No comments on Presty the DJ for Oct. 16
Category: Music
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The number one single today in 1966:
Today in 1971, Rick Nelson was booed at Madison Square Garden in New York when he dared to sing new material at a concert. That prompted him to write …
If I told you the number one British album today in 1983 was “Genesis,” I would have given you the artist and the title:
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The number one song today in 1957 was the Everly Brothers’ first number one:
The number one British single today in 1960:
The number one album today in 1967 is about an event that supposedly took place on my birthday:
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The number one British album today in 1973 was the Rolling Stones’ “Goats Head Soup,” despite (or perhaps because of) the BBC’s ban of one of its songs, “Star Star”:
Who shares a birthday with my brother (who celebrated his sixth birthday, on a Friday the 13th, by getting chicken pox from me)? Start with Paul Simon:
Robert Lamm plays keyboards — or more accurately, the keytar — for Chicago:
Sammy Hagar:
Craig McGregor of Foghat:
John Ford Coley, formerly a duet with England Dan Seals:
Rob Marche played guitar for the Jo Boxers, who …
One death of note: Ed Sullivan, whose Sunday night CBS-TV show showed off rock and roll (plus Topo Gigio and Senor Wences) to millions, died today in 1974:
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This year is the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond movie, “Dr. No.”
It’s also time for another Bond movie, “Skyfall.”
The Wall Street Journal takes an exhaustive look at the Bond half-century, including all 22 Bond movies, the villains …
Bond: “You expect me to talk?” Goldfinger: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE.” 
The third Blofeld survived to play the role of the professor/narrator in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Another example of doing the Time Warp again … 
Wouldn’t it have been ironic if Scaramanga had also been a vampire? … the weapons …
… the vehicles (those last two are sometimes the same) …
… and, duh, all the Bond girls:
London’s Telegraph reports the results of a survey of the 22 Bond movie themes.
Their number one (based on measurements of radio, TV, live and online performances) matches my number one:
The author of most of the Bond novels, Ian Fleming, got a presidential boost when President John F. Kennedy told reporters he read the Bond novels. And then Dr. No hit the silver screen, and 007 has been an icon ever since. (Bond far outlived Fleming, who died in 1964, the year the second Bond movie, “From Russia with Love,” came out.)
The secret-agent genre has been popular since approximately 1907, the year Joseph Conrad published his novel The Secret Agent. The John Le Carre novels featuring George Smiley made apparent that the secret agent was vastly exaggerated, but that was never the point.
The formula — good guy, bad guy, girl, exotic setting, gadgets — well, how could you go wrong with that? It’s interesting that neither the actors who played the villains, nor the actresses who played the babes, were usually name actors at the time. (The few instances that wasn’t the case were probably Christopher Lee in “The Man with the Golden Gun” and Christopher Walken in “A View to a Kill,” along with Diana Rigg in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, ” and Halle Berry in “Die Another Day.” Of those four, “Golden Gun” probably gets the best ranking, which says something about the importance of story over casting.
Other than being a sports hero or a superhero, Bond might be the most popular male fantasy figure out there. Everyone with the XY chromosome would like to be able to face a deadly situation with
There are some great offscreen ironies in the movies, beginning with the actors who were preferred over the Bonds, or turned down the Bond role. Richard Burton rejected the role three times. Cary Grant wanted to do only one film, and James Mason wanted to do only two. Patrick McGoohan played “Danger Man,” “Secret Agent” and “The Prisoner,” but refused to play Bond because Bond was too promiscuous. Michael Caine could have been Bond for “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” but he didn’t want to be typecast after having played anti-Bond Harry Palmer. Mel Gibson and Christopher Lambert weren’t British. Liam Neeson didn’t want to do action movies. (So what was “Taken”?)
Sean Connery won out over Rex Harrison and David Niven (who was Fleming’s personal choice). Timothy Dalton turned the role down twice before taking it for “The Living Daylights.” Ian Ogilvy, who played a TV adaptation of Simon Templar, “The Saint,” as Roger Moore had in the 1960s, was being considered until Moore returned. Pierce Brosnan was to replace Moore in 1986, but he couldn’t get out of “Remington Steele.” Alex O’Loughlin, now playing Steve McGarrett in “Hawaii Five-O,” was considered but lost out to Daniel Craig.
The general consensus is that Connery was the best Bond. He is certainly the Bond to which the others are compared. The additional irony is that Connery left after the first five movies, then came back for “Diamonds Are Forever,” in which he looked old. Connery was replaced by Roger Moore, who was six years … older. Moore had auditioned for Bond by playing “The Saint.”
Even though Moore had aged out of the role by “View to a Kill,” I identify more with Moore as Bond than Connery. Connery’s Bond was on ABC-TV Sunday nights. Moore’s Bond was in theaters. Two of the best soundtracks, “Live and Let Die,” and “The Spy Who Loved Me,” were Moore films.
Dalton appeared to be the Bond producers’ attempt to redo Connery’s Bond. Brosnan appeared to be the Bond producers’ attempt to redo Moore’s Bond. Craig’s Bond might be more like Fleming intended, but I’m not a fan because he lacks the urbane smoothness of the other Bonds.
“Live and Let Die” is my favorite, followed by “The Spy Who Loved Me.” The latter was the first Bond movie I saw in a theater. The former has the best combination of soundtrack …
… Bond Girl (Jane Seymour) …
… vehicle (note I didn’t write “car”) chase …
… and villain’s demise (the villain, played by Yaphet Kotto, blows up, you might say, in the end):
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We begin with an entry from the It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Dept.: Today in 1956, Chrysler Corp. launched its 1957 car lineup with a new option: a record player. The record player didn’t play albums or 45s, however; it played only seven-inch discs at 16⅔ rpm. Chrysler sold them until 1961.
Today in 1957, Little Richard was on an Australian tour when he publicly renounced rock and roll and embraced religion and announced he was going to record Gospel music from now on. The conversion was the result of his praying during a flight when one of the plane’s engines caught fire.
Little Richard returned to rock and roll five years later.
The number one song today in 1963:
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Proving that there is no accounting for taste, I present the number one song today in 1960:
The number two single today in 1970 was originally written for a bank commercial:
Britain’s number one album today in 1970 was Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”:
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My favorite Ray Charles song was number one today in 1961:
Today in 1969, the BBC’s “Top of the Pops” refused for the first time to play that week’s number one song because of what singers Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin were supposedly doing while recording “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus”:
According to a classmate of mine, Madison radio stations play Britain’s number one single today in 1971 too often:
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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:
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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”:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 