Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for June 8th

Wall Of Sound magnificence! -- First Stone to go it alone! -- Happy Birthday to an oft-overlooked Master of Cool!

6/8/1963 (53 years ago today) - Gotta be one of the Sixties greatest singles: The Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" peaks at No. 3 on the chart; produced by Phil Spector who pioneered the use of multi-tracking, adding layer upon layer upon layer to achieve the legendary "wall of sound". Freakin' stunning mix on this one which also features Glen Campbell on guitar and Leon Russell on piano! Beautiful awesomeness is what it is...

6/8/1974 (42 years ago today) - Bill Wyman becomes the first member of The Rolling Stones to release a solo album -- "Monkey Grip" gets good reviews but sales-wise, well, it does a lot better in the U.K. than here in the U.S. where it goes no higher than No. 99 on the Billboard LP chart, then fizzles out altogether.  Guest appearances from Dr. John, Little Feat's Lowell George and the always reliable Leon Russell fail to keep this one from hitting the bargain bins in no time at all...

6/8/1944 - Happy Birthday to the quite convincingly soulful William Royce "Boz" Scaggs, 72 years old today, whose talents as a singer-songwriter-guitarist-arranger-and-producer have been on display since he started his career in the mid-1960's with The Steve Miller Band. Boz's biggest success came in 1976 with the almost-too-slick-to-describe masterpiece album "Silk Degrees" (featuring the hits "Lowdown" and "Lido Shuffle"). Boz continues to write, record and tour; his 2013 album "Memphis" (mostly cover versions recorded in the city's historic Stax studio) received rave reviews and is absolutely worth looking out for -- his versions of Mink DeVille's "Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl" and Steely Dan's "Pearl Of The Quarter" are superb!

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"He looked so quiet/But my, oh my...", xoxo!