Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for August 4th

Today there's cool chart stuff from the '50's and '80's, while one of the '60's most notorious debut LP's sees the light of day...

8/4/1958 (59 years ago today) - Billboard introduced their Hot 100 Singles Chart; Ricky Nelson was No. 1 with the still-sounds-sublime "Poor Little Fool". Other notable classics in this weeks Top Ten include Bobby Darin's "Splish Splash" (No. 3), "Hard Headed Woman" by Elvis (No. 4), the original version of "Willie And The Hand Jive" by Johnny Otis (No. 9), and Peggy Lee's ultra-smoky-sexy "Fever" (No. 10). For almost sixty years ago, a pretty good week actually...

8/4/1967 (50 years ago today) - It didn't even chart here in the U.S., but today it's regarded as one of the premiere seminal psychedelic rock albums of the 1960's: Pink Floyd release their debut LP "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", most of which was written by founding member and cult icon Syd Barrett, featuring some couldn't-be-anyone-else-but-Floyd tracks like "Astronomy Domine", "Lucifer Sam", "Matilda Mother", "Instellar Overdrive" and "Bike". Weird fact: the album was recorded at Abbey Road studios, London, at the exact same time The Beatles were there working on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and, well, we think that's enough to make you believe in something...

8/4/1984 (33 years ago today) - Prince kicks off an astounding  24-week run at No. 1 with his sixth studio album "Purple Rain", as perfect a record as has ever been made by any human being at any time in the history of the universe! Over 30 million sold worldwide, and the third best-selling soundtrack of all time -- The first two singles, "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy", both went to No. 1 as well -- Entertainment Weekly listed "Purple Rain" Number One on their Top 100 Best Albums of the last 25 years, and in 2012, it was added to the Library Of Congress' National Recording Registry list of "sound recordings to be preserved because of its cultural, historical and aesthetic importance". Hard to imagine a world without this record...

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"Better live now before the grim reaper/Come knocking on your door...", xoxo!