Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for August 4th

A new chart's in town! -- Psychedelic debut coolness! -- A reminder of how much we miss P. Rogers Nelson...

8/4/1958 (62 years ago today) - Billboard introduces "The Hot 100 Singles Chart" -- Ricky Nelson was at No. 1 with "Poor Little Fool". Not ashamed to admit a more-than-passing-fondness for those old Ricky singles...

8/4/1967 (53 years ago today) - Pink Floyd unleashed their debut album, the frenzied psychedelic classic "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" -- Most of the tracks were written by Syd Barrett, including future live staples "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive" -- Wicked interesting side-notes: The album was recorded in London's Abbey Road studios at the exact same time The Beatles were working on "Sgt. Pepper"! -- Although the LP is now generally regarded as one of the definitive high-water marks of '60's psychedelia, here in the U.S. it never even made an appearance on any chart listing...

8/4/1984 (36 years ago today) - This one spent six months -- half the year! -- at the top of the charts: Prince kicks off a 24 week run at No. 1 on the album chart with the so-good-it-hurts masterpiece "Purple Rain" -- It's the seventh best-selling soundtrack album of all time with well over 25 million copies sold worldwide -- and because of "Darling Nikki", we now have parental advisory sticker warnings on records that feature "explicit content". Thanks for clearing that up...

Share your wadda-wadda's with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"She'd hold me close and kiss me/But her heart was full of lies...", xoxo!