The late B.B. King was born on this date in 1925. A handful of his recordings are featured on today’s playlist.
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Inspired by the October 3 birthdays of Fleetwood Mac‘s Lindsey Buckingham, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani, Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, A$AP Rocky, Chubby Checker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Fountains of Wayne’s Chris Collingwood, Eddie Cochran, Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee, P.P. Arnold, Jimmy Ray, and India.Arie.
Inspired by the April 4 birthdays of Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori, Muddy Waters, Major Lance, Jill Scott and Kelly Price, and the passing of Bill Withers.
Inspired by the March 15 birthdays of The Beach Boys’ Mike Love, Sly Stone, Terence Trent D’Arby, the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, Buzzcock’s/Magazine’s Howard Devoto, Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath, Rockwell, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and Lil Dicky.
Happy New Year!
I’m going to make an attempt to blog more frequently this year. To that end, I’ll posts playlists of eclectic music several times per week. Give them a listen. Skip the songs you don’t like. Heart the ones you do.
Today’s playlist is inspired by the January 6 birthdays of Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner, Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett, Sister Sledge’s Kathy Sledge, Van McCoy, the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Kim Wilson, Nino Tempo and Earl Scruggs.
Here’s to music discovery!
Glenn
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Blackboard Jungle hit US theaters on March 25, 1955. The plot concerned the arrival of a new teacher at a violent inner-city school. The producers wanted a theme song that was typical of what a 1955 teenager would listen to. Glenn Ford, who starred in the film alongside Anne Francis and Sidney Poitier, looked through his son’s record collection. In there, the theme song was found.
It was the b-side of a single entitled “Thirteen Women (And the Only Man in Town)” that had been released the prior year. When the song was used under Blackboard Jungle’s opening credits, that flip-side, “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock,” performed by Bill Haley and His Comets, went to #1 in the US, and is considered to be the first rock and roll song to do so. It became a smash elsewhere in the world, too, becoming the UK’s first million-selling single.
The classic guitar solo on the track was performed by Danny Cedrone, who was not one of Haley’s Comets but a session musician who had worked with the group previously. He got paid $21 for his contribution to the track. Cedrone took a tumble on a stairway and died shortly after the song was recorded, not living to see its success, let alone its iconic status.
Tunes du Jour’s Throwback Thursday playlist this week spotlights the year 1955, kicking off with Bill Haley and His Comets’ “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.”
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