When "So Rare" by The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra peaked  at #2
in Billboard magazine, it became the highest charting song by a
Big Band during the first decade of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era. The
record stayed on the chart for 26 weeks. Sadly, Dorsey himself
would not live to see that success, as he had passed away on
June 12th due to lung cancer at the age of 53.

Jimmy Dorsey is considered to be one of the most important and
influential alto saxophone players of the Big Band and Swing era. 

The Beach Boys today

LONDON (AP) — A cache of apparently forgotten material dubbed "the
lost archive" of the Beach Boys, one of America’s greatest and most
commercially successful bands, is being put up for auction.

The collection of thousands of documents included what seems to be
the band’s first royalty check, for $990, dozens of signed contracts,
and handwritten and copied scores to "Good Vibrations", "California
Girls" and many other hits from their heyday in the 1960s.

A group of investors is seeking to sell the entire collection as one unit
with the expectation that it will bring several million dollars.

"We thought it would be a crime to break it up," says Ted Owen, who
heads the Fame Bureau, the London-based firm handling the sealed-
bid auction which ends on May 15.

Original Sheet Music

Don McLean became 67 in October

Kay Kyser  (sheet music)

Even though she was reluctant to record it, "Rock and Roll Waltz" by Kay Starr
become the first number one record by a female in the Rock era. The single 
went on to sell over a million copies. Kay would later say that she was never
asked to perform the record on TV and seldom sang it during a live show.

Kay Starr turned 89 in July