Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for December 11th

Motown classic spawns classic covers! -- The Stones pull the plug!! -- We're givin' it up for Big Mama!!!

12/11/1961 (58 years ago today) - Our love for '60's girls groups continues without apology: On this date, The Marvelettes went to No. 1 on the singles chart with the absolutely superb "Please Mr. Postman" -- Did you know...?: The session musicians on the track included a 22 year old Marvin Gaye on drums (100% true, that) -- John Lennon certainly performed one of his finest lung burners on The Fab Four's version for the "With The Beatles" album (1963), it's frigging awesome! The Carpenters version (less so) went to No. 1 in 1975...

12/11/1968 (51 years ago today) - Filming began for "The Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus" -- In addition to clowns, acrobats and fire eaters, special guests included The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull and Jethro Tull -- The Stones performed four tracks from the just-released "Beggar's Banquet" (including a quite stomping version of "Sympathy For The Devil"), plus two brand new ones Mick and Keith had just written: "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" -- What went down in Classic-Rock-One-Time-Only-History though, was the set by The Dirty Mac, made up of Keith on bass, John Lennon and Eric Clapton on guitars, and from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the fantastic Mitch Mitchell on drums -- The show was intended to air on the BBC, but The Stones were unhappy with the way it turned out and the entire extravaganza collected dust in the vaults until it was issued (by fan demand!) in 1996...

12/11/1926 - From The Props Dept.:  Born on this date, singer-songwriter Big Mama Thornton -- Before Elvis scored with it in his breakout year of 1956, Mama's version of "Hound Dog"  was a massive hit in 1953, where it spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the R&B chart and sold over two million copies! -- Somewhat similarly, her own composition "Ball And Chain" (written in 1961) had a bigger impact when Janis Joplin released her notorious version in 1967 -- Heavily influenced by the Gospel music she grew up with, Willie Mae (her real name) taught herself to play harmonica and drums, and with her strong voice, size and personality, she almost never needed to use a microphone when performing live! -- Longstanding alcohol abuse led to heart and liver disorders: Big Mama was found dead at age 57 in a Los Angles boarding house.

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"You can wag your tail/But I ain't gonna feed you no more...", xoxo!