Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for September 21st

'60's love ballad turns into an '80's nightmare... -- Swirling organ psychedelia that still sounds great! --Take a look at an actual Beatles contract...

9/21/1963 (54 years ago today) - Thank God, Beatlemania's right around the corner: Today's the start of three weeks in a row for Bobby Vinton in the No. 1 spot on the singles chart with the can't-get-it-out-of-your-head classic "Blue Velvet" -- 23 years later, bizarro film maker David Lynch turns this slice of slow-dancin'-romancin' into a bone-chilling freak-show; the 1986 cult fave stars Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini, most famous, actually, for how uncomfortable it is to watch all the way through! Totally hypnotic, but by the end you don't whether to applaud its genius or vomit into the nearest wastebasket just to cleanse yourself. Don't say we didn't warn ya...

9/21/1968 (49 years ago today) - Deep Purple go all the way up to No. 4 on the singles chart with "Hush", which was intended by singer-songwriter Joe South ("Games People Play", "Rose Garden") to be a big 1967 country hit for his friend Billy Joe Royal (for which South's "Down In The Boondocks" worked wonderfully). Turned out, however, that this original version of "Hush" would barely make a squeak: it peaked out at No. 52 before fading away all together -- Now when Deep Purple began making records, they were known for their "peculiar" knack of taking non-rock titles and turning them into screaming psychedelic work-outs: pretty convincing versions of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman" and Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" would follow, but "Hush" remains the band's let's-rip-it-to-shreds standard. All these years later, it is still a pretty cool sounding record...

9/21/2011 (6 years ago today) - A contract revealing that The Beatles refused to perform in front of a segregated audience at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, on August 31st, 1965, sold for just under $24,000 at an L.A. charity auction -- In addition to the desegregation clause, the contract guaranteed the band $40,000 and no less than 150 police officers to provide security for the show. Monstrous number-stats by 1965 standards...

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

"Only took one touch of her hand/To blow my mind...", xoxo!