1977 in music

Specific locations

• 1977 in British music
• 1977 in Norwegian music
• 1977 in Scandinavian music

  Specific genres

• 1977 in country music
• 1977 in heavy metal music
• 1977 in jazz
• 1977 in progressive rock

  Events

January–February

• January 1 – The Clash headline the opening night of London's only punk rock club, The Roxy.
• January 6 – After releasing only one single for controversial English punk rock band the Sex Pistols, EMI terminates its contract with them in response to the band's disruptive behaviour on ITV's Today and later at London Heathrow Airport.
• January 22 – German cellist Maria Kliegel makes her London debut at the Wigmore Hall, with a programme of Bach, Kodály, and Franck
• January 26 – Patti Smith falls off the stage while opening for Bob Seger in Tampa, Florida, and is rushed to the hospital for 22 stitches to close head lacerations
• February 4
• *Paul Desmond gives his last concert with Dave Brubeck, in New York
• *American Bandstand celebrates its 25th anniversary on television with a special hosted by Dick Clark; an "all-star band", performing "Roll Over Beethoven", is made up of Chuck Berry, Seals & Crofts, Gregg Allman, Junior Walker, Johnny Rivers, the Pointer Sisters, Charlie Daniels, Doc Severinsen, Les McCann, Donald Byrd, Chuck Mangione and three members of Booker T and the MGs
• *Fleetwood Mac's widely anticipated Rumours is released; it goes on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time
• February 14 – The B-52's give their first public performance at a party in Athens, Georgia
• February 15 – Sid Vicious replaces Glen Matlock as the bassist of the Sex Pistols.
• February 19 – The 19th Annual Grammy Awards are presented in Los Angeles, hosted for the final time by Andy Williams. Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life wins Album of the Year, George Benson's "This Masquerade" wins Record of the Year and Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs" wins Song of the Year. Starland Vocal Band win Best New Artist.

  March–May

• March 1 – Sara Lowndes Dylan files for divorce from her husband of 11 years, Bob Dylan
• March 4 & 5 – The Rolling Stones play two shows at the El Mocambo club in Toronto
• April – Van Morrison releases a new album, A Period of Transition, after a nearly three-year absence
• March 10 – A&M Records signs the Sex Pistols in a ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace; this contract is terminated on March 16 as a result of the band vandalizing property and verbally abusing employees during a visit to the record company's office
• April 21 – Jesse Winchester, who fled to Canada in January 1967 to avoid military service in Vietnam, performs a concert in Burlington, Vermont, his first on American soil in ten years having recently become free to return under the Presidential pardon given to all draft evaders
• April 22 – Pink Floyd open the North American leg of their "Animals" tour in Miami, Florida
• April 24 – Several artists, including Joan Baez and Santana, perform at a free concert for 653 inmates of California's Soledad Prison
• April 26 – New York's disco Studio 54 opens.
• April 30 – Led Zeppelin sets a new world record attendance for an indoor solo attraction at the Pontiac Silverdome when 76,229 people attend a concert here on the group's 1977 North American Tour.
• May 2 – Elton John performs the first of six consecutive nights at London's Rainbow Theatre, his first concert in eight months
• May 7 – Having been postponed from April 2 because of a BBC technicians' strike, the 22nd Eurovision Song Contest finally goes ahead in London's Wembley Conference Centre: the winner is Marie Myriam representing France with "L'oiseau et l'enfant"; the British entry, Lynsey de Paul and Michael Moran's "Rock Bottom", comes 2nd
• May 11 – Punk rock band The Stranglers and support London start a 10-week national UK tour
• May 12
• *Instruments made by all five members of the 17th- and 18th-century Guarneri family of violin makers are auctioned at Sotheby's, with the top price of £105,000 paid for an instrument made in 1738 by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù
• *Virgin Records announce that they have signed the Sex Pistols, the group having had contracts with two previous labels terminated in 4 months
• May 28 – Bruce Springsteen and Mike Appel reach an out-of-court settlement, ending the year-long legal battle that has blocked Springsteen's ability to record new music
• May 29 – Elvis Presley walks offstage in the middle of a concert in Baltimore, Maryland, the first time in his twenty-three year career he has done so; after receiving treatment from a physician, he reappears onstage thirty minutes later
• May 31 – The musical Beatlemania is premièred at the Winter Garden Theatre on Manhattan

  June–August

• June 7
• *The Nikikai Opera Foundation is founded in Japan
• *The Sex Pistols attempt to interrupt Silver Jubilee celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II by performing their version of "God Save the Queen" from a boat on the River Thames
• June 12
• *Guitarist Michael Schenker vanishes after a UFO concert at The Roundhouse in London
• *The Supremes perform for the last time together at Drury Lane Theatre in London before officially disbanding.
• June 15 – The Snape Maltings Training Orchestra makes its London debut at St John's, Smith Square
• June 18 – The first St Magnus Festival of the Arts, founded in Orkney by local resident, composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, opens with Davies's opera The Martyrdom of St Magnus.
• June 20 – Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart drives his Porsche over the edge of a canyon, suffering multiple broken bones but surviving as a tree breaks his fall.
• June 26 – Elvis Presley gives his final concert, at Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Earlier that day, he has received a plaque commemorating the two billionth pressing from RCA's record pressing plant in Camden, New Jersey.
• July 9 – Donna Summer's hit record "I Feel Love" is released in the UK; it is the first hit record to have an entirely synthesised backing track.
• July 13 – After a massive blackout hits New York City, NRBQ manages to play an all-acoustic set at The Bottom Line with flashlights taped to their microphone stands.
• July 22 – The first night of The Proms are broadcast in quadraphonic sound by BBC Radio 3 for the first time
• July 26 – Led Zeppelin cancels the last seven dates of their American tour after lead singer Robert Plant learns that his six-year-old son Karac has died of a respiratory virus
• August 16 – Bing Crosby gives his final concert, in Brighton, UK, accompanied by Johnny Smith.
• August 17 – Florists Transworld Delivery reports that in one day the number of orders for flowers to be delivered to Graceland for the funeral of Elvis Presley has surpassed the number for any other event in the company's history.
• August 18 – The funeral of Elvis Presley takes place at Graceland.
• August 20 – NASA's uncrewed probe Voyager 2 is launched carrying a golden record containing sounds and images representing life and culture on Earth, including the first movements of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Guan Pinghu's Liu Shui, played on the guqin, and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode".

  September–December

• September 1 – World première at the Royal Albert Hall in London of the expanded version of Luciano Berio's Coro
• September 3 – Nearly 110,000 fans pack Englishtown Raceway in Old Bridge, New Jersey, United States, for an 11-hour concert by Grateful Dead, Marshall Tucker Band and New Riders of the Purple Sage.
• September 15 – The third – and final – annual Rock Music Awards aired on NBC
• December 14 – Saturday Night Fever appears in movie theaters, igniting a new popularity for disco music and pushing it to the forefront of American pop culture, with the soundtrack to the film by Bee Gees
• December 17 – Elvis Costello makes his American television début on Saturday Night Live as a last-minute replacement for the Sex Pistols, who were refused visas to enter America; Costello is banned after substituting the scheduled performance of "Less than Zero" with "Radio, Radio" instead
• December 31 – The sixth annual New Year's Rockin' Eve special airs on ABC and the United States, with performances by Ohio Players, Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, KC and the Sunshine Band and Andy Gibb

  Also in 1977

• "Bohemian Rhapsody" named "The Best Single Of The Last 25 Years" by BPI.
• The Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe begins its annual festival based on the music of George Frideric Handel.
• Luigi Sagrati becomes president of the Unione Musicisti di Roma.
• The IRCAM Center, a scientific institute for music and sound and avant-garde electro-acoustical art music, opens in Paris.

  Bands formed

• ''See :Category:Musical groups established in 1977''

  Bands reformed

• ''See :Category:Musical groups reestablished in 1977''

  Bands disbanded

• ''See :Category:Musical groups disestablished in 1977''

  Albums released

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Release date unknown

• 15 Years On – The Dubliners
• Alien Soundtracks – Chrome
• Aliens – Horslips
• American Roulette – Danny O'Keefe
• Be Seeing You – Dr. Feelgood
• Black Vinyl Shoes – Shoes
• Blue Hotel – Fox
• BTO Live – Japan Tour – Bachman–Turner Overdrive
• Bundle of Joy – Freddie Hubbard
• Byablue – Keith Jarrett
• Cabretta – Mink DeVille
• Calling on Youth – The Outsiders
• Circles in the Stream – Bruce Cockburn – Live
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – John Williams
• Cluster & Eno – Cluster & Eno
• Come and Join Us – Petra
• Come to Me – Juice Newton and Silver Spur
• Coming Back for More – William Bell
• Dark Magus – Miles Davis – Live 1974
• The David Grisman Quintet - David Grisman
• Delilah's Power – Ike & Tina Turner
• Derringer Live – Derringer – Live
• The Diodes – The Diodes
• East of the River Nile – Augustus Pablo
• Encore – Tangerine Dream
• Equal Rights – Peter Tosh
• Evolution - Taj Mahal
• Fandango – Fandango
• Feelin' Bitchy – Millie Jackson
• The Giants – Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, Ray Brown
• Gleanings – John Coltrane
• Glitter Grass from the Nashwood Hollyville Strings - John Hartford, Doug Dillard, Rodney Dillard
• Goddo – Goddo
• Graham Bonnet – Graham Bonnet
• The Guitar Syndicate – Hank Marvin
• Halloween – Pulsar
• Heart of the Congos – The Congos
• Home on the Range – Slim Whitman
• I'm a Man – Bo Diddley
• If Wishes Were Horses – Sweeney Todd
• It Feels So Good – The Manhattans
• Just a Stone's Throw Away – Valerie Carter
• Just a Story from America – Elliott Murphy
• A Little Street Music – Cambridge Buskers
• Live at the El Mocambo – April Wine
• Live at Montreux – The Dubliners
• A Maid in Bedlam – John Renbourn Group
• Majida El Roumi – Majida El Roumi
• Makin' Magic – Pat Travers
• Manifest Destiny – The Dictators
• Marin County Line – New Riders of the Purple Sage
• Mark Farner – Mark Farner
• Malcolm Rebenneck - Dr. John
• Marlena – Die Flippers
• Message Man – Eddy Grant
• Montreux '77 – Ella Fitzgerald
• Music Fuh Ya' - Taj Mahal
• Never Letting Go – Phoebe Snow
• The Night Tripper - Dr. John
• Nice to Be Around – Rosemary Clooney
• Off the Wall - Roger Miller
• The Original Disco Duck – Rick Dees
• 'A paggella – Mario Trevi
• Painted Poetry - Roger Miller
• Peter McCann – Peter McCann
• Playing to an Audience of One – David Soul
• Protest – Bunny Wailer
• Putting It Straight – Pat Travers
• Richard Clayderman – Richard Clayderman
• Rick Danko – Rick Danko
• Ridin' High – Moxy
• Sergio Franchi / Volare – Sergio Franchi
• Songs of Kristofferson – Kris Kristofferson
• Sweet Evil – Derringer
• Tanz Samba mit Mir – Tony Holiday
• Telling the Truth – Willie Wright
• Two Sevens Clash – Culture
• Unmistakably Lou – Lou Rawls
• Visitors – Automatic Man
• When You Hear Lou, You've Heard It All – Lou Rawls
• Young Men Gone West – City Boy
• You Think You Really Know Me - Gary Wilson