November 20, 1955: Bo Diddley Defies "The Ed Sullivan Show"

November 20, 1955: Bo Diddley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the 1st time. There would not be a 2nd.

He was born Ellas Otha Bates on December 30, 1928 in McComb, Mississippi. He was raised by a cousin, Gussie McDaniel, and he became Ellas McDaniel. She moved him to the South Side of Chicago in 1934. America's largest black neighborhood, it has more black people than Harlem or any other neighborhood in New York City.

And it became home to many blues legends, including Muddy Waters (real name McKinley Morganfield), Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett), Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker and Koko Taylor. Taylor was from Memphis, Tennessee, on the State Line with Mississippi. The others were all from Mississippi, just like Ellas.

By the time he was 18, Ellas had learned to play the violin, and was invited to join a church orchestra. But he loved the guitar more, and for the rest of his life, he played guitars that he built himself. He formed a band with Jerome Green, who played maracas.

That was Ellas' idea: He wanted a percussion sound, but drums were too big and bulky to carry around. He said, "I taught Jerome how to play those maracas... They gave... the unique sound, that jungle-type rhythm feel." On what would become the classic Bo Diddley recordings, Bo and Jerome would often trade lyrics, and even good-natured insults.

There are several theories as to origin of the stage name "Bo Diddley," including potential sources that Bo probably couldn't have known about by 1955. There was a story by Zora Neale Hurston that wasn't published in her lifetime, about a "Beau Diddley" who gets brought down by vengeful magic. Bo probably would have liked that, had he known.

In 1951, he landed a regular spot at the 708 Club, on Chicago's South Side, with a repertoire influenced by Waters, Hooker, and R&B pioneer Louis Jordan. In late 1954, he signed with Chess Records. At their already-famous studio at 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Bo Diddley the man, and his band, recorded "Bo Diddley" the song on March 2, 1955.

Otis Spann, who had played piano on Waters' records, played on this one as well. Billy Boy Arnold played the harmonica. Jerome Green, of course, played the maracas. Now needing a drummer, company owner Leonard Chess -- one of several white Jewish men who aided in the rise of black pioneers of rock and roll -- assigned Frank Kirkland.

The song tells of Bo and his unnamed girlfriend, including the diamond ring he's bought her, a story resembling the lullaby "Hush, Little Baby." (Which would be converted into another R&B song, "Mockingbird," in 1963, by Inez & Charlie Foxx.) Its "dum-da-da-dum-dum, dum-dum" rhythm, similar to "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits," was copied on countless records, and became known as "The Bo Diddley Beat."

Although it did not reach Billboard magazine's top 100 popular songs, it did hold the Number 1 spot on their R&B chart for 2 weeks, and was one of the Top 10 best-selling records of calendar year 1955.

This earned him a slot on The Ed Sullivan Show for the night of November 20, 1955. But somebody -- probably the show's very uptight producer, Bob Precht, who was also Ed's son-in-law -- thought "Bo Diddley" the song was too black for mainstream CBS audiences of the Ike Age.

So he told Bo to sing another big hit at the time, "Sixteen Tons." Bo said he didn't know that song. That was an obvious lie: Tennessee Ernie Ford's version was then the Number 1 song in the country, and everybody knew it. So it was written on cue cards.

Bo played his own song, anyway, claiming that's what he saw on the cards. He was banned from the show, and never appeared on it again. This was 12 years before Jim Morrison of The Doors defied Precht's order to not sing the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher." Bo's thought on that was not recorded.

Bo would have several more R&B hits, including "I'm a Man," famously covered by The Spencer Davis Group; and "Who Do You Love?" famously covered by Ronnie Hawkins, the singer who gave the band known as The Band their start.

He had one song that made Billboard's famous Top 40: "Say Man," which hit Number 20 in 1959. There's no singing on it: Basically, it's just the band jamming, while Bo and Jerome Green trade brags and insults, cut down to 3 minutes and 9 seconds for brevity, and, as Bo put it, "Of course, they cut out all the dirty parts." Some rock historians call it "the first rap record." It's closer to "The Dozens" than to a rap battle, since they make no attempt to make their zingers, both for themselves and against each other, rhyme.

In 1960, with Western movies and TV shows at their peak, he released an album titled Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger, which included his version of "Sixteen Tons." In 1962, going with the biggest dance craze of all time, the Twist, he released Bo Diddley's a Twister.

In 1963, with surf rock as the new big thing, he released Surfin' with Bo Diddley. Several songs had nautical themes, including his version of "Old Man River." He also covered the old dance tune "The Hucklebuck" and Ray Charles' "What'd I Say." But it didn't work, mainly because it didn't really sound like surf rock, and it was hard for white record-buyers to imagine a black man surfing. As rock historian Dave Marsh put it, "Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger made sense on the South Side of Chicago, but where was he going to surf? Lake Michigan?" (Well, the Great Lakes do have tides.)

Bo had 2 women in his band as rhythm guitarists. From 1957 to 1961, it was Peggy Jones, a.k.a. Peggy Malone, a.k.a. Lady Bo. In spite of that nickname, she was married not to Bo, but to Bo's bass player, Wally Malone. It was a mixed marriage: Peggy was black, and Wally was white. Peggy may have been the very first woman who ever played guitar in a prominent rock and roll band. (All-female bands were rare then, and none made it big until the 1970s.) She later played with James Brown and Sam & Dave.

When Peggy left, she recruited her own replacement, Norma-Jean Wofford, a.k.a. The Duchess. As with Peggy, it was initially presumed that she was Bo's girl, and he denied it by saying she was really his sister. He said, "Norma-Jean was my first sidekick... We did everything together. She was like family, which was why I told everyone she was my sister." The Duchess stayed with Bo's band until 1966.

Jerome Green had also played on some of Chuck Berry's hits, including his 1st, "Maybellene." He left Bo's band in 1964, to get married. After that, history loses track of him. Record-keeping being what it was in the black South in the 1930s, no one is quite sure when he was born, most likely 1934; and, as a tangential figure in rock and roll history, no one is quite sure when or how he died, although most sources say it was in New York in 1973, which would have made him only 38 years old. Frank Kirkland also died that year. Otis Spann was already dead, from liver cancer in 1970.

Among those bandmembers not yet mentioned: Norma-Jean Wofford died in 2005, Clifton James in 2006, Lester Davenport in 2009, and Peggy Jones in 2015. As of November 20, 2022, Billy Boy Arnold is the last surviving musician to have played on the original recording of "Bo Diddley." Wally Malone, who joined Bo after that, is also still alive.

Bo married and divorced 4 times. He had 4 daughters: Evelyn Kelly, Pamela Jacobs, Terri Lynn McDaniel-Hines and Tammi D. McDaniel; and 2 sons: Ellas A. McDaniel and Steven Jones. He lived to see 18 grandchildren, 15 great-great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren.

In 1971, Bo moved to Los Lunas, New Mexico, where he bought and donated 3 cars to the Valencia County Sheriff's Department, and was named an honorary Deputy Sheriff. For the rest of his life, he divided his time between Albuquerque, New Mexico and Archer, Florida, a farming community near Gainesville, in a custom-built log cabin that he and his friends built by hand.

In 1983, wearing the hat that, along with his self-made rectangular guitars, had become his trademark, he played a pawnbroker in the film Trading Places, telling Dan Aykroyd that, in Philadelphia, his fancy Swiss watch was worth fifty bucks. In 1987, he was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1989, Bo Diddley filmed a Nike commercial with baseball and football player Vincent "Bo" Jackson, showing that, while that younger Bo knows baseball, Bo knows football, and Bo seems to know every other sport, he was not a good guitarist, and Diddley told Jackson, "Bo, you don't know diddley!"

That commercial was made for baseball's All-Star Game. For Super Bowl XXIV, they filmed a sequel: Starting with the onscreen words, "Six months later... " Jackson had apparently learned from the master, who said, "Bo, I guess you do know Diddley!"

After years of living with diabetes, and suffering from the effects of strokes for about a year, Bo Diddley died on June 2, 2008, at the age of 79, at his home in Archer.

*

November 20, 1955 was a Sunday. These NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 31-7 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Los Angeles Rams and the Baltimore Colts played to a tie, 17-17 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Cleveland Browns beat their arch-rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, 41-14 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions, 24-14 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals, 31-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the Green Bay Packers beat the San Francisco 49ers, 27-21 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 119-115 in overtime at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 84-80 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the Rochester Royals beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 104-96 at the Minneapolis Auditorium.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action. The New York Rangers hosted the Montreal Canadiens, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden. The Boston Bruins hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Boston Garden. And the Chicago Black Hawks hosted the Detroit Red Wings at the Chicago Stadium. And the weird thing is, all 3 games ended in 1-1 ties.

October 28, 1956: Elvis Presley Gets the Polio Vaccine

October 28, 1956: Millions of young people's fears over getting the recently-approved polio vaccine are wiped out: Their hero got it, on the biggest show on TV.

Ed Sullivan initially said he wouldn't put Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show, because of his sexually suggestive onstage moves. But after Ed's competitor, Steve Allen, did, and got huge ratings, Ed could no longer ignore the appeal. As the title of one of his greatest hits albums said, Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.

Ed would end up putting Elvis on his show 3 times. It was only on the 3rd one, on January 6, 1957, that he was famously shown only from the waist up. I have a separate entry for that post.

The polio virus had been ravaging America for years, and approximately 60,000 children were infected annually. In 1955, hope famously arrived in the form of Jonas Salk's vaccine. But despite the literally crippling effects of the virus, and the promising results of the vaccination, many Americans simply weren't getting vaccinated. In fact, when Elvis first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, immunization levels among American teens were at an abysmal 0.6 percent.

You might think that the threats of death and paralysis would be enough to motivate people to get vaccinated. Yet, convincing people to get a vaccine is a challenging endeavor, as the 2020-21 COVID pandemic would later prove. Intuitively, it seems like it would be wise to have doctors and other health officials communicate the need to receive the vaccine. Or, failing that, we might just need to give people more information about the effectiveness of the vaccine itself.

Those aren't winning strategies today, and they weren't back in 1956. What did prove successful was Elvis getting the vaccine in front of millions. In fact, after he publicly did so, vaccination rates among American youth skyrocketed to 80 percent after just six months. Kids all over America were answering the vaccine with impressions of Elvis: "Well, uh, uh-huh!"

Contracting poliomyelitis as an adult, like Franklin Roosevelt did before becoming President, had been rare. But so many kids got it that it became known as "infantile paralysis." John F. Collins got it in 1955, just as the vaccine was first being released to the public, during a campaign for City Council in Boston. Having to use a wheelchair didn't stop him from being elected Mayor in 1959 and 1963.

Prominent Canadian politicians Paul Martin Sr. and Paul Martin Jr. got it separately, and survived it, the latter serving as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2006. His predecessor, Jean Chrétien (1993-2003), has physical challenges that suggest he may also be a polio survivor, although he has never claimed to be one, attributing them instead to Bell's palsy.

Jerome Felder, a polio survivor, wrote songs under the name Doc Pomus, including several of Elvis' hits. Bill Cullen, who, between serving as host and panelist, appeared on more TV game shows than anybody, was a polio survivor. Like Elvis in his 3rd Sullivan appearance, he was usually only shown from the waist up, because he was self-conscious about his limp. Wilma Rudolph recovered from childhood polio to win 3 Gold Medals in sprinting at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

In a weird coincidence, Donald Sutherland, who played Hawkeye Pierce in the film version of M*A*S*H, and Alan Alda, who played the character on TV, were both polio survivors. Alda became a close friend of violinist Itzhak Perlman, who contracted the disease at age 4, and, through his television appearances, is, as of October 28, 2022, the living celebrity most visibly affected by the nearly-eradicated disease.

Other celebrities, alive as of the abovementioned date, who survived polio as children include singers Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Donovan and Neil Young; actors Mia Farrow, Joe Bob Briggs, director Francis Ford Coppola and one of his Godfather actors, Gianni Russo; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; Olympic figure skating Gold Medalist Tenley Albright, golfer Jack Nicklaus, and Heisman Trophy winner and U.S. Army General Pete Dawkins.

*

October 28, 1956 was a Sunday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the infamously unstable President of Iran from 2005 to 2013, was born on this day.

These NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 20-3 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Green Bay Packers, 28-21 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 24-16 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals, 17-14 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Los Angeles Rams, 16-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* And the Chicago Bears beat the San Francisco 49ers, 38-21 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

Baseball season had ended 18 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 7 to win the World Series. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The Syracuse Nationals beat their arch-rivals, the Rochester Royals, 91-75 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York. And the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 94-88 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

And there were 2 games scheduled in the NHL. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

October 18, 1964: Jackie Mason vs. Ed Sullivan

October 18, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson gives a speech from the Oval Office on this Sunday night, interrupting TV programming. He speaks on various topics: The Vietnam War, the coup the displaced Nikita Khrushchev from power in the Soviet Union, and China developing an atomic bomb. He manages to convince Americans that things aren't as bad as they look, and he helps his campaign for a term of his own.

One result of this speech is that, on CBS, The Ed Sullivan Show can't do a full hour. So, when a regular, comedian Jackie Mason, comes on, making his 13th appearance on the show, Ed, sitting off to the side on a stool as usual, and a stickler for time even under normal circumstances, holds up two fingers, to tell Jackie he's got only two minutes to do his act.

But Jackie doesn't know that this is what the two fingers means. And he runs long. Ed keeps showing Jackie two fingers. The studio audience can see this, and they're laughing at this, not at Jackie's jokes. The people watching at home can't see it. As Jackie explained years later, "They only know one thing: This Jew is dying!" At one point, Jackie says, "Huh? Anybody? I told 30 jokes so far, you could pick one!"

Finally, Jackie points offstage, and says, "He keeps showing me fingers, this guy!" Then he says, "Let me show you some of my fingers!" And he thumbs his nose at everyone. That, alone, might have gotten him in trouble. As he finishes his act, he starts pointing at various people, and appears to make some sort of gesture at Ed. The camera can't quite pick it up, but Jackie knows he's in trouble, and runs offstage, stage left. Ed, sitting stage right, gets off his stool, walks out, and is visibly furious.

During the commercial break, Ed accuses Jackie of giving him a middle finger, an obscene gesture, usually taken to mean, "Fuck you." To this day, when someone does it on TV, the image gets blurred out.

Jackie not only denies making the gesture in question, he insisted to the end of his life that, up until that moment, he had never heard of the gesture. He was 36 years old, Ed was 63, and both had grown up in New York: Who did Jackie think he was trying to fool?

Ed banned him from the show. For 2 years, Jackie couldn't get on TV anywhere. Finally, they met at an airport, and smoothed things over. On September 11, 1966, Jackie appeared on the show again, and eventually made 20 appearances.

But Jackie's career didn't get back to its previous prominence until 1986, when his one-man show The World According to Me! became a hit on Broadway. He remained an elder statesman of American comedy until his death in 2021.

*

October 18, 1964 was a Sunday. These NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 23-17 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Green Bay Packers, 24-21 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears, 10-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-10 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Washington Redskins 38-24 at the 1st Busch Stadium (formerly the last Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Dallas Cowboys, 20-16 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* And the Los Angeles Rams beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, 42-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

And in the American Football League:

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-22 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium

* The San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos, 42-14 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego.

* The night before, Saturday, the New York Jets beat the Houston Oilers, 24-21 at Shea Stadium.

* And the night before that, Friday, the Boston Patriots and the Oakland Raiders played to a tie, 43-43 at Fenway Park in Boston. It remains the highest-scoring tie in pro football history.

Baseball season had ended 3 days earlier, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New York Yankees in Game 7 and won the World Series.

There was 1 game in the NBA: The Cincinnati Royals beat the San Francisco Warriors, 117-108 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Jack Twyman scored 31 points, and Oscar Robertson scored 21. For the Warriors, Tom Meschery scored 28, and Wilt Chamberlain was holding out at the start of the season, and did not play until October 31. The Warriors traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers the following January.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 3-3 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

September 18, 1927: CBS Is Founded

September 18, 1927: CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System, is founded by William S Paley. He was still in charge in 1990, when he died at the age of 89.

CBS followed NBC as the 2nd major radio network in America, and the 2nd major television network in 1947. In both, it became known for its news division, led in the 1940s and '50s by Edward R. Murrow. His See It Now program showed America all kinds of things it wanted to see, and many things it needed to see, such as, on its March 9, 1954 telecast, the excesses of Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.

From 1962 to 1981, The CBS Evening News was anchored by Walter Cronkite. "Uncle Walter" became known as "the most trusted man in America": When he signed off by saying, "And that's the way it is," you knew that it was, because he always put the truth, no matter how uncomfortable, ahead of any agenda.

"The Tiffany Network" debuted its "Eye logo" in 1951. It produced great Westerns in the 1950s, like Gunsmoke and Have Gun -- Will Travel. It produced great comedies in the 1950s, like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners, moving on in the 1960s with The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show. And, on Sunday nights, it would feature The Jack Benny Program (always a "program," now a "show"), The Ed Sullivan Show, and a movie of the week.

It was the 1st network to show such Christmas specials as Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie Brown Christmas, and it gave kids such legendary cartoons as Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? 

It got edgier in the 1970s, with The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970, All In the Family in 1971, and M*A*S*H and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in 1972. The decade also saw CBS take its role as America's best football network and make it even bigger, with the studio show The NFL Today. And it revived a pair of game shows that had been big on other networks, The Price Is Right and Match Game, and made them bigger than ever.

In the last 20 years, CBS has been the home of the NCIS franchise, and has now added the FBI franchise.

UPDATE: As part of a major restructuring, CBS ended its radio news service on March 21, 2026.

*

September 18, 1927 was a Sunday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox, 2-1 and 5-2 at Yankee Stadium. George Pipgras outpitched Tommy Thomas in the opener, and Waite Hoyt outpitched his fellow future Hall-of-Famer Ted Lyons in the nightcap. Between the 2 games, Babe Ruth went 2-for-7 with a walk, his 54th home run of the season, and 3 RBIs; while Lou Gehrig went 2-for-8 with an RBI.

* A doubleheader was split at Redland Field (later renamed Crosley Field) in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Reds won the 1st game, 7-0. Red Lucas pitched a 3-hit shutout. The New York Giants won the 2nd game, 4-2. Over the 2 games, Rogers Hornsby went 1-for-5 with a walk, Bill Terry went 1-for-7 with an RBI, and Mel Ott only appeared as a pinch-hitter in the 1st game, not reaching base.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 6-4 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. George Burns (not the entertainer who was just beginning his long career as a star) doubled home the winning run in the top of the 10th inning. Tris Speaker, long with Cleveland, appeared as a pinch-hitter with Washington, and did not reach base.

* The Boston Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 11-7 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3 and 8-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* The Boston Red Sox, the Philadelphia Athletics and the Pittsburgh Pirates were not scheduled, since professional sports on Sunday were still not legal in Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. Because of this, the Detroit Tigers, the St. Louis Browns, and the Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known under the managing of Wilbert Robinson from 1914 to 1931) were also not scheduled.

January 15, 1967: "Let's Spend Some Time Together"

January 15, 1967: The Ed Sullivan Show is broadcast on CBS. The Rolling Stones were on, and wanted to sing their next single, "Let's Spend the Night Together." Trying to avoid a conflict with the censors, Sullivan's producer, and also his son-in-law, Bob Precht, suggested a slight change: "Let's Spend Some Time Together."

The Stones weren't stupid: They knew Sullivan was a powerful figure in American culture. Even more so, CBS Chairman William S. Paley was. They knew what would happen if they didn't tow the line: Rock star Bob Dylan and comedian Jackie Mason -- in very different ways -- had both crossed the line, and had been banned from the show.

They sang the words Precht demanded, but their anger is obvious on the tape. Drummer Charlie Watts was a stone-faced as ever, not unlike Sullivan himself. Playing piano, Brian Jones looks like he doesn't care, or maybe he was too high on drugs to care. But bass guitarist Bill Wyman was caught on camera rolling his eyes, just half a second after he noticed the camera was on him. Lead guitarist Keith Richards was practically gritting his teeth the whole way.

And lead singer Mick Jagger? He was pissed. Not drunk, like that word means in England, but furious. Instead of an invitation to a good time, this version of the song sounded like a coercion -- on him. Jaw clenched, eyes rolling every time he had to sing the words, "some time," practically spitting the lyrics... Mick was a man used to getting his way, and, this time, he didn't, and he couldn't handle it.

The Stones also sang what was intended to be the B-side of the single, "Ruby Tuesday," with Jones playing the recorder. Since "Let's Spend the Night Together" wasn't played that way on Sullivan, American disc jockeys -- especially those on Paley-owned CBS stations -- treated "Ruby Tuesday" as if it was the intended A-side. It hit Number 1. "Let's Spend the Night Together," while a great-sounding song, only reached Number 55.

But that was as far as punishment went for the Stones. They did appear on Ed Sullivan again, 2 years later, singing "Honky Tonk Women" -- which includes the line, "I laid a divorcee in New York City." Apparently, the censors had no problem with that -- or maybe they just missed it.

Eight months after the Stones changed the lyrics to a hit to avoid punishment, The Doors refused. They wouldn't be so lucky.

*

January 15, 1967 was a Sunday. This was also the day of Super Bowl I, in which the NFL Champion Green Bay Packers beat the AFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. I have a separate entry for that event.

Strangely, with videotape being expensive, CBS taped over their master copy of that game. NBC also broadcast it, and did the same. So we don't have a surviving full broadcast of this landmark sporting event. But because Bob Precht saved as much of The Ed Sullivan Show as he could, we still have the Stones' performance of "Let's Spend Some Time Together," in the bright colors and clear sound of the late 1960s.

There were 4 games played that day in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Chicago Bulls, 131-116 at the Chicago Stadium. This as the Bulls' 1st season of play. Four months later, the Knicks drafted Walt Frazier. Three years later, they finally won their 1st NBA Championship.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Boston Celtics, 110-95 at the Boston Garden. This runaway victory of Wilt Chamberlain and the Sixers over Bill Russell and the C's was a foreshadowing: While they had won the last 8 NBA titles, Boston would lose this year's Eastern Conference Finals to Philadelphia, which would win the title.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 127-116 at Cobo Hall in Detroit.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the San Francisco Warriors, 114-112 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

This was the last season for the NHL's "Original Six" teams. And all 6 were in action:

* The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Boston Garden. So both the Celtics and the Bruins lost at home on the same day; and each, arguably, to their biggest rivals.

* And the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-0 at the Chicago Stadium. So the Stadium hosted both the Bulls and the Hawks on the same day. The Hawks, for the 1st time in their 41-season history, would finish 1st overall in the NHL in the regular season. But the Leafs would beat them in the Stanley Cup Semifinals, and then the Canadiens in the Finals.

And Lisa Velez, later to become the singer Lisa Lisa, was born on this day.

January 5, 1964: The Singing Nun On "The Ed Sullivan Show"

January 5, 1964: The Ed Sullivan Show airs on CBS. Sullivan, a Catholic who preferred soft songs to rock and roll, and loved acts from Europe, has what might be the closest thing he will ever have to a perfect guest for him. It is the singer with the Number 1 song in America: The Singing Nun.

Jeanne Paule Deckers was born on October 17, 1933 in Brussels, Belgium. She took the name Sister Luc-Gabrielle when she became a Dominican nun, and her singing was so well-received that her superiors encouraged her to record her songs. One was about the founder of their order, Saint Dominic. The record, credited to "Sœur Sourire" (Sister Smile) took off, and became the most popular in Europe.

Dominic de Guzmán, born in Spain in 1170, and died in 1221, was a priest, and the founder of the Dominican Order. He is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientists, and he and his order are traditionally credited with spreading and popularizing the rosary. The Dominican Republic and its capital city, Santo Domingo, are named for him.

Before Paul McCartney wrote "Michelle" for The Beatles, the chorus to "Dominique" became one of the few French passages that Americans knew:

Domi-nique -nique -nique s'en allait tout simplement,

Routier, pauvre et chantant.

En tous chemins, en tous lieux,

Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu,

Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu.

Literal translation:

Domi-nic -nic -nic went about simply,

a poor singing traveller.

On every road, in every place,

he talks only of the Good Lord,

he talks only of the Good Lord.

Noël Regney, who wrote the Christmas carol "Do You Hear What I Hear?" with his wife Gloria Shayne Baker, wrote English lyrics for "Dominique." Deckers recorded versions in Dutch, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese. The English lyrics he wrote for the chorus are close to the literal translation:

Domi-nique -nique -nique, o'er the land he plods along,

And sings a little song.

Never asking for reward,

He just talks about the Lord,

He just talks about the Lord.

In the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, American radio stations were playing softer songs, and "Dominique" -- credited to "The Singing Nun" in the U.S. -- fit the bill. The fact that the late President was also Catholic may also have been a factor in the song's rise to Number 1 on our charts. On January 5, 1964, while the song was still Number 1 in America, she appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Three weeks later, The Beatles had the Number 1 song, "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Two weeks after that, Ed had The Beatles on his show, and the world would never be the same.

Things went downhill for Sister Luc-Gabrielle after that. In 1966, Debbie Reynolds -- married twice, divorced once, mother of two, and a convert to Judaism -- played her in a film titled The Singing Nun, but Luc-Gabrielle publicly said that the film was fiction. She left the order shortly thereafter, later claiming she was chased out, and began using the name Jeanine Deckers. That same year, she said she agreed with John Lennon's statement that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. (A, At the time, it was true. B, Lennon never said that was a good thing.)

She wrote and recorded a song in favor of birth control: "Glory to God for the Golden Pill." It was not a hit. She made more recordings, but, for legal reasons, couldn't release them under the name "The Singing Nun." She released them as "Luc Dominique," but lamented, "Nobody knew who it was." The Belgian government claimed she owed back taxes from her royalties, which she hadn't been receiving anyway, as they went straight to the Church, and should have been tax-exempt.

She and autism activist Annie Pécher ran a special-needs school together in Wavre, Belgium. Responding to speculation about their relationship, Deckers publicly denied that they were lesbian lovers, but one of her biographers wasn't so sure.

Jeanne and Annie, date unknown

On March 29, 1985, both depressed over the downturns in their respective professional lives, they committed suicide, ages 51 and 41. They were buried together in Wavre.

"Dominique" remains the only song in French, and the only song by a performer from Belgium, to hit Number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100.

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January 5, 1964 was a Sunday. This was also the day that the San Diego Chargers won the AFL Championship, which remains their only title in any league. I have a separate entry for that event.

The NFL Championship Game had been played a week earlier, on December 29, 1963. The Chicago Bears beat the New York Giants, 14-10. Baseball was out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 142-118 at the Philadelphia Civic Center.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Baltimore Bullets, 111-106 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* The St. Louis Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 116-99 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics, 97-95 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" was in action:

* The New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 3-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Boston Bruins, 5-3 at the Chicago Stadium.