On This Day in Guitar History: July 8
Edited by Sleuth · Reviewed
July 8 holds Jerry Garcia's second-to-last Grateful Dead show in 1995, five weeks before his death, and the first radio play of Elvis Presley's That's All Right in 1954, three days after its Sun Studio session. Jimi Hendrix opened his ill-fated Monkees tour in 1967, Quiet Riot's Carlos Cavazo and country star Toby Keith were born, and Louis Jordan, whom the Rock Hall calls the Grandfather of Rock and Roll, arrived in 1908.
On July 8 in guitar history
1908 · Born
Louis Jordan, the Rock Hall's 'Grandfather of Rock and Roll,' is born
Louis Jordan was born in Brinkley, Arkansas, and led the Tympany Five through the 1940s as the top-selling Black recording artist of the decade. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 1987, calling him the Father of Rhythm & Blues and the Grandfather of Rock 'n' Roll. Jordan didn't play guitar himself, but his guitarist, Carl Hogan, cut a riff in 1946 that Chuck Berry reused almost note for note on Johnny B. Goode.
Source: Louis Jordan
1924 · Born
Johnnie Johnson, the pianist who hired Chuck Berry, is born
Johnnie Johnson, the blues and rock and roll pianist whose boogie-woogie style shaped Chuck Berry's guitar sound, was born in Fairmont, West Virginia. Johnson hired a young Berry as a fill-in guitarist for a 1952 New Year's Eve gig in St. Louis, and the pair wrote hits together for two decades, including Maybellene and Roll Over Beethoven. Berry later told Johnson that Johnny B. Goode was written as a tribute to him.
Source: Johnnie Johnson, inductee page
1940 · Born
Crickets bassist Joe B. Mauldin is born
Joe B. Mauldin, the bassist for Buddy Holly and the Crickets, was born in Lubbock, Texas. He joined the band as a teenager on double bass, later switching to a Fender Precision, and played on hits including That'll Be the Day and Peggy Sue. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 2012.
Source: Joe B. Mauldin
1954 · Milestone
A Memphis DJ plays Elvis Presley on the radio for the first time
Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played Elvis Presley's That's All Right on WHBQ's Red, Hot & Blue show, three days after Presley, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black cut it at Sun Studio. It was the first time the public heard Moore's guitar work on the recording. Listener calls flooded the station, and Phillips tracked down the nervous 19-year-old Presley for a live on-air interview that same night.
Source: On This Day in 1954, Elvis Presley Gets His First Taste of Fame When "That's All Right" Is Played on the Radio for the First Time · 2025-07-08
1957 · Born
Carlos Cavazo, who replaced Randy Rhoads in Quiet Riot, is born
Carlos Cavazo was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He joined the reformed Quiet Riot in 1982, filling the lead guitar chair Randy Rhoads had vacated years earlier to join Ozzy Osbourne. Cavazo played on 1983's Metal Health, the first heavy metal album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, and later spent a decade in Ratt.
Source: Carlos Cavazo
1961 · Born
Country star Toby Keith is born
Toby Keith Covel was born in Clinton, Oklahoma, and got his first guitar at age 8 after hanging around the bandstand at his grandmother's Fort Smith, Arkansas supper club. He went on to chart 20 number-one country singles. In 2013, Takamine released the EF250TK, a signature acoustic-electric built to the specs of his longtime workhorse guitar.
Source: Takamine Introduces the EF250TK Toby Keith Signature Acoustic-Electric Guitar · 2013-01-22
1967 · Performance
Jimi Hendrix opens for the Monkees, rock's strangest tour pairing
The Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for the Monkees at the Jacksonville Coliseum, the first date of a tour Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz pushed for after seeing Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival. Preteen fans screaming for Davy Jones drowned out Hendrix's psychedelic rock, and he quit after about a week. The famous claim that the Daughters of the American Revolution got him pulled from the tour was a face-saving cover story put out by Hendrix's own publicity team once he left the tour, then reported as fact by Melody Maker.
Source: Hey, Hey We're the... Experience? How The Jimi Hendrix Experience Landed On Tour With The Monkees
1977 · Passed
Carl Hogan, the guitarist behind rock's most borrowed riff, dies
Carl Hogan, the electric guitarist in Louis Jordan's Tympany Five, died in St. Louis at 59. His guitar riff on Jordan's 1946 hit Ain't That Just Like a Woman became, almost note for note, the intro to Chuck Berry's 1958 Johnny B. Goode. Berry publicly credited Hogan for it, saying he put "a little Carl Hogan, a little T-Bone Walker, and a little Charlie Christian together."
Source: Carl Hogan
1995 · Performance
Jerry Garcia plays his second-to-last show with the Grateful Dead
Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead played Soldier Field in Chicago, the first of two consecutive closing nights on the band's summer tour. It was Garcia's second-to-last concert ever; the true final show came the next night, July 9, at the same venue. Garcia, playing his Doug Irwin-built Rosebud guitar, died about a month later, on August 9, 1995, at age 53.
Why we track this
Most calendar dates get one guitar story, if that. July 8 gets nine, and several of them chain together: a guitarist whose name most fans never learned, the pianist who hired the man who later borrowed his riff, and the DJ who put the actual sound of rock and roll on the air, three days after it was recorded. This page collects what is documented for July 8, and it grows every time we verify another event for the date. If you play electric guitar and want the strings Jerry Garcia wore through decades of Grateful Dead shows, GHS Boomers in his .010 to .046 gauge are still made at GHS's original Battle Creek, Michigan headquarters, where the company has operated since 1964.
Start your own July 8
Whichever story on this page pulled you in, from a DJ refusing to stop playing a record in 1954 to a psychedelic guitarist getting drowned out by screaming Monkees fans in 1967, the through-line is still six strings under someone's hands. Garcia's own gauge is a reasonable place to start if you want a workhorse nickel-wound set with real rock and roll mileage on it.
Boomers GBL Nickel-Plated Steel (.010–.046)
Why this one: The same nickel-wound gauge family Jerry Garcia wore through decades of Grateful Dead shows, made in Battle Creek, Michigan since 1964.
More guitar history
Read Jerry Garcia's full documented gear and strings, Jimi Hendrix's Stratocaster and strings rundown, or Chuck Berry's Gibson archtop rig, revisit the July 5, 1954 Sun Studio session that made Elvis's radio debut possible three days later, check the news desk for what is happening in the guitar world right now, or head to the full history index to see which dates are live so far.