Walter, and attracting the first racially mixed audience at a major concert in modern history.
August 2: Robert Zimmerman legally changed his name to Bob Dylan on this date in 1962. . . . Andrew Gold, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, was born in Burbank, California on this date in 1951. Gold produced the hit “Lonely Boy” (1977) which you can see below, and “Woke Up This Morning (You Were On My Mind), with the band Bryndle (1970).
Lawrence Bush edited Jewish Currents from 2003 until 2018. He is the author of Bessie: A Novel of Love and Revolution and Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, among other books. His new volume of illustrated Torah commentaries, American Torah Toons 2, is scheduled for publication this year.