Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Today is Betamax Day

betamax1

What a concept!  Today marks Sony’s introduction of the first videocassette recorder on this date in 1975. It sold for $995 and eventually disappeared as consumers preferred VHS-format VCRs, introduced later.

Today is also Plymouth Day, the day the first Plymouth rolled off the assembly line in 1928.

1928-Plymouth-Model-Q-Coupe

2001: Plymouth's final model year. Only the Neon remains in the Plymouth line. The Prowler becomes a Chrysler. The PT Cruiser is launched as a Chrysler, though it was originally planned to be a Plymouth. The final Plymouth, a Neon, is assembled on 28 June 2001, with a total of 38,657 built for the model year.

plymouth-neon-2001_499

Music History 101: 1979: This singer was charged with three counts of tax evasion. The next day he sang at the White House at a Black Music Association gala. ---Chuck Berry

chuck berry white house

The 101 number one song of the day was written and sung by a self confessed introvert whose songs were almost always based on personal experience. Although he was too modest to admit it, he had tremendous influence on many of rock’s biggest stars.

He was born in Vernon, Texas and grew up in Wink. His father gave him a guitar when he was six years old. By the time he was eight, he was playing on a Sunday morning country show on KVWC in Kermit. He almost gave away his first national hit to Elvis and the Everly Brothers. He arrived at Graceland at 6 in the morning and nobody was out of bed yet. Elvis sent down word that they could meet later in the day in Nashville. There he ran into Phil Everly and played him the song he’d written with his writing partner Joe Melson. Phil played him one of his own songs not realizing that today’s featured artist was playing him a song for the Everly Brothers to record. He was too shy to bring it up and Elvis hadn’t showed so he decided to record it himself. Shortly thereafter, he wrote today’s number one song in slightly more time than it took to record it. It was at number one June 7, 1961 – for Roy Orbison – “Running Scared”

Listen for the replay and win!

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