Remembering Leonard Cohen (Yes, Please!) & Deep Purple’s Take On A Country Classic

Another creepy example of pre-Beatles chart hits -- Monster sounding organ whooshes for a classic psychedelic single -- Great songwriter's birthday -- Hello & Welcome to your last Coffee Break Calendar of the summer...

9/21/1963 (57 years ago today) - Thank God for looming Beatlemania...: Today's the start of three-weeks-in-a-row for Bobby Vinton occupying the No. 1 spot on the singles chart with the can't-get-it-out-of-your-head classic "Blue Velvet" -- 23 years later, film-maker David Lynch turns this romantic swoon into a bone-chilling nightmare -- The 1986 movie starring Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini becomes a cult fave, most famous, actually, for how hard it is to actually sit and watch all the way through! If you decide to check it out for s's and g's some night, remember we told you so...

9/21/1968 (52 years ago today) - This one still sounds pretty ferocious even today!: Deep Purple make it all the way to No. 4 on the singles chart with "Hush", which musician/composer Joe South wrote for country artist Billy Joe Royal in 1967 -- Didn't turn out to be a chart-buster though; it peaked out at No. 52 before fading away all together -- When Deep Purple began making records, they were known for their "peculiar" knack of taking non-rock titles and turning them into screaming psychedelia: pretty cool versions of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman" and Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" would follow, but "Hush" remains the band's let's-rip-it-to-shreds standard...

9/21/1934 - Born on this date Canadian singer-songwriter-musician-painter-poet and novelist Leonard Cohen, whose best known composition is probably "Hallelujah", which has been covered by the likes of John Cale, Jeff Buckley, Bon Jovi, k.d. lang, Shrek (yes, the green animated movie "monster") and too many American Idol contestants to count -- Critically regarded, according to Allmusic, as one of the Sixties "most fascinating and enigmatic songwriters, second only to Bob Dylan and Paul Simon" -- Many years ago, Leonard was forced to return to live performing when it was discovered his long time manager had made off with just about all of his funds! His Seventies LP's are his best: the fantastically titled "New Skin For The Old Ceremony" (1974) and "Death Of A Ladies Man" (1977) are completely unique and worth checking out. Leonard passed away at home on Nov. 16, 2016, due to complications from leukemia and other ailments; he was 82 years old.

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"Your faith was strong/But you needed proof...", xoxo!