Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for Rocktober 19th

British guitar legends' roots in the Sixties and Happy B'day to a founding member of a classic band who didn't sing or play an instrument!!!

10/19/1966 (51 years ago today) - The Yardbirds arrive in New York City ready to tour with the unbelievable twin-lead-guitar line-up featuring Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck! Two gigs in, and Jeff Beck quits the group after coming down with acute tonsillitis. The tour continues with just Page on guitar; meanwhile, Jeff forms a new band with an up-and-coming young mod/singer named Rod Stewart: The Jeff Beck Group is about to become the stuff of legend (with Ron Wood on bass!) -- The Yardbirds, on the other hand, are about to implode, but the seeds of Led Zeppelin are already sown. So, yeah, a kinda busy year for two of rock's all-time master axe-men...

10/19/1968 (49 years ago today) - An 18 year old Peter Frampton meets Small Faces singer-songwriter-guitarist Steve Marriott for the first time at one of the bands gigs in London. The two hit it off immediately, and the new friendship leads to their planning to have a new group together a.s.a.p. -- By next April, the (seriously) underrated Humble Pie are ready to rock...

10/19/1946 - Happy Birthday to longtime Procol Harum co-songwriter Keith Reid, 71 years old today. Keith wrote the lyrics for every single Procol Harum song (excluding instrumentals and covers, of course) -- He met Procol main-man/singer-pianist Gary Brooker in 1966 where they first collaborated on the classic "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", a songwriting partnership which continued at an intense pace until the band broke up in 1977. Boy, have Procol Harum been taken for granted -- their albums really hold up quite well all these years later -- and it was Keith's occasionally hard-to-decipher and very-artistic-and-adult-themed-lyrics that had a lot to do with it, making them (probably) the first (and maybe only) rock band to give equal credit to a lyricist along with all the other musicians in the group. Weird, but very cool...

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"There is no reason/And the truth is plain to see...", xoxo!