Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for April 14th

Today it's a Beatles classic (but with only half the band on it); a "drug-oriented records" warning list is issued; and one of Eddie Van Halen's favorite guitarists is having a birthday...

4/14/1969 (46 years ago today) - "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" is recorded and later released as being by The Beatles, though in fact only two of The Fab Four are on it: John plays guitars and does the lead vocal, while the drums, bass and piano are all by Paul! Because of the reference to Christ, the single was inevitably banned from many stations as being "blasphemous"; some radio programmers edited the Christ line by putting it in backwards so as to avoid the ban. The fact that this practice still exists in some way-shape-or-form in 2015 is actually vaguely disturbing...

4/14/1971 (44 years ago today) - The Illinois Crime Commission issued a list of "drug oriented records" that gets you sort-of wondering just what it was they were hoping to achieve...A real/functioning Crime Commission, for cryin' out loud; not a public school council debate, but an actual working part of a Criminal Prosecution Division! "White Rabbit" and "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" were easy targets for psychedelic references; Peter, Paul & Mary's "Puff The Magic Dragon" and Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Hi-De-Ho" (composed, in fact, by acclaimed songwriter Carole King) were examples of "extolling the virtues of marijuana", along with Joe Cocker's cover of the Ray Charles classic "Let's Go Get Stoned". Well, duh. So now you know...

4/14/1945 - Happy Birthday to Deep Purple guitarist/songwriter Ritchie Blackmore, 70 years old today. Before forming the classic Purple, Ritchie backed up several different British pop stars, most notably the occasionally crazy Screaming Lord Sutch. Post-Purple, there's some underrated stuff with the band Rainbow; these days he's working an old-school traditional folk-rock project called Blackmore's Night. A moderately confusing career arc; we'll stick with the Purple stuff on Warner Bros. between 1969 and 1974, the bona-fide cream of the classic rock crop: "Machine Head", "Made In Japan", "Who Do We Think We Are?", "Burn" and "Stormbringer" -- those albums will do just fine, thanks.

Let us know what you think about the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak. And all at no charge!

"Like a driving power/Big fat tires and everything...", xoxo!