Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for April 28th

Today it's "The Big Beat"; some "almost-rock" on Broadway; and one of the late '70's premier American bands loses a founding member...

4/28/1958 (57 years ago today) - Screw "Happy Days", here's proof that the late 1950's were, indeed, happening: We take you now to Kalamazoo, Michigan where Alan Freed's Big Beat Show played two sets at the Central High School Auditorium: on the bill were Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Frankie Lymon, Danny & The Juniors, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, The Chantels and Larry Williams -- every act absolutely rippin' and roarin' like nobody could believe. Frankly, stunning! Did you ever see anything like that at your high school auditorium? Ever? Didn't think so...

4/28/1968 (47 years ago today) - Another attempt to make rock "legit" that hasn't dated all that well: The Broadway musical "Hair" opens at the Biltmore Theatre in New York City -- the end result? OK, Three Dog Night pretty much did the definitive version of "Easy To Be Hard", but The Fifth Dimension's pseudo-lounge-sing-along of "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" was a pretty trite attempt at making Mom and Dad look "hep", and the less said about Oliver's take on "Good Morning Starshine" the better; shoot, even The Cowsills did "Hair" on The Ed Sullivan Show. The composers of this nonsense really didn't get it, though they did rack up 1,729 performances before closing on July 1st, 1972. One born every minute indeed...

4/28/1980 (35 years ago today) - The original bassist/front-man (and occasional songwriter) for The Marshall Tucker Band, Tommy Caldwell, passed away from injuries he sustained in a Jeep accident in his South Carolina hometown of Spartanburg; he was only 30 years old. Tommy was a founding member of the group along with older brother Toy Caldwell (it was Toy who wrote MTB classics "Can't You See?" and "Take The Highway"). This is kinda strange, though: their youngest brother, Tim Caldwell, also died in a traffic accident one month before Tommy, on March 28th, 1980, at age 25.

What do you think about the Calendar? Let us know here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"And the time has fin'lly come/For me to pack my bags/And walk away to be sad...", xoxo.