Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for May 16th

Iconic LP chart action and a birthday for a unique cult hero...

5/16/1966 (50 years ago today) - "Pet Sounds" by The Beach Boys came out the same day, so Holy S--t, Batman!!!: Generally acknowledged as rock's first double album, Bob Dylan released his seventh studio recording, the beyond-description masterpiece "Blonde On Blonde" which featured the musical talents of some of Nashville's most highly regarded session players, along with the usual cast of rotating band mates like Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson. The Beatles, Cream, and The Rolling Stones were certainly paying attention (their 2-LP sets followed soon after!), and the list of songs on here pretty much sums it up: "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", "Pledging My Time", "I Want You", "Just Like A Woman", "Visions Of Johanna", "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again"...were it not for 1975's "Blood On The Tracks", you could safely say that this was Dylan's finest record, and you wouldn't be wrong. 

5/16/1970 (46 years ago today) - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young go to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with "Deja Vu"; Rolling Stone ranked it at number 148 on their Top 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time and why not? It boasted three classic top 40 singles that could not have been performed by anyone else ("Our House", "Woodstock" and "Teach Your Children") -- throw in Stephen Stills' best piece ever, the under-two-minute diatribe "4 + 20", along with Neil Young's "Helpless" (only one of the most beautiful songs ever written by a human being on planet Earth) -- it's no wonder it remains the highest selling album of each member's career to date. So there you go...

5/16/1951 - Happy Birthday to Jonathan Richman, 65 years old today. He founded The Modern Lovers with future Cars drummer David Robinson and Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison; their self-titled 1972 debut album is still an absolute marvel of the best kind of three-chord-rock ever recorded -- remember, this came out when glam and prog-rock were all the rage. Well done Jonathan, ahead of the game like a true kool kat...

Share you thoughts on the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"And in my mind/I still need a place to go...", xoxo!