Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for June 23rd

Album charts: an interesting three decades look at what's what...

6/23/1962 (58 years ago today) - An album that anticipated genre-mash-ups that was way ahead of its time: Ray Charles begins 14 weeks at No. 1 (that's over three-and-a-half months!) with "Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music" -- Fact: nobody had ever heard anything like it before; produced by Ray himself (and in the process, making him one of the very first African-American artists to exercise total control of his own career), the LP marked a serious departure from his previous work, taking country, folk, and Western music standards and re-doing them in rhythm-and-blues, pop and jazz arrangements. Mind-blowing!!! A genuine American musical milestone/masterpiece; if you're a fan of honesty, you should own a copy...

6/23/1973 (47 years ago today) - George Harrison starts five weeks at No. 1 with his fourth solo album, "Living In The Material World" -- It was The Quiet Beatle's second chart-topping LP, notable for lyrics that reflected George's struggle for spiritual enlightenment vs. his status as "global superstar" -- The record is a much more intense listening experience than you might remember, and it features what many critics believed to be the finest vocal and guitar performances of his career: "Be Here Now", "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long", "Who Can See It", "That Is All", definitely worth going back to and very rewarding indeed...

6/23/1984 (36 years ago today) - Duran Duran hit No. 1 here in the U.S. for the very first time with..."The Reflex"?!?! Apparently. The track was off their third studio album "Seven And The Ragged Tiger" which {somewhat oddly} was also the band's first and only Number One in their British homeland (weren't they supposedly a much bigger deal back in the day...?) -- Though "Hungry Like The Wolf", "Girls On Film" and "Rio" were certainly more memorable, it's kinda weird they never topped the American charts until this one came along; it's not a record you go back to often, really, plus there's the fact that the whole Duran Duran 'experience' is over 30 years old! It's a mystery...

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"Don't want to be around when this gets out...", xoxo!