April 19, 2011

1945 - Based on the musical Molnar’s Carousel, Carousel opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City 66 years ago today. Carousel was the second stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, their version transplanting the original Budapest setting to the American Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel spruker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with mill worker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. Bigelow attempts a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child, but it goes awry and he is given the opportunity to make things right. The show includes the well-known songs If I Loved You, June Is Bustin' Out All Over and You'll Never Walk Alone, which was a massive hit in the sixties for Liverpool Brit beat group Gerry and The Pacemakers, and the song was covered by many singing artists. Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite among all his musicals. From the movie version in 1956, here is Gordon MacRae as Billy Bigelow and Shirley Jones as Julie Jordan, and guess which song?

1956 - Founder of the vocal group The Drifters, Clyde McPhatter was released from the U.S. Armed Forces today. McPhatter was was an American R&B singer, who some critics say was the most widely imitated R&B singer of the 1950s and 1960s, making him a key figure in the shaping of doo-wop and R&B music and its subsequent mainstream popularity. He was lead tenor for a gospel group he formed as a teenager called The Mount Lebanon Singers, and then for Billy Ward and His Dominoes, before founding The Drifters. He then left the Drifters to go solo, leaving an eventual legacy of more 22 years of recording history. Here is a very rare clip of him singing with Bobby Darin, and following that, audio only of his greatest hit, the totally infectious Lover Please, with that rollicking intro piano riff. I love this song.

1965 - The film T.A.M.I. (Teen-Age Music International) Show opened in London under the title Teenage Command Performance, and this is the DVD trailer of what looks like one of the great TV shows of rock'n'roll.

1978 - Patti Smith released the single Because the Night, written by she and Bruce Springsteen, and taken from Smith's album Easter. The song was a hit, rising to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and helped propel sales of Easter to mainstream success – even as Smith was deciding to retire from a life of constant touring. The song remains one of the best known of Smith's catalog. The original song was recorded by Bruce Springsteen during sessions for his Darkness on the Edge of Town album. He was not satisfied with it, and the Patti Smith Group was working on Easter in the studio next door, with engineer/producer Jimmy Iovine working on both albums. Iovine gave Smith a tape of the song, she recast it, and it was included on Easter, becoming the first single release from that album. In 1987, Because the Night by the Patti Smith Group was ranked number 116 on NME magazine's list of The Top 150 Singles of All Time.

1986 - Prince became only the 5th songwriter to have two top ten hits at the same time. The songs were Kiss (Prince and the Revolution) and Manic Monday (Bangles). Released to generally positive reviews from music critics and some comparisons with The Mamas & the Papas' Monday, Monday, it was the band's first hit, reaching the top of worldwide charts.

1990 - The TV movie "Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys" aired on ABC. They didn't sing the music, they didn't approve of the music and the soundtrack is not them, but the storyline and the sadness and the way it ended appears to be on the money, as there were no successful law suits following its airing.