I'll post some live videos tonight from the concert.
On this day in 1964, Roy Orbison released the single “Oh, Pretty Woman” (August 26)
The iconic song by the legendary Orbison was a #1 around the world, including the US, the UK and Australia, and got a new lease of life as the title track and theme song of the hit 1990 movie “Pretty Woman” starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.
Orbison posthumously won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his live recording of "Oh Pretty Woman" on his HBO television special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night.
In 1999, the song was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and was named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 224 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
On May 14, 2008, The Library of Congress selected the song for preservation in the National Recording Registry.
Click on the link below to watch the movie clip:
Singer and songwriter Laura Branigan passed away on this day in 2004 (August 26)
Branigan’s signature song, the platinum-certified 1982 single "Gloria", stayed on the US Billboard Hot 100 for 36 weeks, then a record for a female artist, peaking at #2.
It also reached #1 in Australia (for seven consecutive weeks) and Canada, #4 in Ireland, #6 in New Zealand and the UK, and #9 in South Africa.
Branigan's cover of "Gloria" appeared in the smash hit Grammy and Academy Award-winning musical drama “Flashdance” in 1983, though it was not included in the film's soundtrack.
She also contributed songs to other motion picture and television soundtracks, including the Ghostbusters soundtrack (1984), and also Miami Vice (1984).
Laura Branigan had a string of other hits in the 80s, including “Self Control”, “Solitaire”, “Ti amo”, and “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You”.
After two albums in the early 90s, Branigan’s career went into hibernation until she returned to performing in the early 2000s, most notably appearing as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway musical “Love, Janis”.
As she was recording new music and preparing a comeback to the music industry, she sadly passed away at her home on 26 August 2004 from a previously undiagnosed cerebral aneurysm, aged just 52.
Click on the link below to watch “Gloria”:
On this day in 1978, the Frankie Valli single “Grease” went to #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 at (August 26)
The title song for the smash hit musical motion picture “Grease” was written by Barry Gibb, and was one of four songs written specifically for the film that had not been in the stage production.
Shortly after the filming of the 1978 musical “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, Gibb invited cast-mate Peter Frampton to play guitar on the Grease session, while also providing backing vocals himself.
The other musicians were some of those from the Andy Gibb album that was being made around the same time.
Valli had been offered the part of the Teen Angel but chose to sing the theme song instead, stating that although that character's song ("Beauty School Dropout") did not chart as a hit, both Valli and Frankie Avalon did quite well from their respective appearances through album royalties, and thus his choice worked out.
Bali’s “Grease” single went all the way to #1 in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands, #2 in Australia and New Zealand, #3 in the UK and Ireland, #4 in Belgium, Norway and France, #6 in Sweden, and #7 in Switzerland.
Click on the link below to watch:
Last week, back in 1974, the Cat Stevens single “Another Saturday Night” debuted on the UK Singles Chart at #47 (August 24)
The cover of the 1963 Sam Cooke hit went to #1 in Canada, #6 in the US, #13 in South Africa, #15 in Australia, and #19 in the UK.
Except for "Morning Has Broken," it's the only Cat Stevens release he did not write himself.
Ironically, the two biggest US hits for one of the most accomplished composers of the day came with songs he didn’t write, with both peaking at #6.
The song was written by Cooke while touring in England when staying in a hotel where no female guests were allowed, hence the lyrics!
Click on the link below to watch him do it live:
On this day in 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience single “Purple Haze” debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at #94 (August 26)
In the middle of December 1966, producer Chas Chandler heard Hendrix toying around with a new guitar riff. "I heard him playing it at the flat and was knocked out. I told him to keep working on that, saying, 'That's the next single!'"
Chandler claimed that after some more urging, Hendrix wrote the rest of "Purple Haze" in the dressing room of a London club during the afternoon of December 26, 1966, before a gig.
The song went on to become one of Hendrix’s signature songs, with the “‘scuse me, while I kiss the sky!” followed by that iconic riff…
The song placed at #2 on Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time" list, which noted that the song "unveiled a new guitar language charged with spiritual hunger and the poetry possible in electricity and studio technology".
It also appeared at #17 on the magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", with the comment that "it launched not one but two revolutions: late-Sixties psychedelia and the unprecedented genius of Jimi Hendrix".
In 1995, "Purple Haze" was included as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
In 2000, it was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, which "honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance".
Click on the link below to watch a classic clip from 1967:
On this day in 1964, Roy Orbison released the single “Oh, Pretty Woman” (August 26)
The iconic song by the legendary Orbison was a #1 around the world, including the US, the UK and Australia, and got a new lease of life as the title track and theme song of the hit 1990 movie “Pretty Woman” starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.
Orbison posthumously won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his live recording of "Oh Pretty Woman" on his HBO television special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night.
In 1999, the song was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and was named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 224 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
On May 14, 2008, The Library of Congress selected the song for preservation in the National Recording Registry.
Click on the link below to watch the movie clip:
Singer and songwriter Laura Branigan passed away on this day in 2004 (August 26)
Branigan’s signature song, the platinum-certified 1982 single "Gloria", stayed on the US Billboard Hot 100 for 36 weeks, then a record for a female artist, peaking at #2.
It also reached #1 in Australia (for seven consecutive weeks) and Canada, #4 in Ireland, #6 in New Zealand and the UK, and #9 in South Africa.
Branigan's cover of "Gloria" appeared in the smash hit Grammy and Academy Award-winning musical drama “Flashdance” in 1983, though it was not included in the film's soundtrack.
She also contributed songs to other motion picture and television soundtracks, including the Ghostbusters soundtrack (1984), and also Miami Vice (1984).
Laura Branigan had a string of other hits in the 80s, including “Self Control”, “Solitaire”, “Ti amo”, and “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You”.
After two albums in the early 90s, Branigan’s career went into hibernation until she returned to performing in the early 2000s, most notably appearing as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway musical “Love, Janis”.
As she was recording new music and preparing a comeback to the music industry, she sadly passed away at her home on 26 August 2004 from a previously undiagnosed cerebral aneurysm, aged just 52.
Click on the link below to watch “Gloria”:
On this day in 1978, the Frankie Valli single “Grease” went to #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 at (August 26)
The title song for the smash hit musical motion picture “Grease” was written by Barry Gibb, and was one of four songs written specifically for the film that had not been in the stage production.
Shortly after the filming of the 1978 musical “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, Gibb invited cast-mate Peter Frampton to play guitar on the Grease session, while also providing backing vocals himself.
The other musicians were some of those from the Andy Gibb album that was being made around the same time.
Valli had been offered the part of the Teen Angel but chose to sing the theme song instead, stating that although that character's song ("Beauty School Dropout") did not chart as a hit, both Valli and Frankie Avalon did quite well from their respective appearances through album royalties, and thus his choice worked out.
Bali’s “Grease” single went all the way to #1 in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands, #2 in Australia and New Zealand, #3 in the UK and Ireland, #4 in Belgium, Norway and France, #6 in Sweden, and #7 in Switzerland.
Click on the link below to watch:
Last week, back in 1974, the Cat Stevens single “Another Saturday Night” debuted on the UK Singles Chart at #47 (August 24)
The cover of the 1963 Sam Cooke hit went to #1 in Canada, #6 in the US, #13 in South Africa, #15 in Australia, and #19 in the UK.
Except for "Morning Has Broken," it's the only Cat Stevens release he did not write himself.
Ironically, the two biggest US hits for one of the most accomplished composers of the day came with songs he didn’t write, with both peaking at #6.
The song was written by Cooke while touring in England when staying in a hotel where no female guests were allowed, hence the lyrics!
Click on the link below to watch him do it live:
On this day in 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience single “Purple Haze” debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at #94 (August 26)
In the middle of December 1966, producer Chas Chandler heard Hendrix toying around with a new guitar riff. "I heard him playing it at the flat and was knocked out. I told him to keep working on that, saying, 'That's the next single!'"
Chandler claimed that after some more urging, Hendrix wrote the rest of "Purple Haze" in the dressing room of a London club during the afternoon of December 26, 1966, before a gig.
The song went on to become one of Hendrix’s signature songs, with the “‘scuse me, while I kiss the sky!” followed by that iconic riff…
The song placed at #2 on Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time" list, which noted that the song "unveiled a new guitar language charged with spiritual hunger and the poetry possible in electricity and studio technology".
It also appeared at #17 on the magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", with the comment that "it launched not one but two revolutions: late-Sixties psychedelia and the unprecedented genius of Jimi Hendrix".
In 1995, "Purple Haze" was included as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
In 2000, it was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, which "honor
Click on the link below to watch a classic clip from 1967:
