First, today in history, from the National Weather Service: Today in 1870, one week after the creation of the meteorological division of the Signal Service (which became the National Weather Service), the first “cautionary storm signal” was issued for an impending Great Lakes storm. They’re called storm warnings now.
The number one single today in 1969:
The number one single today in 1975 …
… on the day David Bowie made his U.S. TV debut on Cher’s show …
… and Elton John’s “Rock of the Westies” debuted on the album chart at number one:
Today in 1956, Nat King Cole became the first black man to host a TV show, on NBC:
The number one single today in 1966:
Today in 1971, Elvis Presley performed at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minn. To get the fans to leave after repeated encore requests, announcer Al Dvorin announced, “Elvis has left the building.”
Today in 1963, John Lennon showed his ability to generate publicity at the Beatles’ performance at the Royal Variety Show at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London. The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were in attendance, so perhaps they were the target of Lennon’s comment, “In the cheaper seats you clap your hands. The rest of you, just rattle your jewelry.”
Lennon would demonstrate his PR skills a couple of years later when he proclaimed the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus.”
The number one single today in 1965:
The number one single today in 1972:
Today in 1990, Melissa Ethridge and her “life partner” Julie Cypher appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine for its cover story on gay parenting.
I bring this up only to point out that Etheridge and Cypher no longer are life partners, Cypher (the ex-wife of actor Lou Diamond Phillips) is now married to another man, and Etheridge became engaged to another woman, but they split before their planned California wedding. And, by the way, Cypher had two children from the “contribution” of David Crosby, and Etheridge’s second woman had children from another man.
Chicago founding member Robert Lamm knows it’s soon going to come to an end.
But before you hit the panic button, the band isn’t going away, but 2017 is. In a year that’s seen the band sell out shows around the world, including a summer run with The Doobie Brothers, there’s still work to be done before Chicago takes a much-needed end-of-the-year break.
But before the band goes home for the holidays, there’s the matter at hand of “Chicago II.”
On Nov. 7 and 8, Chicago will perform the album in its entirety at WTTW’s Grainger Studio in Chicago. The show will later be aired on the PBS show “Soundstage.”
In a phone interview with the Sun Herald, from South Bend, Indiana, where Chicago was making preparations to perform with the legendary Notre Dame Marching Band, Lamm talks about revisiting “Chicago II,” his love for The Beatles and the impression a young Elvis Presley made on his life.
Tell me about the upcoming revisiting of “Chicago II” — was it difficult to relearn those songs?
As you probably already know, the album “Chicago II” was remixed at the request of Rhino Records, which owns the master. It was done by Steven Wilson, who is a British producer. It’s not really a remix, because he was just really working with a stereo master. He was able to bring out certain aspects of what was really an 8-track recording. And, by the way, that remix has been very favorably reviewed by some of the most demanding music journalists around.
Because of those good reviews and because of Rhino’s satisfaction with that work and because the album once again has been nominated for a the Grammy Hall of Fame, a couple of projects have arisen. One of them is performing the whole album top to bottom live, which is also going to be filmed. We are actually in rehearsals for that as we speak.
Is it tough revisiting some of those songs? I know you’ve been playing “Wake Up Sunshine” from the album on this tour. But is it challenging playing songs you haven’t played in 47 years?
Yes. For me, personally, yes and probably because of my hesitation to go back and re-examine even some of my own songs I wrote and I have not performed or even listened to for decades.
But I’m pretty excited about performing it in front of an audience. I would say all of it has been interesting, especially from a songwriting and arranging point of view. Some of the songs were written by Terry Kath, but I arranged them. Looking at the charts we used when we actually arranged them reveals certain qualities that I left long ago. I like to think that over the years that I’ve improved as a musician and as an arranger and songwriter. We were all a little bit dubious when we agreed to embark on this, and now that we have, everyone is pleasantly surprised. …
Last time we spoke, you discussed the possibility of the band doing some recording in 2018 with the current lineup, which includes new singer Jeff Coffey. Is that still a possibility?
Our problem in 2016 and 2017 has been an intense scheduling of concerts. But we have several months in 2018 that we may use to record an EP. I think it’s definitely a possibility. We recorded our last album “Now” on the road. Although that was a good result, it was pretty taxing. I’ve been pretty adamant about not recording that way for what we do next. We’ll probably record at Lee Loughnane’s studio in Arizona.
Today in 1964, a fan at a Rolling Stones concert in Cleveland fell out of the balcony. That prompted Cleveland Mayor Ralph Locker to ban pop music concerts in the city, saying, “Such groups do not add to the community’s culture or entertainment.” Kind of ironic that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ended up in Cleveland.
Wisconsinites know that the first radio station was what now is WHA in Madison. Today in 1920, the nation’s first commercial radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, went on the air.
The number one British single today in 1956 is the only number one song cowritten by a vice president, Charles Dawes:
The number one song today in 1974:
The number one British album today in 1985 was Simple Minds’ “Once Upon a Time” …
We begin with a non-music anniversary: Today in 1870, the U.S. Weather Bureau was created, later to become the National Weather Service.
Tomorrow in 1870, the first complaints were made about the Weather Bureau’s being wrong about its forecast.
Today in 1946, two New York radio stations changed call letters. WABC, owned by CBS, became (natch) WCBS, paving the way for WJZ, owned by ABC, to become (natch) WABC seven years later. WEAF changed its call letters to WNBC.
Today in 1963, Ed Sullivan was at Heathrow Airport in London just as the Beatles deplaned to a crowd of screaming fans and a mob of journalists and photographers.
Intrigued, Sullivan decided to investigate getting the Beatles onto his show.
Today in 1964, Ray Charles was arrested at Logan Airport in Boston and charged with heroin. Charles was sentenced to one year probation after he kicked the horse.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 