December 9, 2023: The Oldest Singer to Hit Number 1

Brenda Lee in 1958, and in 2023

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

December 9, 2023: "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee hits Number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart.

The song was recorded on October 19, 1958, when she was just 13 years old, going on 14. It wasn't the 1st rock and roll song about Christmas, having been preceded by Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock" by 1 year. Elvis Presley also recorded "Blue Christmas" in 1957, but, even in his voice, it was hardly rock and roll.

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" didn't reach the charts in 1958 or 1959, but hit Number 14 in 1960. It had a few comebacks after being occasionally featured in Christmas-themed movies. But in the 2010s, Billboard changed its rules to include streaming services as "sales." The increase in streaming led to Christmas songs being "bought" more as Christmas approaches.

In its December 21, 2019 issue, Billboard listed "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey as Number 1 on its Hot 100, setting a new record for longest time from original release to chart-top: 25 years. It's gotten there again every year since. In its December 9, 2023 issue, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" was listed at Number 1, temporarily breaking Mariah's Christmastime hold on the chart. Lee was 2 days short of her 79th birthday.

Billboard's Hot 100 for its December 21, 2024 issue has "All I Want for Christmas Is You" at Number 1, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" at Number 2, "Jingle Bell Rock" at Number 3, Wham!'s "Last Christmas" at Number 4, and Burl Ives' "A Holly Jolly Christmas" at Number 5. The highest-ranking non-Christmas song is at Number 6: "Die With a Smile," a duet by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars.

Brenda Mae Tarpley is born on December 11, 1944 in Atlanta. We know her as Brenda Lee. At 4-foot-9, and a star having moved to Nashville at age 14, she was once known as Little Miss Dynamite. She began writing songs with Ronnie Self, and her 1st Top 40 hit, in 1959, was "Sweet Nothin's." With a much deeper voice that one would expect from such a tiny teenage girl, it sounded a lot sexier than it should have.

Her facial expressions and dancing probably would have gotten a lot more scrutiny had she been a grown woman. But because she was so young and so small, it was considered cute, and she got away with it. Britney Spears wasn't the first Southern chick who looked way too young to be singin' the lyrics she was singin'. But at least Brenda was fully dressed, and, by the standards of the time, well-dressed.

In 1960, Lee and singer, with Self as writers, had 2 Number 1 hits: "I'm Sorry" and "I Want to Be Wanted." More big hits followed, including "Fool #1" and "Break It To Me Gently." After that, The Beatles arrived, and changed things. She hadn't gotten much taller, but was grown up, and began to turn from rock and roll to country, and became a star in that genre.

She's still at it, and she might be the shortest person in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was the 1st woman to be elected to both that and the Country Music Hall of Fame: The Country Hall in 1997, the Rock Hall in 2002.

At 79, she became the oldest singer ever to have a Number 1 hit – although Louis Armstrong was 62 when “Hello, Dolly!” hit Number 1 in 1964, and he remains the oldest to hit Number 1 with a new release.

The youngest singer ever to hit Number 1 is Stevie Wonder, who did so at age 13 in 1963, with his live recording of "Fingertips -- Part 2." He was the same age that Brenda Lee was, give or take a few months, when she recorded of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." She is just 5 1/2 years older than Stevie, despite the fact that they currently hold the opposite poles of this particular record.

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December 9, 2023 was a Saturday. There was 1 game in the NBA: The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers, 123-109 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Anthony Davis had 41 points and 20 rebounds. This was the Final of the 1st-ever NBA Cup. I have a separate entry for this event.

Baseball was in the off-season, although this was the day on which the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani to the biggest contract in North American sports history to that point, $700 million over 10 years.

One game was played in college football, and it was the format's greatest rivalry: Army beat Navy, 17-11 at Gillette Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

To make up for how few games there were in the other sports, there were 12 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Washington Capitals, 4-0 at the Capital One Arena in Washington.

* The New York Islanders beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-2 at the UBS Arena. Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored the winning goal, only 13 seconds into overtime.

* The New Jersey Devils beat the Calgary Flames, 4-2 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Arizona Coyotes, 5-3 at the TD Garden in Boston.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Nashville Predators, 4-0 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-2 in a shootout at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-1 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-1 at the United Center in Chicago. While the Blues consider the Blackhawks their arch-rivals, the Blackhawks' arch-rivals are the Detroit Red Wings.

* The Vegas Golden Knights beat the Dallas Stars, 6-1 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Colorado Avalanche, 5-2 at the Ball Arena in Denver.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Seattle Kraken, 4-3 at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. Nikita Kucherov scored the winning goal with 1:48 left in overtime.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-3 at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

* And the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Edmonton Oilers, the San Jose Sharks, the Anaheim Ducks, the Florida Panthers, the Winnipeg Jets, the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild were not scheduled.

In American soccer, the MLS Cup Final was played: The Columbus Crew beat Los Angeles F.C., 2-1 at Lower.com Field in Columbus, Ohio. And in English soccer, Arsenal F.C., the North London team I support, lost to Aston Villa, 1-0 at Villa Park in Birmingham, West Midlands.

November 28, 1925: The Grand Ole Opry Is First Broadcast

The Opry stage at the Ryman

November 28, 1925: The Grand Ole Opry is first broadcast, on radio station WSM, 650 on the AM dial, in Nashville, Tennessee. The station itself was brand-new, having gone on the air the preceding October 5, its call letters standing for the slogan of its original owner, the National Life & Accident Insurance Company: "We Shield Millions."

Note: This was also the day the 3rd Madison Square Garden, which would eventually be known as "The Old Garden," opened. I have a separate entry for that event.

George Hay, an Indiana native, had been a reporter for what was then the largest-circulating newspaper in Tennessee, the Memphis-based The Commercial Appeal. When that paper founded a radio station in 1923 (many early radio stations were founded by newspapers), WMC, he was its first evening announcer. In 1924, he left for Chicago station WLS, and hosted a program titled National Barn Dance.

In 1925, he took the concept to Nashville and WSM. The original Opry, officially titled WSM Barn Dance, was a one-hour program, simulating a barn dance but broadcasting from a radio studio. The show's 1st performer was Uncle Jimmy Thompson, a fiddler, already 77 years old. In other words, he had been born in 1848, only 52 years after Tennessee had become a State. (He lived until 1931.)

Most of the early performers on the show wouldn't be recognizable names today, but among them was Bill Monroe, the fiddler considered the inventor of bluegrass music, who was still performing up until his death in 1996, and whose song "Blue Moon of Kentucky" would be on the B-side of "That's All Right," the 1st single release of Elvis Presley.

(Elvis only appeared on the Opry once, on October 2, 1954. The audience reacted politely, but Jim Denny, by then the show's manager, told him that his style did not suit the program. Also before becoming nationally known, Elvis made several appearances, and was received considerably better, on a well-known radio show out of Shreveport: The Louisiana Hayride.)

An early regular act was the Fruit Jar Drinkers, whom Hay wanted to close every show, because he liked their "red hot fiddle playing." They were led by a banjo player, Uncle Dave Macon, a.k.a. the Dixie Dewdrop. Music historian Charles Wolfe wrote, "If people call yodelling Jimmie Rodgers 'the father of country music,' then Uncle Dave must certainly be 'the grandfather of country music.'"

If you've ever wondered why, in his song "Blue Suede Shoes" (covered by Elvis), among the things he would forgive before he would accept you stepping on said footwear, Carl Perkins listed, "drink my liquor from an ole fruit jar," this was clearly a tribute to the Fruit Jar Drinkers.

In 1926, WSM joined the 1st American radio network, the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC. On December 10, 1927, after playing Music Appreciation Hour, a classical music show which, that night, had been playing selections from grand opera, WSM Barn Dance came on. And Hay introduced DeFord Bailey by saying, "For the past hour, we have been listening to music largely from grand opera. But, from now on, we will present 'The Grand Ole Opry.'" The name stuck, and has been used ever since.

Bailey was the 1st black performer at the Opry. There wouldn't be a 2nd until Charley Pride in 1966, and a 3rd until Darius Rucker in 2008. As of November 28, 2022, there has yet to be a 4th. If that sounds exclusionary, keep in mind that it's not that easy for white performers to be invited, either. Most of the "members" of the Opry are regulars who live in and around Nashville, although they do tour.

The show became more popular, and made the City of Nashville synonymous with country music, and vice versa. People wanted to watch as they broadcast. The larger studio they built turned out not to be big enough. In 1934, they moved to the Hillsboro Theatre, so they could have a paying audience. They outgrew that, too. They moved to the Dixie Tabernacle in East Nashville in 1936. Then came the War Memorial Auditorium.

Finally, in 1943, they moved back downtown, to the 2,362-seat Ryman Auditorium, and it became known as "The Mother Church of Country Music."

It remained home to the show until 1974, when, due to cramped quarters, it was moved out to the new Grand Ole Opry House at the Opryland USA theme park. In 1997, the park closed, and the Opry Mills Mall was built on the site. All the while, the Opry House remained open.

The Ryman remained open, and was renovated with modern amenities in 1994. In 2010, the flooding of the Cumberland River damaged the Opry House, and the show temporarily moved back to the Ryman while repairs were made.

George Hay died in 1968, at the age of 72. The Opry lives on, sometimes alternating between the Ryman and the Opry House.

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November 28, 1925 was a Saturday. Baseball season was over. There was no NBA yet. It was the 1st season for the American Basketball League, but that could hardly be called "major league," and I can't find a list of games played there that day. For all I know, there might not have been any.

Three games were played in the NHL. The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Canadiens, 1-0 at the Mount Royal Arena in Montreal. The Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Maroons, 3-2 at the Ottawa Auditorium. And the Boston Bruins beat the Toronto St. Patricks, 3-2 at the Mutual Street Arena. (The St. Patricks became the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927.)

There were also college football games played that day. Most of them did not involved teams currently in major conferences. But one was the Army-Navy Game, played at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. Army won, 10-3.

Montana beat Montana State, 28-7 at Montana State's Dornblaser Field in Missoula. Baylor and Rice tied, 7-7 at Rice Field in Houston. And 2 games were played in the Pacific Coast Conference, the league that would eventually evolve into the Pac-12. Washington beat Oregon, 15-14 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. And Washington State beat USC, 17-12 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

There was 1 NFL game played on that Saturday. The Frankford Yellow Jackets beat the Green Bay Packers, 13-7 at Frankford Stadium in Northeast Philadelphia. The Jackets won the NFL Championship in 1926, but the Great Depression did them in, and they folded in 1931. The Pennsylvania law banning professional sports on Sunday wasn't repealed until 1933, making the founding and profitability of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers possible.

The Cleveland Bulldogs were then an NFL team. The Atlantic City Roses were not: They were a semipro team run by the Melrose Athletic Club of Atlantic City, New Jersey. But the Bulldogs played the Roses on this day, winning 12-0 at Bader Field, a minor-league ballpark next to the airport of the same name, where The Sandcastle, later the home of the minor-league Atlantic City Surf, was built.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat North-East team Sunderland, 2-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

November 5, 1960: The Death of Johnny Horton

November 5, 1960: Country singer Johnny Horton dies when his band's car collides with a truck on a bridge in Milano, Texas, on their way to a gig in Shreveport, Louisiana. Two other band members were seriously injured.

John LaGale Horton, a.k.a. "The Singing Fisherman," was born on April 30, 1925 in Los Angeles, but grew up in Rusk, a farm community in East Texas. Although best known for his history-novelty song "The Battle of New Orleans," which was Number 1 for 5 weeks in 1959, Horton also sang the themes to the World War II film Sink the Bismarck!, and the Gold Rush film North to Alaska.

Horton was 35, and his wife, Billie Jean, was widowed for the 2nd time in 8 years: She had previously been married to country singer Hank Williams. As of November 5, 2022, she is still alive.

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November 5, 1960 as a Saturday. British actress Katherine Matilda "Tilda" Swinton was born.

These were among the college football games played that day:

* The big game of the day was the rivalry for Floyd of Rosedale, a trophy in the shape of a bronze pig. Number 1 Iowa were beaten by Number 3 Minnesota, 27-10 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. This all but clinched the Big Ten Conference title for Minnesota.

* Number 2 Missouri beat Number 18 Colorado, 16-6 at Memorial Stadium (later renamed Faurot Field) in Columbia, Missouri. This game all but clinched the Big Eight Conference title for "Mizzou."

* Number 4 Navy were upset by Number 15 Duke, 19-10 at Duke Stadium (later Wallace Wade Stadium) in Durham, North Carolina. It was Navy's only loss of the regular season, and they were invited to the Orange Bowl, where they were beaten by Missouri.

* Number 5 Ohio State beat Indiana, 36-7 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 6 Mississippi beat the University of Chattanooga, 45-0 at Hemingway Stadium (now Vaught-Hemingway Stadium) in Oxford, Mississippi. "Ole Miss" won the Southeastern Conference title.

* Number 7 University of Washington beat the University of Southern California (USC), 34-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Washington won the Championship of the American Association of Western Universities (AAWU), the league that eventually became the Pacific-12 Conference.

At the time, the National Championship was awarded after the end of the regular season, but before the bowl game. Minnesota were awarded the National Championship. But Washington beat them in the Rose Bowl, tainting their title.

* Number 8 Tennessee were upset by Georgia Tech, 14-7 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

* Number 9 Syracuse were upset by Army, 9-6 in front of 66,000 people at Yankee Stadium.

* Number 10 Rice were upset by Number 16 Arkansas, 3-0 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Arkansas. This cost Rice the Southwest Conference title. Nevertheless, they were invited to the Sugar Bowl, where they were beaten by Ole Miss. Arkansas won the SWC title, but lost the Cotton Bowl to Duke.

* Number 11 Baylor were upset by Texas, 12-7 at Baylor Stadium (later Floyd Casey Stadium) in Waco, Texas.

* Number 14 University of Pittsburgh beat Notre Dame, 20-13 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* In a rivalry game, Florida beat Georgia, 22-14 at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida.

* In another rivalry game, Montana beat Montana State, 10-6 at Dornblaser Field, UM's home field, in Missoula, Montana.

* And in New Jersey, Rutgers beat Lafayette, 36-8 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway; and Princeton beat Harvard, 14-12 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

Baseball was out of season. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the St. Louis Hawks, 119-104 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Cliff Hagan of the Hawks scored 35 points.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Boston Celtics, 113-104 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 130-123 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Wilt Chamberlain scored 32 points.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers, newly moved from Minneapolis, beat the Syracuse Nationals, 112-110 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Elgin Baylor led all scorers on the night with 40 points, and also grabbed 25 rebounds.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 7-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 4-4 at the Montreal Forum. The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.

September 27, 1903: The Wreck of the Old 97

September 27, 1903: "The Wreck of the Old 97" takes place in Danville, Virginia. It is one of the most infamous railway disasters in American history.

"The Old 97" was The Fast Mail, a mail and baggage train with no passengers, given the right of way over all others to allow for more speed, on the Pennsylvania Railroad from Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City (after taking on mail from a ferry in Manhattan, as New York's Pennsylvania Station wouldn't open until 1910) to the Baltimore and Potomac Station in Washington. From there, the crew and the locomotive would be changed, and it would take the Southern Railway to Atlanta, Birmingham, and ending at Union Station in New Orleans.

The line was known for always being on time, much like the one Casey Jones ran in Mississippi when he saved his passengers at the cost of his own life 3 years earlier. But when Southern Railway locomotive 1102 was hooked up at Washington on September 27, 1903, it was already behind schedule. By the time it got to Monroe, Virginia, it was already an hour late.

It left Monroe with a crew of 17, including engineer Steve Broady at the controls. An 18th crewman would be picked up in Lynchburg. At Monroe, Broady was told to get the train to Spencer on time. This would require an average speed of 51 miles per hour, and the usual average speed on that 166-mile run was 39. But if the train didn't get there on time, the railroad would be penalized by the U.S. Postal Service, as per their contract.

There was a curve on the Dan River and a downgrade leading into the Stillhouse Trestle at Danville, Virginia, and Broady was unable to reduce his speed enough. The train derailed, fell into a ravine, and burst into flame. Of the 18 men on board, 11 died, including Broady, who was 33 years old. The other 7 survived because they saw what was happening, and jumped. They were all injured, but survived.

The cargo wasn't so lucky: Most of the mail was burned in the crash. One survivor was a large case filled with canaries. The birds managed to escape and fly away unharmed. Apparently, canaries are safer in a train derailment than they are in a coal mine.

That would seem to be the end of the story. But, as Danville is in the Appalachian Mountains, often called the birthplace of country music, songs were written about the wreck. In 1924, one such ballad, "The Wreck of the Old 97," was written and recorded by fiddler G.B. Grayson and guitarist Henry Whitter.

In 1929, they were the 1st act to record the folk song "Tom Dooley," based on the 1868 capture of North Carolina murder suspect Tom Dula -- by G.B.'s uncle, James Grayson. The song is usually introduced as being about "the eternal triangle," so it sounds like "Mr. Grayson" is the other man seeking the woman's affections. But in real life, Grayson was a Union Army officer turned lawman, which made him none too popular in those parts. Making him even less so: The available evidence suggests that Dula was innocent. Today, we don't even remember his name right.

In 1865, Henry Clay Work, noted for his Civil War ballads, wrote "The Ship That Never Returned." Copyright laws being what they were in the 1920s, Grayson and Whitter took the melody and wrote lyrics, the latter apparently based on the eyewitness account of Fred Jackson Lewey, whose cousin, Albion Clapp, was one of the firemen (shovelers of coal into the engine) killed in the wreck. Regardless, the lyrics put the blame on the railroad, telling Broady, "This is not 38, this is Old 97, you must put her into Spencer on time!"

In 1927, the song was recorded by Vernon Dalhart, and it became the 1st country song to selling over 1 million copies. Until Johnny Cash (who, of course, recorded all 3, and many other train songs) came out with "Folsom Prison Blues" in 1956, it rivaled "Casey Jones" and "The Wabash Cannonball" as the most famous train song ever recorded.

The melody would be used for another train song in 1948, and, like "Tom Dooley," become a hit for The Kingston Trio in the late 1950s: "M.T.A.," about a man who gets on the Boston subway and refuses to pay the newly-installed exit fare: "He's the man who never returned!"

Ironically, while the Wreck of the Old 97 is remembered, because of the song, it was not the worst railway disaster in America in the Autumn of 1903. Just 34 days later, on Halloween, a train crash in Indianapolis would kill 17 people, including 14 players on the Purdue University football team. But "the Purdue Wreck" didn't get a song written about it.

When Amtrak took over passenger rail service in America in 1971, it included a train it named the Fast Mail. The name is still in use today, although, with airmail service, carrying mail by trains is now obsolete.

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September 27, 1903 was a Sunday. This was before the NFL, so baseball was still the only major sport playing on Sundays. Even then, not every team played, because some States still had "blue laws" against Sunday baseball. Nevertheless:

* The Brooklyn Superbas, who became the Dodgers in 1911, were the only one of New York City's 3 teams in action that day. They split a doubleheader with the Cincinnati Reds, at the Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. That ballpark would be torn down in the 1911-12 off-season, and Crosley Field built in its place. Brooklyn won the opener, 14-7. Cincinnati won the nightcap, 7-6, in a game shortened to 5 innings due to the Sunday night curfew.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Beaneaters, 10-3 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. After a few name changes, the Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* A doubleheader was split at Robison Field in St. Louis. The Philadelphia Phillies won the 1st game, 6-3. The St. Louis Cardinals won the 2nd game, 5-3.

All taking a day off due to blue laws: The New York Highlanders (they became the Yankees in 1913) hosting the Detroit Tigers, the New York Giants at the Pittsburgh Pirates, the St. Louis Browns at the Boston Americans (they became the Red Sox in 1908), the Cleveland Naps (they became the Indians in 1915, and the Guardians in 2022) at the Philadelphia Athletics, and the Chicago White Sox at the Washington Senators.

August 19, 1940: Alan Lomax's "Back Where I Came From" Premieres

August 19, 1940: Back Where I Came From premieres on CBS radio, hosted by Alan Lomax. Despite its success and high visibility, it never picked up a commercial sponsor. The show ran for only 21 weeks before it was suddenly canceled in February 1941.

On hearing the news, folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote Lomax from California, "Too honest again, I suppose? Maybe not purty enough. O well, this country's a getting to where it can't hear its own voice. Someday the deal will change."

Lomax himself wrote that in all his work he had tried to capture "the seemingly incoherent diversity of American folk song as an expression of its democratic, inter-racial, international character, as a function of its inchoate and turbulent many-sided development."

Lomax was born on January 31, 1915 in Austin, Texas. He went around America in the 1930s, and collected hundreds of folk songs, including white people's country music and black people's blues music, recording them for posterity, and perhaps saving them from being lost. He broadcast many of those recordings on his show, and donated them to the Library of Congress, where they have been protected.

This matches a point recently made by Cracked.com, only the humor website was being dead serious about it: 99 percent of all the musical pieces ever written have been lost.

We don't know what cavemen sang when they invented song. We don't know what music the psalms of King David were set to. We don't know what songs were sung by the laborers of ancient Egypt or the philosophers of Greece and Rome. We don't know the marching songs of the soldiers of King Arthur or Charlemagne or Genghis Khan. We know much of the poetry of Shakespeare's time (including his own), but we don't know the equivalent of the "hit parade" or the "Top 40" of Elizabethan England or the Russia of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, of Revolutionary America or Napoleonic France.

But thanks to Alan Lomax and his sometimes partner, John Henry Faulk, we know some of the oldest songs sung in America, by white people and black people alike. The recordings they made, long in the custody of the Library of Congress, are priceless.

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August 19, 1940 was a Monday. Singers Johnny Nash and Roger Cook, and actress Jill St. John, were born.

These 3 baseball games were played:

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Mel Ott hit a home run, and Carl Hubbell outpitched Paul Derringer. The Reds went on to win the World Series, anyway.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 16-7 at Fenway Park in Boston. Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams and Jim Tabor hit home runs.

* And the Boston Bees beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Dick Errickson allowed 9 hits, but kept the shutout. This was the last of 5 seasons under the Bees name for the Boston franchise of the National League. The next year, they went back to being called the Boston Braves.

July 31, 1964: The Death of Jim Reeves

July 31, 1964: Country singer Jim Reeves is killed in a plane crash. He was 3 weeks short of his 31st birthday.

James Travis Reeves was born on August 20, 1923 in Galloway, in eastern Texas. He pitched in the St. Louis Cardinals' farm system before an injury ended his career. After failing his U.S. Army draft exam, he became a radio announcer, and had the perfect voice for it. But that voice was so good that, like many other disc jockeys, he began to think he could sing as well as anybody whose records he was playing. Unlike most of those deejays, he turned out to be right.

He was announcing for KWHK in Shreveport, Louisiana, the station that broadcast the South's most popular music program, The Louisiana Hayride. One night, a performer was late, and Reeves was asked to substitute. By the Autumn of 1955, "Gentleman Jim" was a country-singing star. "Four Walls" was his 1st big hit, in 1957. In 1960, "He'll Have to Go" hit Number 1 on Billboard magazine's country chart, and Number 2 on its pop chart. Now, Jim was popular from coast to coast, and from border to border.

He became popular in Britain, and in 1963, with "Welcome to My World" a big hit, he toured U.S. military bases there, and in Europe. But on July 2, 1964, he recorded 3 songs whose titles would prove retroactively foreboding: "Make the World Go Away," "Missing You," and "Is It Really Over?"

Jim was a licensed pilot, and on July 31, 1964, with Dean Manuel -- his business partner, manager, and the pianist of his backing group, the Blue Boys -- he took off from Batesville, Arkansas in a Beechcraft Debonair. They had almost gotten to Nashville, to the suburbs of Brentwood, when they flew into a thunderstorm. Reeves turned to his left, to stay over the road leading to Nashville International Airport, but this put him deeper into the storm. The FAA's investigation suggested that he had suffered spatial disorientation, let his airspeed get too low, stalled, and crashed at 4:52 PM. Contrary to rumor, the plane was not upside down when it hit.

Country singer Marty Robbins, a friend of Reeves', had heard the explosion. He contacted another singer who was a friend of Reeves', Ernest Tubb, and they led the search for the wreckage. But the plane went down in the woods, and it took 2 days to find it. Reeves left behind a wife, but no children, and was laid to rest in Carthage, Texas, near his childhood home.

Buddy Holly, Jim Reeves, Otis Redding, Jim Croce: All died in the crashes of Beechcraft planes.

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July 31, 1964 was a Friday. This was also the day that the probe Ranger 7 took the first close-up pictures of the surface of the Moon. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Al Downing took a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the 8th, but gave up a home run to Bob Allison. In the bottom of the 9th, he allowed a single to Rich Rollins, and a game-winning home run to Harmon Killebrew. Mickey Mantle went 1-for-4.

* The New York Mets swept a doubleheader from the Houston Colt .45s, 3-0 and 6-2 at Shea Stadium. Frank Lary pitched a 2-hit shutout against the Astros-to-be in the opener.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-1 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 6-0 at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. (It was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969.) Juan Pizarro pitched a 4-hit shutout, striking out 14 and walking just 1.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-6 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Willie Mays went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Cleveland Indians swept a doubleheader from the Detroit Tigers, 12-3 and 4-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Al Kaline went 3-for-8 with 3 RBIs over the 2 games.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 13-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Hank Aaron, Joe Torre and Denis Menke hit home runs for the Braves. Ernie Banks went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-6 at Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Frank Robinson went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI. Pete Rose went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* A doubleheader was split at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. The Baltimore Orioles won the opener, 6-1. The Kansas City Athletics won the nightcap, 7-6. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-8 with a home run, a walk and an RBI. Dick Brown hit 2 home runs for the O's, but the A's won, scoring 6 runs in the 8th, and with Ed Charles hitting a home run in the bottom of the 9th.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels, 4-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The Angels groundshared with the Dodgers until their Anaheim stadium was built. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3 with 2 walks.

July 16, 1930: Jimmie Rodgers Meets Louis (and Lil) Armstrong

If they ever posed for a picture together,

Google Images doesn't have it.

July 16, 1930: "Standing On the Corner," also known as "Blue Yodel #9," is recorded in Los Angeles. It's early proof that "country music," music for poor rural white people, and "the blues," music for poor rural black people, not only can go together, but it's natural for them to do so.

The lead singer is Jimmie Rodgers, a country singer known as "The Singing Brakeman," for his earlier job on a railroad. The Mississippi native was known for his yodeling, and for his wise-guy attitude, of which this song has plenty.

Not billed on the RCA Victor record label were the song's trumpeter and its pianist. It wasn't because they were both black, and Rodgers was white, and Jim Crow was still in effect -- although that may explain why the song was recorded in Southern California, and not in the South. No, the trumpeter and the pianist were not billed because they were signed to Okeh Records, which was then owned by Columbia Records, and thus affiliated with CBS, arch-rival to NBC, which was owned by RCA.

The trumpeter was Louis Armstrong. The pianist was his wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong. Yes, the man called "The Father of Country Music" made a record with the King and Queen of Jazz.

According to Thomas Brothers, who wrote a biography of Louis, the irregular blues form along with the irregular phrases used by Jimmie frequently threw him off, until he reached his own solo chorus, where he stuck to a regular 12 bar blues form.

In 1970, 40 years later, and with not much longer to live, Armstrong appeared on The Johnny Cash Show, and played while Cash sang the song.

By that point, Ray Charles had released a couple of big-selling albums of his take on country music, and Charlie Pride had been the 1st black singer to really make it in the genre. A few have followed, including Darius Rucker, who left his rock band Hootie & The Blowfish to sing country. In 2019, Lil Nas X released "Old Town Road," a duet with Billy Ray Cyrus, and it became the biggest song of the year, reminding everyone that black people singing country music was not only possible, but should be encouraged.

UPDATE: In 2024, Beyoncé, a native of Houston, released "Texas Hold 'Em," an obvious country song, and hit Number 1, triggering a lot of racists.

*

July 16, 1930 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ed Wells went the distance for the win. He did his best pitching in the 1929-31 period when the Yankees were in transition, and the Philadelphia Athletics won the American League Pennant. He did pitch for them in their title-winning season of 1932, but did not appear in the World Series.

Babe Ruth did not play. Lou Gehrig went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Part of the aforementioned transition is that, following the sale of Bob Meusel to the Cincinnati Reds, they didn't have a star left fielder again until Charlie Keller in 1939. For this game, Earle Combs, normally in center field, moved over to left, Harry Rice was in center, and Sammy Byrd, known as "Babe Ruth's Legs" for filling in for him for defensive purposes so many times, played the whole game in right. Rice hit a home run.

* The New York Giants lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-1 at the Polo Grounds. Bill Terry went 0-for-3 with a walk. Mel Ott went 1-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn Dodgers -- or the Brooklyn Robins, as they were known while Wilbert Robinson was their manager, from 1914 to 1931 -- lost the opener to the Chicago Cubs, 6-4. They won the nightcap, 5-3.

* A doubleheader was split at Braves Field in Boston. The Boston Braves won the 1st game, 4-3. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 9-5.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-5 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* A doubleheader was split at League Park in Cleveland. The Washington Senators won the 1st game, 10-4. The Cleveland Indians won the 2nd game, 13-6.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-2 at Navin Field in Detroit. (That ballpark was later renamed Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium.)

* And the Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 14-7 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The A's Hall-of-Famers all contributed. Lefty Grove started on the mound, and got a hit, but, with the A's already leading 9-3, manager Connie Mack pinch-hit for him in the top of the 3rd. Mickey Cochrane and Al Simmons each went 2-for-5 with an RBI. Jimmie Foxx went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. But the biggest hitter on this day was not a Hall-of-Famer: Bing Miller went 4-for-5 with 4 RBIs.

July 7, 1959: Rock and Roll’s 1st “Supergroup”?

Phil (left) and Don Everly

July 7, 1959: A recording session is held at RCA Records' Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. From 1957 to 1977, this studio, at 1611 Roy Acuff Place (at the time, Sigler Street), was the site of the recording of some of the greatest songs in the history of rock and roll and country music.

This session may have been the first of what would later be known as rock "super sessions," and, possibly, rock's first "supergroup."

The song is "(Till) I Kissed You," by The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil. The song is written by Don. Among the other musicians on it were guitarist Sonny Curtis and drummer Jerry Allison, who were members of Buddy Holly's band, The Crickets. As a result, the song sounds like a tribute to Holly, who was killed in a plane crash 5 months earlier.

The song also has the man regarded as country music's greatest guitarist (and also as one of its best producers), Chet Atkins; Hank Williams' bass fiddle player, Floyd "Lightnin'" Chance; and Elvis Presley's pianist, Floyd Cramer, in one of his best performances.

The producer is Archie Bleyer, The Everlys' usual producer, who was also the producer for pre-rock acts The Chordettes (which included his wife, Janet Ertel), Julius La Rosa and Andy Williams. So the song has representatives from several of the top music "franchises" of the 1950s -- pop, rock and country. It is recorded on the label that Bleyer founded, Cadence Records, who rented the studio from RCA.

According to Billboard magazine, "Till I Kissed You" -- or "Till I Kissed Ya," in the Brothers' Kentucky accent -- hit Number 4 on their main popular music chart, the Hot 100; Number 8 on their C&W (Country & Western) chart; and, although everybody involved was white, not black, Number 2 on their R&B (Rhythm & Blues) charts.

The song was covered by reggae singer Jimmy London in 1975, and a version by Connie Smith reached Number 10 on Billboard's country chart in 1976.

Steve Beisser, a friend of mine who was a professional musician, cited the December 4, 1956 "Million Dollar Quartet" at Sun Records in Memphis, with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, as the first great rock jam session. But he added, "Really, as a record, though, and not just as a jam session, this might be one of the first recordings to feature that many people who were marquee names on their own working together."

Later "supergroups" would be intentionally formed. In the 1960s, these included Cream; Blind Faith; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and the 1968 "Super Session" brought together by Al Kooper, with Stephen Stills and Michael Bloomfield. In the 1970s: Humble Pie; The Eagles; Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Beck, Bogert & Appice; Journey; and Bad Company. In the 1980s: Asia, The Honeydrippers, The Highwaymen, Rollins Band, The Traveling Wilburys and Bad English. And, in the 2000s: Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, Gorillaz, and, in a one-shot deal for the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge!, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya and Pink.

Archie Bleyer died in 1989, Floyd Cramer in 1997, Chet Atkins in 2001, Lightnin' Chance in 2005, Phil Everly in 2014, and Don Everly in 2021. As of July 7, 2022, Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison are still alive. (UPDATE: Allison died later in the year, and Curtis died in 2025.)

*

July 7, 1959 was a Tuesday. Only one game was played on this day: Major League Baseball's All-Star Game. For the 1st time, MLB played 2 All-Star Games in 1 season, added to make money for the players' pension fund. This 1st game was played at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. A home run by Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves gives the National League a 5-4 win.

The 2nd All-Star Game of the year was played on August 3, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The American League won that one, 5-3.

June 15, 1969: "Hee Haw" Premieres

June 15, 1969: Hee Haw -- named for the sound produced by donkeys -- premieres on CBS, videotaped at their affiliate in Nashville, Tennessee, the capital of country music. It was a cross of The Grand Ole Opry, American Bandstand and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

Country singers Buck Owens and Roy Clark co-hosted. Opry singer Roy Acuff and comedienne Minnie Pearl frequently appeared. The show was set in Kornfield Kounty, a rural farming community in an unspecified State in the Southern United States.

The show's sketches mostly centered around visits to local businesses in the county and the offbeat characters who live and work there, including KORN radio announcer Charlie Farquharson, played by Don Harron; Lulu Roman and her truck stop; Samuel B. Sternwheeler, a storyteller based on Mark Twain, played by Gordie Tapp; Junior Samples, real name Alvin Samples Jr., as a used car salesman; "Hey Grandpa! What's For Supper?" with country singer Louis Marshall Jones, a.k.a. Grandpa Jones, only 55 years old when the show began, answering the question, with the audience answering either, "Yum yum!" or "Yuck!"; and Archie Campbell alternating as a barber, telling his customers tall tales, often with malaprops, and as "Justus O'Peace," sentencing people to long stretches in jail for minor offenses. And, of course, there were the scantily clad "Hee Haw Honeys."

As with Laugh-In, and later Saturday Night Live and The Muppet Show, there would be a guest star, usually a country singer like Johnny Cash or Tammy Wynette, and they would engage in a "Pickin' and Grinnin'" session with Buck and Roy. They also had a "Joke Fence," an obvious ripoff of Laugh-In's Joke Wall.

CBS canceled the show after just 2 years, as part of their "Rural Purge." It got picked up in syndication, and continued to run until 1993. Buck Owens died in 2006, Roy Clark in 2018.

*

June 15, 1969 was a Sunday. German soccer goalkeeping legend Oliver Kahn was born that day. So was O'Shea Jackson, the rapper and actor known as Ice Cube.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees were leading the Seattle Pilots, 4-0 after 5 1/2 innings, when the game was called due to rain. Stan Bahnsen had a 3-hit shutout going. Jimmie Hall, playing 1st base in place of Joe Pepitone, had hit 2 triples for 4 RBIs, both off Fred Talbot. Jim Bouton got the last out in the 5th.

* The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 13-5 at Fenway Park in Boston. Reggie Jackson, Rick Monday and Sal Bando hit home runs. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Hank Aaron went 2-for-5 with an RBI. Roberto Clemente with 2-for-4 with 3 RBIs. Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Crosley Field, sort of, between the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs. The Reds won the opener, 7-6. The nightcap was suspended due to darkness in the top of the 8th, with the Cubs leading 5-4, and was resumed on September 2, and the score held until the end. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 1-for-8 with a walk, Pete Rose went 3-for-7 with 3 walks and 2 RBIs, and Johnny Bench went 2-for-5 with 2 walks.

* The Baltimore Orioles swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox, 9-0 and 13-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Dave McNally pitched a 4-hit shutout in the 1st game. Frank Robinson went 2-for-4 with a walk in the 1st game, and then sat out the 2nd game. Over the 2 games, Brooks Robinson went 2-for-7 with 2 home runs, 2 walks and 5 RBIs.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Houston Astros, 5-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Earl Wilson pitched a 2-hit shutout. The Tigers scored all 7 runs in the 5th inning. Al Kaline went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew each went 1-for-2 with 2 walks, and Killebrew also had 2 RBIs.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the San Diego Padres, 5-4 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Terry Harmon singled Rich Joseph home in the top of the 12th inning.

* The San Francisco Giants swept a doubleheader from the Montreal Expos, 7-4 and 6-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California. Willie Mays went 2-for-7 with 2 walks.

* And the California Angels and the Washington Senators were rained out at the newly-renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 2. The Senators swept, 2-0 and 3-2. Jim Hannah pitched a 3-hit shutout in the 1st game.

May 26, 1933: Jimmie Rodgers Dies

May 26, 1933: Jimmie Rodgers, known as "The Father of Country Music" and "The Singing Brakeman," dies. He was only 35 years old, and had a lot more to say.

James Charles Rodgers was born on September 8, 1897 in Meridian, Mississippi. His father was named Aaron Rodgers, but he wasn't a football player: He was a railroad worker, and Jimmie followed him into the field. He became a brakeman, but had already won a singing contest at age 13. By 1924, his destiny had been set: He had become a recorded musician, and he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis.

On November 30, 1927, in Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia -- okay, it wasn't in the South, but it was in South Jersey -- he recorded "Blue Yodel #1," also known by its refrain, "T for Texas." He became known as America's foremost yodeler, and his songs incorporated blues influences from black performers.

This was emphasized in 1930, when he got together with trumpeter Louis Armstrong and his wife, pianist Lil Harding Armstrong, in Los Angeles -- okay, it wasn't in the South, but it was in Southern California -- to record "Standing On the Corner," also known as "Blue Yodel #9." One thing Jimmie and Louis, who only sang on this record, without singing on it, was plenty of attitude, and this song has plenty.

Rodgers married twice, and had 2 children with his 2nd wife, but both marriages ended soon due to his drinking. He drank for several reasons, the increasing pain from his tuberculosis being the biggest. But his health woes sapped his finances, so he had to keep touring, all over the South and the Midwest, and back up to Camden to record at RCA Victor's studio there.

On May 17, 1933, he went up to New York to record at RCA's studio at 153 East 24th Street. He recorded 6 songs while sitting on an easy chair, was propped up by pillows to reach the microphone and frequently paused the sessions to give him rest. A new session was scheduled for May 24, in which he recorded 4 songs, and lay on a cot between takes. At the end of the day, he was helped into a cab and returned to his hotel.

The next day, he felt better, and asked his driver to take him to Coney Island. That night, at his hotel, his cough returned with a vengeance, and he developed a hemorrhage. The hotel's doctor could not be found, and he died the next morning.

When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had its initial class of inductees in 1986, Jimmie Rodgers was inducted in the "Early Influences" category.

On September 18, 1933, nearly 4 months after James Charles Rodgers died, James Frederick Rodgers was born in Camas, Washington. He, too, became known as "Jimmie Rodgers," and sang rock and roll in a country style, having hits including his song "Honeycomb," which hit Number 1 in 1957. However, he has not been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He died in 2021.

*

May 26, 1933 was a Friday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 8-6 at Yankee Stadium. Paul Gregory outpitched Red Ruffing. Luke Appling hit a home run. Babe Ruth went 0-for-5, and Lou Gehrig went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The New York Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-5 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Giant manager Bill Terry, still active as a player, did not put himself into the game. Mel Ott went 0-for-4. Paul Waner went 2-for-4 with 4 RBIs. Lloyd Waner also went 2-for-4, but, as the leadoff hitter, had no RBIs.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. The following season, Powel Crosley bought the Reds, and renamed the ballpark Crosley Field.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-5 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 10-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Hank Greenberg went 2-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Jimmie Foxx singled in the 2nd inning, and then left the game.

* The Washington Senators were leading the St. Louis Browns, 5-2 at Griffith Stadium in Washington, in the bottom of the 7th inning, when the game was halted by rain.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Braves, 4-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Billy Herman hit a sacrifice fly to score Lynn Nelson with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ernie Orsatti singled Dizzy Dean home with the winning run in the bottom of the 14th inning. Dean went the distance for the win. For the Phillies, Chuck Klein went 4-for-6 with a home run 2 RBIs, and Virgil Davis went 4-for-5.

April 21, 1947: Hank Williams Records "Move It On Over"

April 21, 1947: Hank Williams records "Move It On Over." It becomes his 1st hit record, and some people even call it "the first rock and roll record."

Hiram Williams (no middle name) was born on September 17, 1923 in Mount Olive, Alabama. By 1937, he had dropped out of school to sing country songs on an Alabama radio station. At that time, he started calling himself Hank, because he thought, "It sounded more like a hillbilly and Western star than 'Hiram.'" World War II delayed his rise: A back injury gave him a medical deferment, but his entire band got drafted.

On April 21, 1947, 6 days after Jackie Robinson re-integrated baseball, Hank went into Castle Recording Laboratory, on the 2nd floor of the Hotel Tulane, at 206 8th Avenue North in Nashville, where he had made his first professional recordings the year before, and recorded "Move It On Over."

The song tells of a man who defied his wife's wish that he not go out drinking, so she locks him out, and he has to sleep in the doghouse. The expression, "in the doghouse," meaning someone is angry with you, was already in common use. So he's saying, "Move it on over" to the family dog: "Move over, little dog, 'cause the big dog's movin' in."

The song has an electric guitar solo, so it retroactively gets placed on lists of songs considered "the first rock and roll record." However, the song is driven by violins, or rather "fiddles" as they say in country music, not guitars. The main part of the song, though not the chorus, would be adapted -- probably consciously -- by songwriter Jimmy Myers for "Rock Around the Clock," recorded by Bill Haley, which became the 1st rock and roll song to hit Number 1, in 1955. Haley also covered "Move It On Over" in 1957.

By that time, Hank Williams was dead, a result of substance abuse. His flight to a show in Ohio on New Year's Day 1953 was canceled due to fog, he got a driver, who found him dead in the back seat shortly after midnight. He was not yet 30 years old. He has thus been called "the first dead rock star."

On May 26, 1949, Hank's son was born in Shreveport, Louisiana: Randall Hank Williams, known professionally as Hank Williams Jr. My father, a big country music fan despite having lived his entire life in New Jersey, told me that Hank Williams' greatest contribution to country music was Hank Williams Jr.

On January 6, 1953, 5 days after Hank Sr. died, his daughter was born in Montgomery, with the name Antha Belle Jett. She became a country singer under the name Jett Williams. On December 12, 1972, in Nashville, Hank Jr. became the father of Shelton Hank Williams, who performs "psychobilly" or "cowpunk" music under the name Hank Williams III. On March 12, 1981, in Cullman, Alabama, Hank Jr. became the father of Holly Williams, also a country hitmaker. And in 1991, Hank III became the father of Coleman Williams, who calls himself simply "IV," the Roman numeral for 4, pronounced like "four."

A much harder, louder version of "Move It On Over" was done in 1978 by George Thorogood & The Destroyers.

The Hotel Tulane was demolished in 1956. An office building is now on the site.

*

April 21, 1947 was a Monday. Rock star Iggy Pop was born. Football was out of season. The NBA, still known as the Basketball Association of America, was conducting the Finals of its 1st season. The next day, the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Chicago Stags to clinch the title. The NHL season was wrapped up 2 days earlier, when the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup, beating the Montreal Canadiens.

And there were only baseball games played that day -- and yet, both Chicago teams played. The White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-4 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. And the Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Hank Wyse pitched a 3-hit shutout. Lennie Merullo went 4-for-4 with ab RBI.

Both of these were day games. Each of these ballparks would be the last in its League to put up permanent lights: Briggs Stadium in 1948 -- it was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961 -- and Wrigley Field in 1988.

April 20, 1979: The Devil Went Down to Georgia

April 20, 1979: The Charlie Daniels Band release their album Million Mile Reflections. The title refers to the Band having traveled over 1 million miles on tour.

The song "Reflections" is a tribute to Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Janis had died in 1970, while Elvis and Ronnie had died in 1977: Janis from a drug overdose, Elvis from a drug-boosted heart attack, Ronnie and some of his bandmates (but not all of them) in a plane crash.

Charles Edward Daniels was born on October 28, 1936 in Wilmington, North Carolina. One of the top fiddlers in the history of country music, he is best known for another song on this album, his take on the Faust legend, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." Charlie imagined a fiddle duel between the Devil and a country boy named Johnny, with the Devil saying, "I'll bet a fiddle of gold against your soul." Spoiler Alert for a 43-year-old song: Johnny wins, and the Devil accepts his defeat.

The song reached Number 3 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, making it Daniels' biggest hit. "My Sharona" by The Knack and "After the Love Has Gone" by Earth, Wind & Fire prevented it from hitting Number 1. A year later, a pair of Muppets acted out the song on The Muppet Show.

Rewrites and parodies of the song proved to be irresistible -- though no one invoked comedian Flip Wilson and claimed the Devil made them do it -- including these:

* 1991: "The Devil Came Up to Michigan," K.M.C. Kru: Johnny is a disc jockey in Detroit, and the Devil bets a turntable of gold.

* 1997: "The Devil Went Down to Scunthorpe," The Toy Dolls: The punk band, from Sunderland, England, about 130 miles from Scunthorpe (the name probably used because it fit the rhythm better), use guitars instead of fiddles.

* 1998: "The Devil Went to Jamaica," Travis Meyer: Johnny is a Jamaican marijuana dealer.

* 2002: "The Devil Went Down to Jordan," ApologetiX: Calling themselves a Christian parody band and "a cross between 'Weird Al' Yankovic and Billy Graham," they rewrote it as depicting the Devil's attempt to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, as told in the Bible's Book of Matthew 4:1-11.

* 2006: Blues Traveler recorded their version, with lead singer John Popper playing the fiddle parts on harmonica.

* 2007: The video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, with guitars by Steve Ouimette instead of fiddles. This is the only version Daniels ever publicly objected to, on the grounds that, since the Guitar Hero series are games and unscripted, the Devil could win the contest, which he referred to as "violating the very essence of the song."

* 2013: "The Devil Came Up to Boston," Adam Ezra Group: The Devil is a New York Yankees fan, as in the Broadway musical Damn Yankees, and Boston locations are used.

* 2015: Michelle Lambert became the 1st performer to use a female stand-in for Johnny, naming her, of course, for herself.

It has been remarked that "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is the best propaganda the Devil has ever had: If it gets into people's minds that he can be beaten, then he'll have more challengers, and have more wins.

Charlie Daniels was more devil than angel. In 1974, he had a hit song titled "The South's Gonna Do It." While, in the song, he said the South was "gonna do it again and again," he didn't specify what "it" was, but it could very easily be interpreted as "The South will rise again," a common refrain among neo-Confederates. In his 1989 song "Simple Man," he supported lynching -- though specifically of criminals. He made paid appearances in videos for the National Rifle Association, and opposed the burning of the American flag with a song titled "Ain't No Rag."

During the George W. Bush years, he began free-flowing blame of liberals for all the harm that had actually been caused by conservatives. And by the time he died on July 6, 2020 -- from a stroke, not from COVID -- he was a full-throated Donald Trump fanboy. 

Speaking of Presidents, what the man who was President at the time the song came out, Georgia native and Sunday school teacher Jimmy Carter, thought about this story about the Devil going down to his home State is not recorded.

*

April 20, 1979 was a Sunday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Texas Rangers, 5-3 at Yankee Stadium. Ed Figueroa was the winning pitcher. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-0 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Dick Ruthven pitched a 5-hit shutout. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3 with a walk. Pete Rose went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 9-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-4 with a home run, a walk, and 3 RBIs. George Brett went 0-for-5.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4. Robin Yount went 0-for-4 with a walk. Paul Molitor went 2-for-5.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-4 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Dave Winfield went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Claudell Washington singled home the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Montreal Expos, 8-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Johnny Bench, Ken Griffey Sr. and Dan Driessen hit home runs. Lou Brock, in his final season, did not play for the Cardinals.

* The Houston Astros beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4 at the Astrodome in Houston. Jeffrey Leonard hit a sacrifice fly to score Craig Reynolds with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Willie Stargell went 0-for-4, striking out all 4 times. At this point, anyone predicting that the Astros would win the National League Pennant had a good case; but anyone predicting that the Pirates would do it was kidding himself. And yet, it turned out to be the Pirates.

* The California Angels beat the Oakland Athletics, 7-4 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Rod Carew went 3-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* And the Minnesota Twins and the Seattle Mariners were rained out at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 3. The Twins won the opener, 12-2. The Mariners won the nightcap, 10-2.

The NBA Playoffs were in their Conference Finals. These 4 games were played:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the San Antonio Spurs, 123-115 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. What a team in Texas was doing in the Eastern Conference Finals, I don't know. What Julius Erving was doing was this: Dr. J scored 39 points.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 89-77 at The Omni in Atlanta. The Bullets, defending NBA Champions would beat the Sixers to win the Eastern Conference.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Phoenix Suns, 111-91 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 118-112 in overtime at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. The Sonics, defending Western Conference Champions, would beat the Lakers, and then the Suns, for the West title. They then avenged their loss to the Bullets in the previous season's NBA Finals, to win the Championship.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in progress, and 2 games were played on this day: The New York Rangers beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-1 at Madison Square Garden; and the New York Islanders beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-0 at the Chicago Stadium.

The World Hockey Association was between its regular season and its Playoffs. When the Finals were over, with the Winnipeg Jets beating the Edmonton Oilers, the NHL admitted 4 WHA teams: The Jets, the Oilers, the New England Whalers and the Quebec Nordiques.