Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for September 21st

'60's love ballad turns into an '80's nightmare -- Swirling organ psychedelia that still sounds fantastic -- A look at an actual Beatles contract is kind of revealing...

9/21/1963 (55 years ago today) - Thank God Beatlemania's right around the corner: Today is the start of three weeks at No. 1 for Bobby Vinton and the "once-you-hear-it-you-can't-get-it-out-of-your-head" pseudo-classic single "Blue Velvet" -- 23 years later, bizarro film maker David Lynch will turn this slice of slow-dancin'-romancin' into a brain-melting freak-show. The 1986 cult fave "Blue Velvet" stars Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini and may be most famous, actually, for how uncomfortable it is to sit and watch all the way through! Totally hypnotic, yes, but by the end you don't know whether to applaud its genius or vomit into the nearest wastebasket to cleanse yourself. Don't say we didn't warn you...

9/21/1968 (49 years ago today) - Deep Purple make it to No. 4 on the singles chart with "Hush", which was intended by singer-songwriter Joe South (composer of "Games People Play" and "Rose Garden") to be a huge 1967 country hit when first recorded by his good friend Billy Joe Royal, for whom South's "Down In The Boondocks" worked out quite successfully. This time around, not so much; that original version of "Hush" would barely cause a ripple, peaking out at No. 52 before fading away altogether -- Now when Deep Purple began making records, they were known for their "peculiar knack" of taking what were defintely non-rock titles and turning them into screaming psychedelic work-outs: impressively tight 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 still sounds pretty cool...

9/21/2011 (7 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 31, 1965, sold for $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. Incredible stats by 1965 standards for sure...

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"...in my heart there'll always be/Precious and warm, a memory...", xoxo!