Sunday, December 31, 1978
Friday, December 15, 1978
We remember Glenn Miller who disappeared on this day in 1944
1944 was a very tough year, from Europe to the Pacific, D-Day, the Battle of The Bulge and the loss of Glenn Miller in December.
Miller was travelling to Paris for a Christmas concert and his plane was lost over the English Channel.
His plane was never found and Miller is still listed as MIA.
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Tuesday, August 22, 1978
Real communism
On the night of August 20, 1968, approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” — a brief period of liberalization in the communist country. Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with public demonstrations and other non-violent tactics, but they were no match for the Soviet tanks. The liberal reforms of First Secretary Alexander Dubcek were repealed and “normalization” began under his successor Gustav Husak.
Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer – Ramón Mercader –was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day.
Thursday, August 17, 1978
1962: Remembering the first casualty of the Berlin……
Saturday, April 22, 1978
1978: The Blue Brothers made their debut on "Saturday Night Live"
Who knew? I loved those early seasons of Saturday Night Live. I guess that I'm talking about 1975-80!
On this day in 1978, The Blues Brothers made their first appearance on Saturday Night Live and the rest is history.
They had 3 top-40 hits (“Soul Man,” “Rubber Biscuit” and “Gimme Some Lovin'”), a #1 pop album (Briefcase Full of Blues) and a 1980 film, "The Blues Brothers".
To say the least, one of the most hilarious and funniest acts of the late 1970s.
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Wednesday, March 22, 1978
Stayin' Alive with The Bee Gees in 1978
It was a simpler time, or maybe we always say that when we look back at the past. Back in the spring of 1978, the Yankees went into spring training as the reigning kings, the Dallas Cowboys were Super Bowl champs, and the politics of President Carter was about to hit a wall.
Over on the Billboard Top 100, it was The Bee Gees 24/7. In fact, from Christmas 1977 to May 1978, a song by The Bee Gees was # 1 on the charts. We had not seen this kind of chart domination since The Beatles in 1964. During the streak, their compositions were also recorded and put on top of the world by younger brother Andy.
What made all of this so amazing is that no one expected success like that from Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, the trio of brothers. After all, the band couldn't buy a hit on U.S. radio just four years earlier. Like the cat with whatever number of lives, the brothers kept recording, releasing, and finding a new audience for their songs.
It was their family story that always appealed to me. They were more than talented musicians. They were brothers who started singing a long time ago, as written by Juliet Bennett Rylah:
Early on, the three brothers showed a strong connection to music, singing in perfect harmony with one another. By the mid-1950s, the boys were borrowing their older sister's records — Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Tommy Steele — and miming to the music using fake guitars they'd made out of boxes.
This hobby would lead to the brothers' very first public performance in 1956 at The Gaumont, a nearby movie theater where children were allowed to pantomime songs on stage before Saturday matinees. The brothers practiced with two neighborhood friends, Paul Frost and Kenny Oricks, calling themselves The Rattlesnakes. Yet just before their big debut, the sound tech dropped and shattered Leslie's record. Though only Barry had a real guitar, they decided their debut would not be thwarted. They went on and sang the song with only Barry's strumming for musical accompaniment. What song it was, exactly, no one can remember, but Robin recalls that the kids in the theater loved it. "We were sort of an instant hit," he said. The theater manager was so impressed that he sent them to another movie house down the street to play the song again.
From that moment on, Barry said all the brothers cared about was getting discovered. "It was the feeling of standing in front of an audience that was so amazing. We'd never seen anything like it. We were very young, but it made an enormous impression. We didn't want to do anything else but make music."
The brothers renamed themselves Wee Johnny Hays and the Bluecats, and went on to mime and sing more songs in local theaters. When the family decided to emigrate to Australia, Barbara recalled finding the boys performing for their fellow passengers on several occasions over the course of the five-week journey. The Gibbs arrived to their new home in 1958. By this point, the family had grown to include baby Andy Roy, born on March 5 of that same year.
While Hugh was making a living in Queensland as a photographer, Barry, Maurice, and Robin made a serendipitous trip down to the Redcliffe Speedway in 1959. Toting along Barry's guitar, they asked permission to play between races. They played their own compositions, which caught the attention of racing driver Bill Goode. Goode contacted his friend, DJ Bill Gates, and told them about the three young songsters.
Eventually, they became The Bee Gees, or Brothers Gibb. They signed with Robert Stigwood and had international hits in 1967, when Barry was 20 and the twins were 18. They wrote ballads like "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," classics like "To Love Somebody," and super-tunes like "Massachusetts" — and even Elvis recorded "Words," one of their other great compositions. Then they hit the jackpot with the music of "Saturday Night Fever," and that takes us to the spring of 1978.
Only Barry is around these days. Maurice died suddenly in 2003. Robin died of cancer in 2012. Turn on any oldies station, and you are likely to hear one of their songs. I don't know what their songbook is worth, but it will keep generations living well.
Nineteen seventy-eight was a great year to be The Bee Gees and a good one to distract us from gasoline prices and Ukraine.
Thursday, February 02, 1978
1978: The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" was # 1 this week
They sent a few songs to Robert Stigwood who was working on a movie about young people and New York City dance clubs.
The movie was a smash and so was the soundtrack now available in a digital format.
It featured 3 of the biggest hits of the 1970's: "How deep is your love", "Night fever" and "Stayin' Alive".
As I've posted before, the movie was OK but the soundtrack had us dancing!
Saturday, January 28, 1978
January 28, 1853: We remember Jose Marti was born on this day
Jose Marti was born in Cuba on this day in 1853. His parents were Spanish and settled on the island. At the time, Cuba was a Spanish colony and Marti's generation played a major role in the long and very costly Cuban War of Independence. My father's grandfather was part of that generation and stood up to Spain in the second half of the 19th century. My grandmother’s cousin actually fought in that conflict.
Marti was more of an intellectual than a warrior. His poetry and books are read in every university all over the world. In 1966, one of his poems or "versos sencillos" became the lyrics for "Guantanamera" the pop song recorded by The Sandpipers. ("Yo soy un hombre sincero de donde crece la palma" or "I am a truthfull man from the land of palm trees")
Marti was killed in 1895 in a confrontation with Spanish troops. It happened a couple of years before the Maine exploded in Havana's harbor and the U.S. intervened.
From our early days in the U.S., my father had a picture of Jose Marti on the wall of his home office where he'd play chess. It was next to a pre-Castro "peso bill" with Marti's picture framed on the wall. It was nostalgia and a reminder that the pre-Castro peso actually had the same value as a dollar. My father was a banker in Cuba, so he knew a thing or two about the exchange rates.
Marti's picture was a part of our family pictures on the wall. It was there between our First Communion photos, my parents' wedding, the grandparents and other souvenirs from Cuba. My guess is that most Cuban families have a picture of Marti on their walls too.
My parents also had a Marti quote on their wall:
"Nunca son más bellas las playas del destierro que cuando se les dice adiós."
It loosely translates to “The beaches of the exile are never more beautiful that when you wave good-bye to them.” It's a reminder that many Cubans came to the U.S. hoping for a return to a free Cuba. As my mother used to say, the quote took her back to a beautiful and lovely place called Cuba.
So we remember Jose Marti today and all of those conversations that I had with my late father about the man he called "The Apostle of Cuban independence."
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Wednesday, January 25, 1978
1978: "Saturday Night Fever" was the # 1 LP this week
Who saw the movie "Saturday Night Fever" many years ago?
Maybe you danced to "More than a woman" and some of the other songs by The Bee Gees.
On this day in 1978, the soundtrack LP moved to # 1 on Billboard USA. It stayed at # 1 for a long time!
It was the soundtrack of 1978 with 3 # 1 songs, "How deep is your love", "Stayin' Alive" & "Night fever". "More than a woman" was not released as a 45 but was hugely popular on the radio as well.