Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for August 24th

Today, you got something that happened on the charts for the very first time, along with a classic band's very first time in the studio, and then there's the most expensive single ever made...

8/24/1963 (52 years ago today) - Stevie Wonder does something that no other artist had done before: have both the No. 1 album and No. 1 single on the Billboard charts in the same week! The chart-topping LP was "Little Stevie Wonder/The 12 Year Old Genius" which featured the chart-topping single "Fingertips Part 2", which, coincidentally, was also the first ever live-in-concert recording to make it to No. 1! A rather nifty triple-play for Stevie from the days when record charts actually meant something!!!

8/24/1966 (49 years ago today) - For a band that had never been in a recording studio before, things turned out quite well indeed: At Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, tapes start rolling for The Doors debut LP. One of the most influential and critically acclaimed albums in the progression of psychedelic rock and with a near-perfect running order (starting with "Break On Through" and wrapping up with "The End"), "The Doors" is in both the Grammy Hall of Fame and was selected in 2015 to be added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry "based on its cultural, artistic and historical significance". In other words, an actual bona-fide classic. A real one that still kills.

8/24/1975 (40 years ago today) - Rockfield Studios, Monmouth, Wales is where Queen begins recording a Freddie Mercury song that he had thoroughly planned out beforehand --  in fact, Freddie directed the rest of the band throughout the sessions which last three weeks for this one track. Freddie, Brian May and Roger Taylor sing their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day (!) and it takes 180 separate overdubs to achieve what Freddie hears in his head. The end result is stunning: simply put, "Bohemian Rhapsody" could not have been made by anyone else. Totally perfect and timeless. Nice work lads.

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"Figaro/Magnifico...", xoxo!