Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for January 15th

Today it's a couple of all-time great Seventies chart-toppers and a birthday for a bona-fide cult legend...

1/15/1972 (44 years ago today) - Don McLean's "American Pie" starts a four-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart; a few years ago it was listed at No. 5 on the Recording Industry Association of America project "Songs Of The Century". Don's first performance of his soon-to-be-classic was at Temple University in Philadelphia on March 14, 1971, when he was the opening act for Laura Nyro; while avoiding questions about the song's true meaning, Don has stated that, yes, he really did learn of Buddy Holly's passing while he was folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 4, 1959 ("February made me shiver/With every paper I'd deliver...").

1/15/1977 (39 years ago today) - It was The Eagles third No. 1 on the U.S. album chart: "Hotel California" was the bands first recording to feature Joe Walsh on lead guitar, and remains their best-selling proper studio LP -- 16 million copies sold worldwide. It also won two Grammys (for the title track and "New Kid In Town"), but lost the Album Of The Year honor to Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours". So, 1977 was a pretty decent year for classic rock albums after all...

1/15/1941 - Born on this day, avant-garde musician/singer/songwriter and critically praised painter/artist Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. the absolutely incomparable Captain Beefheart. His recorded work with a rotating ensemble of musicians known as The Magic Band remains some of the most hard-to-define music ever recorded, a highly experimental mix of rock, blues, jazz and psychedelia of which the double-LP set "Trout Mask Replica" remains as a truly unique and astonishingly confounding landmark -- no one else on the planet has ever come close to making anything that sounds like that album (listed at No. 58 on Rolling Stone's Top 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time). Sadly missed, Don passed away from complications from multiple sclerosis back on December, 10th, 2010; he was 69 years old. Look him up. "Safe As Milk" (1967, with then-guitar prodigy Ry Cooder in the line-up) is probably easier to get into; it was one of John Lennon 's favorite albums.

Thoughts on the Calendar? Share yours with us right here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"And do you have faith in God above/If the Bible tells you so?...", xoxo!