50 years ago today, the front page of the Detroit Free Press carried a UPI story detailing the hijacking of Eastern Airlines Flight 7. It turned out that Candid Camera host Alan Funt, his wife, and his two youngest children boarded the flight in Newark heading to Miami. The plane never made it. Two men hijacked brandished weapons and demanded passage to Cuba. Some of the passengers, having spotted Funt, thought the whole thing was a Candid Camera stunt.
We’ll learn soon if Super Bowl 2019 was the snoozer I thought it was. They lost me during the boring Maroon Five halftime show. On the flipside, Gladys Knight‘s rendition of the National Anthem (Video) was one of the best. Netflix may have lost 32% of their typical audience during the first half, but they gained at least one set of eyeballs after: Mine. If you slept through any of the game, we’ve got all the commercials, HERE.
The best TV of the day was the poignant interview CBS Sunday Morning did with Linda Ronstadt (Video). She is still just as feisty and funny as always and I was glad to see that she is repurposing some unseen live show content for a new album release.
Quick Takes:
“Practically every photo you’ve ever taken, every website you’ve ever visited, every meme you’ve ever shared owes some small debt to Lena.” Here’s some backstory behind the unlikely enduring stardom of a former Playboy Playmate who became the Patron Saint of JPEGs.
If you could know the date of your death, would you want to? Via Medium
The fact checking website Snopes breaks up with Facebook on it’s 15th birthday. The relationship lasted just two years. 35% of the world uses one of Facebook’s owned apps.
On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. It became known as “The Day the Music Died“, after singer-songwriter Don McLean immortalized it in his 1971 song “American Pie“. Here’s my mini documentary analyzing the iconic song. (Audio)
Program Note: Tommy James DJs on Sirius/XM Sixties On Six from 5-8pm ET.
Social Media Skills: Seth Ressler writes about David Frum’s 5 Rules for Effective Engagement on Twitter. Via Jacobs Media
Today in History:
1967, The Monkees self-titled debut album started a seven-week run at No.1.
1975, American jazz, blues, songwriter and saxophonist Louis Jordon dies aged 66. Known as “The King of the Jukebox”, between 1942-1950 he scored eighteen No.1 singles and fifty-four Top Ten hits on the US R&B chart.
1977, Fleetwood Mac release Rumours. The songs ‘Go Your Own Way’, ‘Don’t Stop’, ‘Dreams’, and ‘You Make Loving Fun’ were released as singles. Rumours is Fleetwood Mac’s most successful release; along with winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978, the record has sold over 45 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
1978, The Bee Gees started a four week run the top of the on the US singles chart with ‘Staying Alive’. From the film soundtrack Saturday Night Fever, it gave the brothers their fifth US No.1.
1983, Karen Carpenter dies aged 32 of a cardiac arrest at her parent’s house in Downey, California; the coroner’s report gave the cause of death of imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa. The Carpenters 1970 album Close to You, featured two hit singles: ‘(They Long to Be) Close to You’ and ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ They peaked at No.1 and No.2, on the US chart. Karen not only had a beautiful voice, she had percussion chops, too. In 1975 – in Playboy’s annual opinion poll; its readers voted Karen Carpenter the Best Rock Drummer of the year.
Happy Birthday to: John Steel (Animals), 1941; Mike Deasy (Wrecking Crew), 1941; Florence Larue (5th Dimension), 1944; Margie & Mary Ann Ganse (Shangri-Las), 1947 (Margie d. 1996); Alice Cooper, 1948; James Dunn (Stylistics), 1950
Much More Music:
1965, The Righteous Brothers were at No.1 this week with the Phil Spector song ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’. Also a US No.1 at the same time. It will become the most played song of the 20th Century. (Video)
Today in 1966, The Rolling Stones release ‘19th Nervous Breakdown‘ it tops out at #2 and becomes the fifth best-selling single of 1966 in the UK. (Video)
Tonight in 1966, Bob Dylan and The Band play the Convention Center in Louisville, Kentucky. This was the first date on a world tour which would become noted as Dylan’s first that used electric instruments, after he had ‘gone electric’ at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Let’s hear his classic, “Like a Rolling Stone”. (Video)
Today’s Quote Worth Re-Quoting: “We all have those people in our lives who believed in us at just the right moment. Thank one today.”
We leave you with one of our all time favorite Karen Carpenter tunes from the Carpenters debut studio album Offering. Released as a single – without the album track’s introductory twelve measures – “Ticket to Ride” became the Carpenters’ first chart hit, peaking at number 54 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1970. The single’s success led to its parent album being reissued as Ticket to Ride.
