The number one song today in 1955:
The number one British song (which is not from Britain) today in 1964:
Today in 1971, John Lennon released his “Imagine” album:
No comments on Presty the DJ for Oct. 8
Category: Music
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Today in 1975, one of the stranger episodes in rock music history ended when John Lennon got permanent resident status, his “green card.” The federal government, at the direction of Richard Nixon, tried to deport Lennon because of his 1968 British arrest for possession of marijuana. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that trying to deport Lennon on the basis of an arrest was “contrary to U.S. ideas of due process and was invalid as a means of banishing the former Beatle from America.”
The number one British single today in 1978 came from that day’s number one album:
The number one album today in 1989 was Tears for Fears’ “Seeds of Love”:
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You had better get on board for the number one song today in 1970:
The number one song today in 1973:
Britain’s number one album tonight in 1984 was David Bowie’s “Tonight”:
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The number one album today in 2002 was “Elvis Presley’s Number One Hits,” despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that Presley had been dead for 25 years:
Strangely, “Elvis Presley’s Number One Hits” didn’t include this number one hit:
Just two birthdays of note, and they were on the same day: Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon …
… was born the same day as David Hidalgo of Los Lobos:
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The number one song today in 1959 came from a German opera:
The number one British song today in 1961:
The number one British song today in 1974 came from the movie “The Exorcist”:
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The number one U.S. album today in 1974 was a collection of previous Beach Boys hits, “Endless Summer”:
The number one song today in 1991:
Birthdays begin with Carlos Mastrangelo, one of Dion’s Belmonts:
Richard Street of The Temptations …
… was born one year before Milwaukee’s own Steve Miller:
Brian Connolly of Sweet:
Brian Johnson of AC/DC:
Harold Faltermeyer:
Lee Thompson of Madness:
Dave Dederer of Presidents of the United States (though none of the band’s members have ever been president):
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Today in 1957, the sixth annual New Music Express poll named Elvis Presley the second most popular singer in Great Britain behind … Pat Boone. That seems as unlikely as, say, Boone’s recording a heavy metal album.
The number one British song today in 1962, coming to you via satellite:
Britain’s number one album today in 1969 was the Beatles’ “Abbey Road”:
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We begin with this unusual event: Today in 1978, the members of Aerosmith bailed out 30 of their fans who were arrested at their concert in Fort Wayne, Ind., for smoking marijuana:
Britain’s number one single today in 1987:
Today in 1992 on NBC-TV’s “Saturday Night Live,” Sinead O’Connor torpedoed her own career:
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Today in 1953, Victor Borge’s “Comedy in Music” opened on Broadway, closing 849 performances later. (Pop.)
Today in 1960, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs released “Stay,” which would become the shortest number one single of all time:
The number one single today in 1965:
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I present the number one single today in 1977 to demonstrate that popularity and quality are not always synonymous:
The number one single today in 1983:
Today in 2004, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne officially opened AC/DC Lane, named for the band, to the bagpipes from …
Birthdays begin with actor Richard Harris, who “sang” …
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My high school political science teacher posted on his blog:
In “A Cheap, Easy High—With No Side Effects” Patrick Kurp refers to Terry Teachout’s “post devoted to the music he listens to whenever he feels ‘the urgent need to upgrade my mood.’ He writes, ‘I’ve always found music to be one of the most potent means of attitude adjustment known to man,’ and his experience jibes with mine. …. Music’s impact is prompt and unambiguous. In contrast, literature is an oral ingestion of medicine compared to the intravenous immediacy of music.” Kurp goes on to list some of the works of literature that invariably lift his mood. For instance:- Most anything by…P.G. Wodehouse
- Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditation
- Tristram Shandy, especially the scenes with Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman
- The essays of Joseph Epstein and Guy Davenport
- Jonathan Swift’s “A Description of a City Shower” and “The Lady’s Dressing Room”
Teachout’s list of music that provides “a cheap, easy high” is long. A few of the many he listed:
- Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”
- The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek”
- Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture
- Gershwin’s An American in Paris
- Copland’s “Buckaroo Holiday” (from Rodeo)
- The Who’s “Shakin’ All Over” (from Live at Leeds)
- Sidney Bechet’s 1932 recording of “Maple Leaf Rag”
- Mendelssohn’s Rondo capriccioso
- The first movement of Mozart’s A Major Piano Concerto, K. 488
- Steely Dan’s “My Old School”
- Flatt and Scruggs’ “Farewell Blues”
- Bill Monroe’s “Rawhide”
- The first movement of Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony
- Johann Strauss’s Fledermaus Overture
- Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Three little maids from school are we” (from The Mikado)
- Pretty much anything by Count Basie, Erroll Garner, Fats Waller, Haydn, or John Philip Sousa
In case you haven’t heard of them, I linked to them up to the last bullet point:
(Side note: A lot of Wisconsin high schools use “On Wisconsin,” when they could use a Sousa march as their fight song.)
Teachout also listed (and I have linked to):
- Stan Kenton’s recording of Gerry Mulligan’s “Young Blood”
- Wild Bill Davison’s 1943 recording of “That’s A-Plenty” (turned up very loud)
- The John Kirby Sextet’s “It Feels So Good”
- Buddy Rich’s 1966 live recording of “Love for Sale”
- Booker T. and the MGs’ “Hip Hug-Her”
- Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter”
- Jelly Roll Morton’s “Wolverine Blues” (with Baby and Johnny Dodds)
- The Dixieaires’ “Joe Louis Was a Fighting Man”
- Donald Fagen’s “Morph the Cat”
- Doc Watson’s “Let the Cocaine Be”
- Sergio Mendes’ 1966 recording of “Mais Que Nada” (not the icky hip-hop remake, eeuuww!)
- The Dominoes’ “Sixty Minute Man”
- Stephen Sondheim’s “A Weekend in the Country” (from A Little Night Music)
- Frank Sinatra’s “Witchcraft”
- Walton’s Crown Imperial (as played by Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble)
- Stan Getz and Bob Brookmeyer’s “Open Country”
- R.E.M.’s “Radio Free Europe”
- The Beatles’ “Revolution”
- Django Reinhardt’s “Swing 42”
- The sound of Louis Armstrong’s voice
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Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 