Friday, September 29, 2017

September 29th

Moving up the chart this week we find "People Are Strange" by The Doors (#58 to #43), "Lightning's Girl" by Nancy Sinatra (#65 to #49), "The Last Waltz" by Engelbert Humperdinck (#74 to #53), "Child Of Clay" by Jimmie Rodgers (#68 to #54), "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" by Tom Jones (#64 to #55), "Let It Out" by The Hombres (#72 to #59), "Ode To Billie Joe" by The Kingpins (#92 to #60, a leap of 32 points), "More Than The Eye Can See" by Al Martino (#76 to #61), "The Look Of Love" by Dusty Springfield (#71 to #62) and "Purple Haze" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience (#78 to #67). 

The Chicago White Sox lose to The Washington Senators and are eliminated from The American League Pennant Race.  Meanwhile across town Chicago Cubs Pitcher Ferguson Jenkins wins his 20th game … the first of his seven 20-win seasons, six of which were with The Cubs. 

    
John Lennon and George Harrison appear on The David Frost Show, where they discuss Transcendental Meditation.  Back in the studio that evening, they are adding improvised bits of background noises to "I Am The Walrus".  At around 10:30 while playing around with the radio dial looking for something interesting to dub in from the live feed, they happened upon Williams Shakespeare's "The Tragedy Of King Lear", starring John Gielgud.  Bits and pieces from this broadcast are added, most notably "Sit you down, father, rest you."  They also go back to work on Paul's "Your Mother Should Know", scrapping the new takes recorded earlier in September in favor of the original version recorded back in August, ultimately completing the track this evening. 



Today is declared "Elvis Presley Day" in Memphis, Tennessee, as Memphis Mayor William Ingram and Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington recognize The King's many charitable contributions over the years. 


Mickey Hart joins The Grateful Dead.  He would stay with the band through February of 1971 … and then return in 1974, where remained until 1995. 


After five years, The Rolling Stones severed ties with their manager Andrew Loog Oldham.  Oldham had helped to build The Stones’ image as “the anti-Beatles”.  (Ironically, he worked for Brian Epstein at one time … and, thanks to a meeting arranged by Andrew, he was able to persuade The Beatles to give The Stones’ their second British single, “I Wanna Be Your Man”.)   

He took The Stones to worldwide success and even produced the majority of their earlier records, despite the fact that he was a teen himself when he first took over managing the band and had no prior recording experience.   


Perhaps his greatest and longest lasting contribution was encouraging Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write their own songs, thus creating one of the most successful songwriting partnerships in rock and roll music history.  The Rolling Stones are still going strong some 55 years later!   

Oldham was inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2014.  It was his orchestral arrangement of The Stones’ tune “The Last Time” (recorded for his own album) that The Verve used to create their landmark hit “Bittersweet Symphony” in 1998.  (A high profile court battle followed.)  



When Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were arrested for drug possession earlier this year, Oldham fled to The United States instead of helping to sort out their legal matters.  It is believed that it was this incident that led to him being forced to resign as their manager today.