1974 in music

Events

• January - Joni Mitchell releases her monumental album Court and Spark, supported by the single "Help Me" reaching the highest moment of commercial success.
• February 1 - The Doobie Brothers release their album What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits featuring their signature and hit song "Black Water".
• February 8 - KISS releases their self-titled debut album.
• February 10 - record producer Phil Spector is badly injured in a car accident. Details of the accident are kept secret.
• February 12 - New York's rock club, Bottom Line, opens in Greenwich Village.
• February 14 - The Captain & Tennille are married in Virginia City, Nevada.
• February 18 - Yes sells out the first of two nights at Madison Square Garden, without a bit of advertising for the show.
• February 20 - Cher files for divorce from her husband of 10 years, Sonny Bono.
• March 12 - John Lennon is involved in an altercation with a photographer outside The Troubadour in Los Angeles, California. Lennon and friend Harry Nilsson have been heckling comedian Tommy Smothers and are forced to leave the club.
• March 16 - Country music's Grand Ole Opry moves to a new location at the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville, Tennessee
• March 30 - The Ramones play their first concert at the Performance Studio in New York.
• April 5 - Van Halen play their first gig on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood at Gazzarri's.
• April 6
  • 200,000 music fans attend The California Jam rock festival. Artists performing at the event include Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Black Oak Arkansas, and the Eagles.
  • Swedish group ABBA win the 19th Eurovision Song Contest in The Dome, Brighton, England, with the song "Waterloo", kickstarting their stellar international career.
• April 25 - Pam Morrison, Jim Morrison's widow, is found dead in her Hollywood, California apartment from an apparent heroin overdose.
• July 29 - Having performed at two sold-out concerts at the London Palladium, 'Mama' Cass Elliot dies in her sleep after suffering a heart attack in a Mayfair flat in London, aged 32.
• August 7 - Peter Wolf, lead singer of The J. Geils Band, marries actress Faye Dunaway.
• August 17 Ramones play their first concert at CBGB. The venue would help establish their place at the forefront of punk rock.
• December 12- Mick Taylor leaves The Rolling Stones after 6 years
• December 31- Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks join Fleetwood Mac
• Patti Smith releases her debut recording, "Hey Joe", which many consider to be the first punk rock single.
• Lord Shorty's Endless Vibrations is the first soca LP and the first major soca hit worldwide.
• Peter Gabriel leaves Genesis and begins solo career.
• Rover Thomas claims to have been visited in a dream by a deceased friend near Warmun, Australia and receives the Krill Krill song cycle.
• Dino Martin, singer and son of Dean Martin, is arrested on suspicion of possession and sale of two machine guns.
• Journey signs to Columbia Records.
• Daniel Amos forms out of the remnants of Jubal's Last Band.
• Twenty years after it was recorded, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets returns to the Billboard Top 40, after it gains renewed popularity from its use in the film American Graffiti and the TV series Happy Days.
• Robin Zander joins with Tom Petersson, Bun E. Carlos and Rick Nielson and the "real" Cheap Trick band line-up is created.
• The original Alice Cooper group breaks up. The band's leader, Vincent Furnier, changes his name to Alice Cooper and goes on to a solo career.

Bands formed

• Bad Company
• Blondie (originally Angel and the Snake, changed name in 1975)
• Cheap Trick
• Japan
• The Nits
• The Ramones
• Talking Heads
• The Stranglers
• Van Halen

Bands disbanded

• Jefferson Airplane
• The Moody Blues
• The Stooges (reform in 2003)