Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for April 20th

One of the 1950's biggest singles, like, really a biggie! --  Classic band changes name for...Gran'ma? -- We lost a good one on this date...

4/20/1957 (59 years ago today) - Before the age of downloads, this indeed was a gigantic el-smasheroo!: Elvis Presley starts eight weeks in a row at No. 1 on the singles chart with "All Shook Up" -- it goes on to become the biggest singles success of 1957, selling over two million copies rather quickly. Astounding when you get around to realizing you had to leave the house and go to a store in order to buy it, then bring it home in order to listen to it!

4/20/1968 (48 years ago today) - Deep Purple make their live debut at a show in Denmark; previously, they had been calling themselves Roundabout, but guitarist Ritchie Blackmore suggested the new name Deep Purple. Why? Turns out to have been his grandmother's favorite song, plus she kept asking Ritchie if they would ever get around to performing the song for her. God Bless Gram's everywhere...

4/20/1991 (25 years ago today) - Steve Marriott, leader of not one, but two very influential bands, died in a fire at his Essex, England home; he was only 44. As a child actor, he played The Artful Dodger in a London production of "Oliver!" before the rock and roll bug bit him for good. He first formed the artsy (and somewhat revolutionary-in-the-studio) outfit The Small Faces (with Ronnie Lane and Kenney Jones), creating some of England's most notorious psychedelia ("Itchykoo Park" and "Tin Soldier", for starters); he would go on to become even better-known as the powerful, ripping lead vocalist (and rhythm guitarist) for Humble Pie, which he founded with Peter Frampton. Two must-have's are The Small Faces' "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" (1968), and Humble Pie's double-live opus "Rockin' The Fillmore" (1971) -- we guarantee you will be absolutely knocked out and mesmerized by these fantastic records!!!

Comments on the Calendar are encouraged right here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeeBreak.

"It's all too beautiful...", xoxo!