Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for August 22nd

Jumpin' for The Beatles? -- Nice run for CCR -- Blues master b'day...

8/22/1966 (51 years ago today) - Science can't explain everything: New York City teenagers Carol Hopkins and Susan Richmond climbed out onto the second story ledge of a downtown hotel and threatened to jump unless they could get to meet The Beatles. Police talked them down...

8/22/1970 (47 years ago today) - Creedence Clearwater Revival start nine weeks at No. 1 with their fifth studio album "Cosmo's Factory", named after the warehouse in Berkeley, California, where band leader John Fogerty would insist that the group rehearse every single day, so that drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford referred to the place as "the factory" -- The hard work paid off, look at the hit singles that were on this LP, it reads like a Classic Rock Radio Station playlist: "Travelin' Band", "Who'll Stop The Rain?", "Up Around The Bend", "Lookin' Out My Back Door", "Run Through The Jungle" and "I Heard It Through The Grapevine". CCR's efficiency was mind-boggling as this record was practically a "Best Of" collection, really...

8/22/1920 - Born on this day, one of the most influential blues artists to ever grace the planet, the truly incomparable John Lee Hooker -- We uninformed-at-the-time white boys learned about Mr. Hooker through other artists' covering his catalog: The Yardbirds (with Eric Clapton) did "Boom Boom" during the early British Invasion years, The Doors recorded "Crawling King Snake" for their final LP "L.A. Woman", and, of course, there's the unavoidable bombast of George Thorogood's interpretation of "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" -- Hooker's 1989 release "The Healer" attests to his prominence among those who came after him, featuring killer-classic-duets with Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, Los Lobos and more -- Notable: he appeared in the role of a street musician (playing "Boom Boom") in the 1980 movie "The Blues Brothers", and The Rolling Stones with Eric Clapton on guitar, made sure he got props as they were his backing band for a mini-set in Atlantic City, New Jersey (part of a broadcast pay-per-view cable special during the Stones' "Steel Wheels" tour). John Lee passed away at age 88 on June 21, 2001.

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

"Crawl all over me/Just like the spider on the wall...", xoxo!