Lou Reed was a member of the Velvet Underground until the downtown band broke up in 1970. “Walk on the Wild Side” was included on Reed’s second solo album, 1972’s Transformer.

Beatlemania in Australia reached its peak in June 1964 when the Fab Four staged a three-week tour of the country. Hundreds of rock groups sprouted as a result, formed by teens who hoped to emulate their heroes from Liverpool.

In the early 1960s, Archie Bell & the Drells were a struggling Houston vocal group performing their brand of Texas funk at local talent shows. In 1964, the group recorded a demo of a song called “Tighten Up.” Although they often performed the song live, the demo was soon forgotten.

Steppenwolf, fronted by singer John Kay, was a favorite of Bill Graham, the mercurial producer who brought Fillmore East to New York’s East Village in 1968. The band’s success with hits like “Born to Be Wild” and “Magic Carpet Ride” quickly won them headliner status.

Enjoy this excerpt from Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever on the anniversary of the rock mecca’s opening in New York City.

Exciting news from the Guess Who website: Burton Cummings & Randy Bachman tour together as The Guess Who for the first time in 23 years!

“Birthday” was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and appeared on the Beatles’ 1968 White Album. The raw rocker only took one day to compose and record at Abbey Road Studios. “We thought, ‘Why not make something up?’ So we got a riff going and arranged it around this riff,” McCartney recalled in Many Years From Now.

“Little Red Corvette” became Prince’s first song to crack the Top 10 pop chart at No. 6 in 1983. It reached No. 28 hit on the R&B chart. The song uses car metaphors to describe a one-night stand with a woman. Dez Dickerson and Lisa Coleman performed backing vocals.

Rock Quiz: 1000 Questions Classic Rock Challenge! Book Excerpt

Rick Allmen opened the Café Bizarre in 1957, one of the first Beat Generation clubs in Greenwich Village. Odetta was the opening night headliner. Jazz acts followed and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg had readings there. Larry Love, the Singing Canary, landed his first paid engagement at the Bizarre in 1962. Love later changed his name to Tiny Tim.

“Bad Time” was a №4 hit, certified by BMI as radio’s most-played song of 1975. Written by guitarist Mark Farner, the song was a departure from the trio’s hard rock roots. “It was kind of a different song,” Farner told Songfacts.

Jackie Gleason was born February 26, 1916. Gleason’s formative years were spent in Brooklyn. where he grew up, went to school and honed his comedic skills in the borough’s bars and vaudeville theaters. Enjoy this excerpt, the introduction of the eBook The REAL Brooklyn of Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners.

“Ariel” was a №26 hit for Dean Friedman in 1977. It opens with the lyric, “Way on the other side of the Hudson / Deep in the bosom of suburbia.”

Comedian and comedy writer Paul Mooney worked for years as the behind-the-scenes partner with Richard Pryor. Mooney also was a writer and performer on Chappelle’s Show. Mooney continued his stand-up career after Pryor died in 2005.

The Eternals were a doo wop group that formed in New York’s South Bronx. “Sometimes when we would sing in theaters they would say, ‘The Eternals, the only Hispanic, all-Puerto Rican group in the history of doo wop.’ And that made us proud,” lead singer Charlie Girona told NBC News.

The members of Looking Glass were students at Rutgers University in New Jersey when the band formed in 1969. Singer-guitarist Elliot Lurie told The College Crowd Digs Me how the band got its name.

It was 1956. Drummer Tom Austin and keyboardist Bob Gaudio were talented New Jersey teenagers who recruited guitarist Billy Dalton and saxophonist Billy Crandall to form a band, the Royals. Austin and Gaudio teamed to write “Short Shorts,” a number three hit in 1958 for the newly named Royal Teens.

The Anderson Theater at 66 Second Avenue was named after theatrical agent Phyllis Anderson. The hall opened in 1957 and presented Yiddish plays through the 1960s. In 1968 Crawdaddy magazine sponsored a series of rock shows that featured the Yardbirds, Traffic, Procol Harum, Moby Grape, and Big Brother & the Holding Company with Janis Joplin.

Guitarist Mick Jones wrote Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” a №1 hit in 1985. “I always worked late at night, when everybody left and the phone stopped ringing,” Jones recalled in Classic Rock.

“Tiny Dancer” was first released on Elton John’s 1971 album Madman Across the Water. When an edited single version was released in 1972, it only reached №41. As more album cuts were played on FM radio in the 1970s, “Tiny Dancer” in its original form became a listener favorite.