"Heartbreak Hotel" was Presley’s first on his new record label
RCA Victor. It was recorded in a session that featured his band
the Blue Moon Boys, along with guitarist Chet Atkins and pianist
Floyd Cramer.

The single topped Billboard‘s Top 100 chart for seven weeks,
was number one on the Country and Western chart and reached
number five on the R&B chart, becoming Presley’s first million-
seller, and one of the best-selling singles of 1956. In 1995 it was
inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

    
          Peter "Pete" Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014)

NEW YORK (AP) –  American troubadour, folk music singer and
activist Pete Seeger has died at a hospital in New York.

Seeger’s grandson, Kitama Cahill-Jackson, says Seeger died
Monday night after being hospitalized for six days.

Seeger gained fame as a member of The Weavers, the quartet
formed in 1948 and had hits such as "Goodnight Irene."

He continued performing and recording for six decades afterward
and was still an activist as recently as October 2011 when he
marched in New York City as part of the Occupy Wall Street
protests.

He was onstage in January 2009 for a gala Washington concert
two days before Barack Obama was inaugurated.

But in the 1950s, his leftist politics got him blacklisted and he was
kept off commercial television for more than a decade.

(Variety) – Roy Garber, star of A&E reality series “Shipping Wars,” died Friday 
from a massive heart attack.

Garber owned and operated Arbie’s Team Transport out of New Hampshire,
along with his son Travis, and was one of the show’s top earners.

“Shipping Wars” just wrapped its fifth season on Wednesday.

A&E’s website describes Garber as a “jack of-all-trades” as well as an avid
fisherman and master scuba diver.

“Shipping Wars,”  which debuted to 3 million viewers in Jan. 2012, is produced
for A&E by Megalomedia. 

The network could not be reached for comment.

Ron Tonkin auto dealership located “Out 122nd way”

                                  
                             Ronald Barry Tonkin  

                    May 4, 1931 – January 17, 2014

In 1960, Ron Tonkin, a native of Portland, became the youngest Chevrolet
dealer in the nation. He had had an early start in the auto industry when, as 
a boy, he began doing odd jobs at his father’s used car lot. After World War 
II, Edward Tonkin opened one of the first Kaiser-Frazer dealerships in the 
United States, and that is where Ron, who did not yet have his driver’s
license, learned the car sales business. 

In 1954, Ron Tonkin, then a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and graduate
of the University of Washington with a B.A. in business administration, officially
joined the family business, following in the footsteps of his brother, Marv. Ron
died Friday of end-stage renal failure.

     Russell David Johnson (November 10, 1924 – January 16, 2014)

Actor Russell Johnson, who played The Professor on the CBS television
sitcom series "Gilligan’s Island," has died. Johnson’s agent that the actor
passed away at his home in Washington State Thursday morning from
kidney failure, with his wife and daughter by his side. He was the last
surviving male cast member of the show that ran from 1964 to 1967.