Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for July 24th

Beatles left-overs taste just fine -- Minor name change leads to an even bigger hit -- To get to No. 1, these guys decided to go for a really strange sound...

7/24/1969 (51 years ago today) - At Abbey Road Studios, London, The Beatles are working on "Sun King" and "Mean Mr. Mustard", but a third song, something Paul had recorded a demo version of called "Come And Get It", just doesn't seem to fit in with the other stuff. What to do? Pass it along to a group they really like called The Iveys who have just been signed to their Apple record label; in a couple of weeks the band changes their name to Badfinger, and..."Voila!!!"

7/24/1971 (49 years ago today) - Dropping the "Paul Revere And..." from their name pays off bigly with The Raiders classic, "Indian Reservation", hitting No. 1 on the singles chart -- We did not know it was a cover version(!): the song was written by legendary folk artist John D. Loudermilk (who also wrote "Tobacco Road", notoriously performed by both Edgar Winter and David Lee Roth) and was originally recorded in 1959 by country and rockabilly star Marvin Rainwater under the title "The Pale Faced Indian", not as a pop song, but with a more Native American tradition sound, which was quite interesting actually...

7/24/1993 (27 years ago today) - Has it really been over a quarter of a century? Really?: One of U2's most experimental-but-still-cool albums reaches No. 1 as "Zooropa" tops the U.S. chart for two weeks and, a year later, wins the Grammy Award for "Best Alternative Album". There's truly excellent stuff on this one -- "Some Days Are Better Than Others", "Numb", "Stay (Faraway So Close)", "Lemon", and "The Wanderer" featuring none other than Johnny Cash! While this disc certainly frustrated many long time fans when it was released, years later (seemingly as always with U2) it sounds totally fantastic! Of course...

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

"Don't think/Don't worry/Everything's just fine...", xoxo!