Up Front:
Automated music at your business in the days before Muzak. The Seeburg Select-o-Matic background music service, circa 1955. This unit played 45s. 4 years later, the Seeburg 1000 made its debut, which used special 9-inch, 16? rpm records, specially cut for businesses.
What’s the secret to a long life? How we fuel our body is a contributor. Here’s what Japan’s oldest populations eats. Via @CNN.
On the flip side of healthy, a trivia question: What city has a Burger King that opened before there was a chain and has no connection to the fast food empire? Here’s the full story. https://www.eater.com/2019/4/4/18290865/original-burger-king-mattoon-illinois-restaurant-whopper-trademark-lawsuit
A linguist’s trick to perfectly understand accented speakers.
Fred Jacobs says: Bring your A Game or get out of the way. He’s talking about radio but this post applies, no matter what your profession. Via @Jacobsmedia
Today in History:
1969 Neil Diamond set a record by selling out the Los Angeles Forum for nine concerts in a row.
1970 The U.K. premiere of the movie Woodstock was in London.
1971 Chicago became the first rock group to ever sell out a week of shows at Carnegie Hall (April 5-10) in New York City.
1974 Hammerin’ Hank Aaron hits 715th home run – beats Babe Ruth’s record.
1975 Aerosmith released Toys in the Attic on Columbia Records.
1985 Leader of the Pack: The Songs of Ellie Greenwich opened at the Ambassador Theatre on Broadway in New York City.
1992 Former tennis great Arthur Ashe confirmed he had AIDS. He said he contracted the disease from a blood transfusion.
1993 Marian Anderson, the first African-American singer to appear at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, died at age 91.
1994 Electrician Gary Smith discovered the dead body of Kurt Cobain three days after Cobain had killed himself at his house in Seattle.
1995 The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that Pink Floyd had taken over the fourth spot on the all-time list of best-selling albums with Dark Side of the Moon, which had passed 13 million sales in the U.S.
Happy Birthday to:
1918 Betty Ford (d. 2011)
1938 Kofi Annan (d. 2018)
1947 Steve Howe
1951 Mel Schacher
1963 Julian Lennon
Today’s Quote Worth Re-quoting: “Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.” ~George Eliot
Backstory:
1968 The Petula Clark special Petula aired on NBC-TV. While singing a duet of “On the Path of Glory,” an anti-war song that she had composed, with guest Harry Belafonte, she took hold of his arm, to the dismay of a representative from the Chrysler Corporation (the show’s sponsor), who feared that the moment would incur racial backlash from Southern viewers. When he insisted that they substitute a different take, with Clark and Belafonte standing well away from each other, Clark and the executive producer of the show— longtime publicist, collaborator and husband, Claude Wolff—refused, destroyed all other takes of the song, and delivered the finished program to NBC with the touch intact. The Chrysler representative was terminated and the program aired, four days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, with high ratings and critical acclaim. (Video)
