On December 17, 1969, Tiny Tim married Miss Vicki on The Tonight
Show Starring Johnny Carson with 40 million people watching.
At the time, this was one of the most watched television events ever.
Tiny Tim (Herbert Butros Khaury)
(April 12, 1932 – November 30, 1996)
On this day in 1964, in response to a reported shooting,
officers of the Los Angeles Police Department were
dispatched to the Hacienda Motel, where they found
singer Sam Cooke lying dead on the office floor, shot
three times in the chest by the motel’s manager, Bertha
Franklin.
The authorities ruled Cooke’s death a case of justifiable
homicide, based on the testimony of Ms. Franklin, who
claimed that Cooke had threatened her life after attempting
to rape a young woman with whom he had earlier checked
in.
Even as the lurid details of the case were becoming common
knowledge, some 200,000 fans turned out in the streets of
Los Angeles and Chicago to mourn the passing of Sam
Cooke.
In the years since his death, the circumstances surrounding
Cooke’s shooting have been called into question by his family
and others. Though the truth of what happened on this day in
1964 remains uncertain, Sam Cooke’s place in the history of
popular music is anything but.
NEW YORK (AP) — Her memories of recording “Rockin’
Around the Christmas Tree” are a little hazy.
She remembers the producer placing decorations around
the studio and blasting the air conditioner on a warm
Nashville day to create a holiday spirit. The musicians,
she recalls, nailed it in a couple of takes.
That’s about it. After all, Brenda Lee was 13 years old at
the time — and it was 66 years ago, in 1958.
Brenda Lee ( Mae Tarpley) is 81 years young today.
On its final approach to Madison, Wisconsin on December 10,
1967, the private plane carrying soul-music legend Otis Redding
would crash into the frigid waters of a small lake three miles
short of the runway, killing seven of the eight men aboard,
including Redding.
His megahit “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay” would be released
in its “unfinished” form several weeks later. It would soon
become history’s first posthumous #1 hit and the biggest pop
hit of Redding’s career.
Bing Crosby (1903 – 1977) singing the standards.
His version of "White Christmas" is the best-selling single ever,
with a mind-boggling fifty million copies sold.
