One of the all-time biggest singles ever, like, really, a bona-fide whopper! -- Gran'ma helps re-name early metal band! -- We lost a good one on this date...

Small Faces
The Small Faces, Nov. 1965; Steve Marriott, far right. (Photo: Mike McKeown/Express/Getty Images)
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4/20/1957 (63 amazing years ago) - Before the age of downloads, this indeed was a ginormous smasheroo: Elvis Presley starts eight weeks at No. 1 on the singles chart with the stunningly perfect "All Shook Up" -- It goes on to become the biggest singles success of 1957, selling over two million copies in hardly any time at all. Rather an astounding achievement when you realize that you had to leave your house and go to a store and pay cash in order to get a copy, then you had to return home in order to listen to it. We love that...

4/20/1968 (52 years ago today) - Deep Purple make their live debut at a show in Denmark -- They had been calling themselves Roundabout, but, having no real success with that moniker, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore suggested the new name Deep Purple -- Why? Turns out it was his grandmother's favorite song, and she always was asking Ritchie if his band would ever get around to playing the song for herGod Bless Gram's everywhere...

4/20/1991 (29 years ago today) - Steve Marriott, leader of not one, but two very influential bands, died in a fire at his home in England; 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 beautiful psychedelic rock (start with "Itchykoo Park" and "Tin Soldier", yeah, but there are loads more) -- Steve would go on to become better known as the powerful/rippin' lead vocalist (and rhythm guitarist) for Humble Pie, which he founded with Peter Frampton -- Two must-have's are The Small Faces' "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" (1968, and notoriously on par with what The Beatles and Beach Boys were doing for psychedelia at this time), and Humble Pie's double-live opus "Rockin' The Fillmore" (1971, still one of the greatest live sets around): We guarantee you will be mesmerized by these fantastic records...

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

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