Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for April 26th

Macca on top again! -- Just give us the keys, Mr. Stewart... -- A "Twangy" birthday...

4/26/1976 (42 years ago today) - It was Paul's fifth No. 1 album after The Beatles break-up: "Wings At The Speed Of Sound" goes to the top spot for seven unconsecutive weeks and (looking back now, this seems a bit strange) it became his most successful American chart LP! Actually, to be fair (and despite the presence of "Silly Love Songs"), the record is rather better than you remember -- "Let 'Em In" was catchy as hell, "Beware My Love" as ferociously convincing as anything else he'd done up to now, and there are a handful of truly underrated "White Album"/"Ram"-style pseudo-'throwaways' that have always been part of what makes McCartney so confoundingly precocious: put on some new ears and re-check "The Note You Never Wrote", "San Ferry Anne" and "Must Do Something About It". Yeah, Paulie's all right...

4/26/1982 (36 years ago today) - "You, with the hair, just get out of the car, like, right now...": While out shopping on a sunny afternoon on L.A.'s Hollywood Boulevard, Rod Stewart was robbed at gunpoint, with the thief taking off in his brand new $50,000 Porsche! No proof the crook was upset with Rod's latest album "Tonight I'm Yours", but it's something to consider...

4/26/1938 - Happy Birthday to guitarist Duane Eddy, 79 years old today -- Most famous for a string of hit records in the late 1950's and early 1960's, notable for their characteristically "twangy" sound: "Rebel Rouser", the totally fantastic "Peter Gunn", "Because They're Young", "Cannonball", "Forty Miles Of Bad Road" and many more -- Fact is, Duane has sold over 12 million records(!) and was inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame early on, back in 1994, pretty good resume for an artist that wasn't known for songs that highlighted vocals. Plus we've always loved the much-underappreciated art of instrumentals anyways, they're not as easy to do as ya think, really...

Share your pluckin' with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"Do me a favor/Open the door...", xoxo!