When it comes to day-in-rock almanac entries, it\u2019s hardly surprising that some dates appear more busy than others throughout the history of the genre.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s less common, though, for a particular day to be the anniversaries of three dramatic events. July 29, 1966 is one such day \u2013 and those events echo through the annals of music.<\/p>\n
It was the day Bob Dylan<\/a>\u00a0endured a motorcycle crash<\/a> on the back roads of Woodstock, NY, soon after he\u2019d released iconic double album Blonde on Blonde<\/a>. It was the third acclaimed record in a series that had started the previous year with Bringing It All Back Home<\/a> and Highway 61 Revisited<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI had been in a motorcycle accident and I\u2019d been hurt, but I recovered,\u201d Dylan wrote in 2004. Accounts suggested he\u2019d lost control of the bike while his wife followed behind him, and that he\u2019d broken several vertebrae in an accident that could have ended his career.<\/p>\n \u201cTruth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race,\u201d he continued. \u201cHaving children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on \u2026 [N]othing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n READ MORE: The 12 Worst Bob Dylan Albums<\/a><\/p>\n Dylan kept a low profile before returning to action in the summer of 1967, releasing his return-to-roots album John Wesley Harding<\/a>, and recording around 100 songs that lay dormant until some of them were released as The Basement Tapes<\/a> in 1975.<\/p>\n While no official record of the accident exists, and Dylan has been known to retell life events for expanded impact, there\u2019s no doubt that the change-of-heart that took place during his downtime gave us much more music than might have been the case.<\/p>\n Listen to Bob Dylan\u2019s \u2018All Along the Watchtower\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the United States that same day, Beatles<\/a> star John Lennon<\/a> found himself at the center of controvery for a comment he\u2019d made several months earlier.<\/p>\n When he told a British newspaper that his band were \u201cmore popular than Jesus,<\/a>\u201d no one on that side of the Atlantic had been upset. That wasn\u2019t the case<\/a> when another part of his comment, \u201cI don’t know which will go first, rock \u2019n\u2019 roll or Christianity,\u201d was discovered by media outlets in America\u2019s South.<\/p>\n READ MORE: How America Convinced the Beatles They Wouldn\u2019t Fizzle Out<\/a><\/p>\n Soon radio stations were refusing to play Beatles tracks, campaigns were underway to have the group\u2019s tour canceled and see the members sent home, and the public were urged to burn their records (which, of course, involved buying them first).<\/p>\n Amid the pressure, Lennon \u2013 via manager Brian Epstein<\/a> \u2013 was persuaded to explain himself. While he didn\u2019t fully apologize, he said at a press conference: \u201cI\u2019m not saying we’re better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing, or whatever it is, you know. I just said what I said, and it was wrong, or was taken wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n While the US tour went ahead, the incident fueled the band\u2019s desire to come off the road forever. Asides from their appearance on their London rooftop in 1969<\/a>, the Beatles never played live again.<\/p>\n Watch John Lennon Explain His \u2018Bigger Than Jesus\u2019 Comment<\/p>\n The third history-changing event of July 29, 1966 took place in Manchester, England, when Eric Clapton<\/a>, Jack Bruce<\/a> and Ginger Baker <\/a>made their first appearance<\/a> as Cream<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the show at the industrial city\u2019s Twisted Wheel didn\u2019t even hint at how much the trio would change music over the coming months, before disintegrating into turmoil.<\/p>\n In his memoir Clapton: The Autobiography, the guitarist recalled it as a \u201cpretty quiet\u201d event, explaining: \u201c[W]e were a last-minute unannounced addition to the bill. The show\u2026 was merely a warm-up for the real debut that [manager Robert] Stigwood had planned for us, two nights later, at the sixth National Jazz and Blues Festival at Windsor Racecourse.\u201d<\/p>\n Why Eric Clapton Risked Violence With Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker<\/p>\n