Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for December 17th

Today we really got to thank that stewardess; there's Bowie's pre-"Ziggy" milestone, and a fantastic voice passes on...

12/17/1963 (52 years ago today) - James Carroll at Washington, D.C. radio station WWDC became the first American disc jockey to broadcast a Beatles record on American radio. A 45 rpm/vinyl copy of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was given to him by his stewardess girlfriend who brought the single back from the U.K.; she tells him that British kids are goin' nuts for these four young hep-kats known as The Beatles. It catches on but quick: due to listener demand, the song gets played daily -- every single hour! Thus it begins...

12/17/1971 (44 years ago today) - David Bowie releases his fourth album "Hunky Dory", the first record to feature all the members of the band that would become known the following year as Ziggy Stardust's Spiders From Mars. With some additional help from Rick Wakeman on piano (before becoming a member of Yes), the "Hunky Dory" album marks Bowie's emergence as a songwriting talent to be reckoned with. In many ways, still his best album -- no one else was writing anything like it. Ahead of his time...again...

12/17/1982 (33 years ago today) - Sherman, California: it will turn out to be Karen Carpenter's final live appearance with The Carpenters. Karen was suffering from anorexia nervosa, at the time a little known illness that 99% of us had never even heard of. She died from heart failure just a couple months later, on February 4, 1983, due to complications from her condition. Unbelievably, she was only 32 years old. A beautiful and unique voice gone too soon...

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"Those were such happy times and not so long ago/How I wondered where they'd gone...", xoxo!