Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for May 15th

No. 1 LPs for The Stones, CSNY, and...a "super-group" that was really only good for their first album anyway...

5/15/1971 (44 years ago today) - It's their second Number One LP: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young top the Billboard chart with their double-vinyl live-in-concert set "4 Way Street", recorded at The Fillmore East, New York, The Forum in L.A. and The Chicago Auditorium. The recordings became the stuff of legend because at the time, the tension between band members was at an all time high -- their backstage dressing room fights even being referenced by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on their "Live at the Fillmore 1971" album. Bang! Pow!

5/15/1976 (39 years ago today) - It's their sixth U.S. Number One album: With "Black And Blue", The Rolling Stones rule yet again with the band's first studio album to feature Ron Wood replacing Mick Taylor on guitar. Tragically underrated at the time, it feels surprisingly fresh these days, with Mick (in particular) sounding quite re-energized by the "new" line-up. Some of Jagger s best vocals in the entire Stones catalog are on this one: "Memory Motel", "Hand Of Fate", "Crazy Mama", "Fool To Cry" and especially "Hey Negrita" where he goes absolutely ape-s#!t. Fantastic stuff.

5/15/1982 (32 years ago today) - Asia and their self-titled debut goes to Numero Uno on the Billboard LP chart, spends nine weeks at the top, and becomes the best-selling album in America for 1982 in the process! A very polished super-group: bassist/vocalist John Wetton used to be in Roxy Music, King Crimson, Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash; guitarist Steve Howe was ex-Yes; keyboardist Geoff Downes was originally with The Buggles and spent a few years in Yes as well; and drummer Carl Palmer was from Atomic Rooster, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and most notoriously Emerson, Lake & Palmer. It wouldn't last long, though -- by the time they recorded their second LP, the line-up had already changed and the hits stopped. Now that we think about it, we never even got around to Side Two of the debut, really, what was the point...

Whatever you think of the Calendar, well, we wanna know -- feedback wanted right here on our website and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"Now, sure as the sun will cross the sky/This lie is over...", xoxo!