Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for February 9th

Historic All Beatles Edition today, quite an interesting date in Fab Four Land...

2/9/1964 (54 years ago today) - The show received over 50,000 applications for the 728 seats in the TV studio!!!: Tonight, The Beatles make their U.S. live debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show" -- They perform twice, opening with "All My Loving", followed by Paul taking the lead on "Till There Was You" (from "The Music Man"), and then "She Loves You", which absolutely sends the kids in the crowd out of their minds! The broadcast ends with "I Saw Her Standing There" and current No. 1 single "I Want To Hold Your Hand" -- The show is watched by an estimated 73 million people. Life on Planet Earth has just changed, and it will never be the same again...

2/9/1967 (51 years ago today) - It was the first Beatles single not to make No. 1 in the U.K. since 1963: The videos for their latest release "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" are shown on BBC-TV's "Top Of The Pops", which confuse everyone. Then, to be filed under "You've got to be kidding me!", is the fact that this incredible double-A sided piece of cultural history was kept out of the top spot on the chart by Englebert Humperdinck's vertigo-inducing ballad of mush "Release Me". Proof of pure evil in the modern world, and how the Devil works in mighty strange ways...

2/9/1972 (46 years ago today) - The name of the band was Wings, the lead singer was ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, and they had a hard time finding a place to play!: It was supposed to be a low-key, spontaneous tour of U.K. colleges and towns, and this evening they barely manage to squeeze in a set in the town of Nottingham, but only after getting permission from the school's secretaries because the group had arrived unannounced and without invitation ("Hey, can we perform here this evening?") -- The band's first stop was supposed to be the school at Ashley-de-la-Zouch, but the headmasters there told 'em to get lost. Opening act for the "tour" was now-legendary Brit-pub-rock-cult-faves Brinsley Schwarz featuring Nick Lowe!

Share your bus fare with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"You know it's up to you...", xoxo!