Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for September 28th

Today it's props for a DJ-pioneer along with an actual bona-fide soul legend, and then we see what happens when you mix Mott with Crimson...

9/28/1968 (49 years ago today) - One of rock 'n' roll's trail blazing disc jockeys passed away on this date: The legendary Dewey Phillips was only 42 years old when he died after having a heart attack. You could make the argument that the rock generation movement began when Dewey decided to play Elvis on the radio: July, 1954, was the very first time "That's All Right" and "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" hit the airwaves, so a kind of A-bomb moment, really. Thanks, Dewey...

9/28/1974 (43 years ago today) - You didn't imagine that a band featuring ex-members of Mott The Hoople and King Crimson would make such a straight-forward-meat-and-potatoes rock record that would turn into a classic debut album...but they did, and the self-titled Bad Company LP hit No. 1 on this date -- Singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke had been with Free, while guitarist Mick Ralphs had just quit Mott and bassist Boz Burrell parted ways with King Crimson -- They were together for not even a year when they topped the charts with the first record to be released on Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label! Lean-and-mean at only four songs per side(!), the album might be less than 35 minutes long but it's still an exhilarating work-out...

9/28/1938 - Born on this date, Benjamin Earl Nelson would become famous as Ben E. King, one of America's all-time great soul and R&B singers -- He started out as lead vocalist with The Drifters (that's Ben on "Save The Last Dance For Me", "There Goes My Baby" and "This Magic Moment") before going solo in 1960 where he recorded several tracks that defined the pre-Beatles era: the original version of "Spanish Harlem", "I (Who Have Nothing)" (later on becoming one of Tom Jones' career-defining hits) and, most notably, the astonishingly perfect "Stand By Me" (which would make the Top Ten in 1961 and again in 1987!). Ben E. passed away two years ago on April 30th at age 76, leaving behind some of the most classic radio-fare that we've ever heard...

Share your magic moments with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"Now I'm alone, so all alone/What can I do, what can I do?...", xoxo!