Events in 1976
- Peter “Puddy” Watts, road manager for Pink Floyd, died of a heroin overdose. His manic laughter was used on the album The Dark Side of the Moon.
- Elvis Presley performed at the Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
- Elvis Presley performed at the Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
- Grateful Dead performed at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey.
- NBC aired the special “The Beach Boys: It's O.K.” to mark the group's 15th anniversary. The program featured interviews, comedy sketches and concert footage, with appearances by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd.
- Elvis Presley performed at the Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
- During a performance in Birmingham, England, Eric Clapton publicly expressed support for the right-wing National Front and made racist remarks.
- Robin Trower performed at Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee.
- Earth, Wind & Fire byli se skladbou „Getaway“ na prvním místě R&B žebříčku.
- Elton John byl hlavní hvězdou každoročního festivalu Summerfest na Rich Stadium v Buffalu v New Yorku. Jako předskokani vystoupili John Miles a Boz Scaggs.
- Elton John a Kiki Dee se skladbou „Don't Go Breaking My Heart“ dosáhli prvního místa amerického singlového žebříčku, kde zůstali čtyři týdny. Pro Eltona Johna šlo o jeho šestý americký hit číslo jedna. Skladba se dostala na první místo v celkem devíti zemích včetně Velké Británie, Austrálie a Kanady. Autory byli Elton John a Bernie Taupin, kteří skladbu vydali pod pseudonymy Ann Orson a Carte Blanche.
- The Sex Pistols se poprvé objevili na titulní straně britského hudebního týdeníku Melody Maker.
- American singer and actor Drew Lachey was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He became known as a member of the pop and R&B group 98 Degrees.
- ABBA released the single “Fernando.”
- Aerosmith performed at the Springfield Civic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
- Linda Ronstadt released her cover version of Buddy Holly’s “That'll Be The Day”.
- Elton John played the first of a series of sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The concert series grossed $1.25 million and surpassed The Rolling Stones’ 1975 record. Elton John was promoting his current single with Kiki Dee, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” and the live album “Here and There.”
- Eric Clapton performed at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland.
- Neil Diamond performed at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland.
- American singer, songwriter and guitarist Ben Gibbard, frontman of indie-rock group Death Cab for Cutie, was born. The group had the US No. 1 album Narrow Stairs in 2008. The band's name comes from the song “Death Cab for Cutie” by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
- Keith Moon of The Who trashed a hotel room at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami and subsequently ended up in hospital.
- Neil Young recorded an entire album in a single evening at Indigo Ranch Recording Studio in Malibu. The recording included “Pocahontas” and “Powderfinger,” among others, but executives shelved it until September 8, 2017, when it was released as Hitchhiker.
- Yes performed at Louisville Gardens in Louisville, Kentucky.
- The Clash played a private concert for journalists at the Chalk Farm rehearsal studios in London.
- “Devil Woman” entered the Billboard Top 40 and later reached number 6.
- Their cover of Chuck Berry's “Rock And Roll Music” reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became their first Top Ten hit since “Good Vibrations” in 1966.
- They released the single “Dancing Queen”, which became their only US number-one hit and also topped the charts in more than a dozen countries.
- AC/DC performed at the Marquee Club in London.
- Cliff Richard became one of the first Western artists to perform behind the Iron Curtain when he gave a concert in Leningrad, USSR.
- Yes performed at the Mecca Arena in Milwaukee.
- Cliff Richard became one of the first Western artists to perform behind the Iron Curtain when he gave a concert in Leningrad in what was then the Soviet Union.
- The British punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue was published for the first time. The first issues had a circulation of approximately 50 copies, which later grew to 15,000. Publisher Mark Perry ended the magazine in September 1977 out of concern that it would be absorbed by the mainstream music press.
- Yes performed at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan.
- Variety reported that Marvin Gaye faced two consecutive five-day jail sentences in Los Angeles County for contempt of court over failure to pay child and spousal support.
- Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of indie rock group Arcade Fire Régine Alexandra Chassagne was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
- Yes performed at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan.
- Yes performed at the Sports Arena in Toledo, Ohio.
- Donna Summer performed her erotic disco song “Love To Love You Baby” on American Bandstand. Although the song reached No. 2 in the US, Donna later admitted that she was not entirely sure about some of the lyrics and improvised parts of the song during the recording.
- RCA Victor announced that sales of Elvis Presley's recordings had exceeded 400 million units. This milestone was a significant moment in the final year of Elvis's life and confirmed his position at the time as the most commercially successful artist in the history of the recording industry. In later years, Graceland and RCA parent company Sony Music estimated that Elvis had sold more than one billion recordings worldwide.
- Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren, 10cc and The Rolling Stones performed at the Knebworth Festival in England.
- The Rolling Stones, 10cc, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren's Utopia and Hot Tuna performed at the Knebworth Festival in Hertfordshire, England, before approximately 200,000 fans. Tickets cost £4.50. The concert was falsely promoted as “the last Stones concert ever to take place in Britain” in order to boost ticket sales. RCA also announced that sales of Elvis Presley's recordings had exceeded 400 million units; later estimates by Graceland and Sony put his worldwide sales at more than one billion recordings.
- Yes performed at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
- The Beach Boys became the first rock group to appear on the cover of People magazine. The photograph showed the five original members with beards and was accompanied by the headline “Still Riding The Crest, 15 Hairy Years Later.” Solo artists had appeared on the magazine's cover before.
- AC/DC performed at the Marquee Club in London.
- The Australian band Little River Band released the song „It's a Long Way There“.
- British composer, singer, organist and pianist Michael Head died at the age of 76.
- Boston released their self-titled debut album on Epic Records. Much of the album was recorded in Tom Scholz's basement studio, and it became the fastest-selling debut album in history and one of the best-selling debut albums of all time. It included the singles “More Than a Feeling” (#5 USA, #22 UK), “Foreplay / Long Time” (#22 USA) and “Peace of Mind” (#38 USA), and has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
- Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello premiered their four-week summer variety series “Easy Does It” on CBS. The programme drew on nostalgia for their iconic Beach Party film era of the 1960s and featured notable guests each week, including Andy Griffith, Liz Torres, Phyllis Diller and Anson Williams from Happy Days.
- AC/DC performed at the Marquee Club in London.
- Marvin Gaye faced two consecutive five-day jail sentences in the Los Angeles County Jail for contempt of court over unpaid alimony and child-support payments.
- Steven Tyler of Aerosmith appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The photograph was taken by Annie Leibovitz, who found him tired and exhausted after only two hours of sleep. She arrived at his hotel at six in the morning to take the photograph.
- Aerosmith performed at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, near San Francisco.
- Elvis Presley performed at the Convention Center Arena in San Antonio, Texas, at the start of his sixth tour. Approximately 11,000 people attended the concert, and the program included “See See Rider”, “Love Me”, “All Shook Up”, “Teddy Bear/Don't Be Cruel”, “Fever”, “America”, “Polk Salad Annie”, “Hurt” and “Burning Love”, among others.
- Peter Frampton spent his third week at No. 1 on the US chart with the album “Frampton Comes Alive!”. The album was later briefly replaced at the top by Fleetwood Mac’s album “Fleetwood Mac” before returning to No. 1 on September 11. The live version of “Baby, I Love Your Way” from the album reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2017, Frampton told US lawmakers that 55 million streams of the song had earned him only $1,700.
- Elvis Presley performed at the Municipal Auditorium in Mobile, Alabama, before an audience of 10,720. He gave an afternoon concert at 2:30 p.m. as well as an evening performance at 8:30 p.m. During the afternoon concert, he wore a blue Bicentennial costume and performed, among others, "America", "Johnny B. Goode", "Hurt", "Mystery Train/Tiger Man", and "Can't Help Falling in Love". A recording of the concert exists under the title "Stuck In Mobile". For the evening performance, he wore a white Bicentennial costume.
- The British music magazine Sounds published letters from readers reacting to Eric Clapton's racist statement during his concert in Birmingham earlier that month. One of the letters criticized Clapton for drawing much of his music from Black music and called him the biggest colonizer of rock music. The letter also called for support of the Rock Against Racism movement, which subsequently became a major movement and organized concerts and festivals in support of tolerance.
- American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jimmy Reed died in San Francisco at the age of 50 following an epileptic seizure, shortly before his 51st birthday. He became known for the songs "Honest I Do", "Baby What You Want Me to Do", "Bright Lights, Big City", and "Big Boss Man". Between 1955 and 1965, he had a total of 19 Top 40 R&B hits and strongly influenced artists including The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Hank Williams Jr., Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jerry Garcia.
- Led Zeppelin released the album "Presence" as part of its international release week.
- At a concert in Santa Monica, California, Neil Young joined Firefall and Spirit on stage.
- The Sex Pistols, supported by The Clash and The Buzzcocks, performed at a showcase at The Screen On The Green in London's Islington.
- Aerosmith performed at the International Center Arena in Honolulu, Hawaii.
- During the carnival in the London district of Notting Hill, clashes broke out between Black youths and the police. Members of The Clash were present, and the event inspired them to write “White Riot” as a call for white people to protest with the same intensity.
- Elton John released the album "Blue Moves" as an advance release in the United Kingdom.
- Judge Richard Owen ruled at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that George Harrison was guilty of "subconscious plagiarism". The court found that the melody of Harrison's 1970 solo song "My Sweet Lord" was legally identical to "He's So Fine", written by Ronnie Mack and recorded by The Chiffons in 1963. The royalties from the song were awarded to Mack's estate, and Harrison eventually paid $587,000 in damages to copyright holder Bright Tunes. The Chiffons subsequently recorded their own version of "My Sweet Lord".