60 YEARS AGO TODAY:
5/24/66 –A new musical called "Mame" (starring Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur) opens at The Winter Garden Theater, in New York City. It will run for 1508 performances and win three Tony Awards.
"When A Man Loves A Woman" leaps to the top of the chart this week, dropping "Monday Monday" to the #2 spot. Heavy competition is on the way, however, as "A Groovy Kind Of Love," "Paint It, Black" (up 13 places!), "I Am A Rock," "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" and "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind" all make solid strides within The Top Ten.
It looks like The Supremes' latest offering, "Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart," petered out at #9 ... that's a surprise based on the way it first took off on the chart. I think everyone was expecting more ... the girls have already had SIX #1 Singles in the past twenty months!
"Green Grass," "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore, "Barefootin'" and "Cool Jerk" are still records to watch within The Top Twenty ...
But coming up right behind them are "Sweet Talkin' Guy," "Strangers In The Night," "The More I See You," "Opus 17," "Oh How Happy" and "Mama" ... and that's just within The Top 40!
"Don't Bring Me Down" by The Animals, "Dirty Water" by The Standells, "Red Rubber Ball" by The Cyrkle and "Peter Rabbit" by Dee Jay and the Runaways are all knocking on the door to get into The Top 40.
This week's highest debut belongs to The Temptations with "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," a song that will go on to become both a Motown and a '60's standard.
And Dickie Goodman's cashing in on the Batman craze ...
His latest, "Batman And His Grandmother," debuts at #94. Although this one never made The National Top 40, it was a Top Ten Hit here in Chicago.
60 YEARS AGO TODAY:
5/22/66 – At this year’s Emmy Awards, the big winners are “The Fugitive" and Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore ... two of MY favorite television series of all time.
Also on 5/22, Nancy Sinatra and one of MY favorite singers, Mrs. Miller, appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show”
60 YEARS AGO TODAY:
5/21/66 – Muhammad Ali beats Henry Cooper by a TKO in the 6th round
The bout was a rematch of their 1963 meeting, which Ali also won on a TKO due to Cooper's excessive bleeding. At the time, Ali was still a contender, looking for his first match with Sonny Liston ... and didn't really take the match seriously. When Cooper knocked him down in the fourth round, it was a surprise to everyone on hand. Ali came back with a flurry in the fifth, however, at which point the fight had to be stopped.
The experience stayed with him ... even after Joe Frazier knocked Ali down in the 15th round of their 1971 fight, Ali said that he had gone down "more from exhaustion" ... but "the punch Cooper hit me with, he didn't just shake me. He shook my relations back in Africa."
The rematch wasn't nearly as exciting. (It wasn't every day back then that you saw Muhammad Ali hit the canvas ... so this bout would be hard to top!)
Ali cautiously stayed away from Cooper for the first three rounds of the fight, and then began to turn it on a bit more in the 4th and 5th rounds.
During the 5th round, he opened up a cut above Cooper's which began bleeding profusely during the 6th round, at which time the fight was stopped.
