Happy St Patrick’s Day!!!

Here’s Mike just before greeting the participants on the staging area outside the 101 Gold studios.

At 101 Gold we marked the occasion with the biggest St. Patty’s Day Parade Las Cruces has ever seen.   It was three times longer than last year and there were three times as many marchers as last March.

History 101: March 17, 461 A.D. According to tradition, St. Patrick – the patron saint of Ireland – dies.

Music History 101: March 17, 1958: a song was recorded on this day that Composers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote in ten minutes. The Coasters recorded "Yakety Yak."

The producer of today’s 101 number one song of the day wanted to create a record that reminded him of his idol, Buddy Holly and at the same time rescue a singer from his descent into bubblegum music.  His name was Steve Barri and it was Holly, along with the Everly Brothers that inspired him to get into the music business. He became a fan of today’s featured singer because of his Buddy-like sound. But this singer’s later records began moving more towards that bubblegum sound that Barri felt didn’t do him justice. He signed on to produce three singles – two sounded like Holly and the third – which the producer liked the least became the hit and on March 17, 1969 it was the number one song in America – Bubblegum won – Tommy Roe co-wrote the song as well as sang it – “Dizzy.”

Here we are gathered back at the studio during the post parade party.