Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for December 6th

Sharing this date: three classic recordings from three of the all-time best. Really.

12/6/1962 (57 years ago today) - Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios, New York City: During sessions for "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" album, Bob records "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" (all together now: "Yikes!"), along with different versions of "Hero Blues", "Whatcha Gonna Do", "Oxford Town" and "I Shall Be Free". Not just another day at work, then...

12/2/1968 (51 years ago today) - This is the start of a five-year period in which The Rolling Stones prove to have absolutely no peers: "Beggar's Banquet", their seventh U.K. studio LP, is released in Great Britain -- The Stones wanted to make a point, and boy, did they ever! The haze of psychedelia was out, and in was a deliberate-laser-beam-like-focus on toughening up their sound. The result was a string of albums only The Stones were capable of; not The Beatles, not Dylan, not The Who, not The Kinks, etc., etc. Seriously, who else could put "Sympathy For The Devil", "Stray Cat Blues", "No Expectations", "Salt Of The Earth", "Street Fighting Man" and "Parachute Woman" all on the same album? The prosecution rests, Your Honor.

12/2/1975 (44 years ago today) - Somewhat weirdly, it's his first No. 1 solo album: Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" goes to the top of the Billboard chart, with a little help from (no less than) four Top 40 singles -- "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover", "Gone at Last" [a stunning duet with Phoebe Snow, quite underrated], "My Little Town" [credited to Simon & Garfunkel], and the title track -- When Paul wins two Grammy Awards for this record in 1976 (Album of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance), he thanked Stevie Wonder, who had won the previous two years with "Innervisions" and "Fulfillingness' First Finale", for not releasing an album that year. Stevie would go on to win again in 1977 with "Songs In The Key Of Life".

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

"I seem to lean on old familiar ways...", xoxo!