Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic
The week ending January 27, 1968 — just days before Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive, a “watershed” moment” history would later show as having “played an important role in weakening U.S. public support for the war in Vietnam,” according to the U.S. State Department —
Sixteen-year-old Janis Ian, for her third single for Verve Forecast, bravely tackled the subject of suicide — currently the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 as well as 20-34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The DJ/promo version of this November 1967 single includes
In 1963, Buffy Sainte-Marie had the courage to speak out against an undeclared war in which the United States had conscripted 16,000 troops to serve as “advisors,” and consequently, was banned from singing “The Universal Soldier” on US radio and TV until 1965. It is curious to see which countries
As George Lipsitz points out in the introduction to Johnny Otis‘s memoir Upside Your Head! Rhythm and Blues on Central Avenue, Otis was a central organizing figure in the Los Angeles rhythm & blues scene of the late 1940s and early 1950s — thus, a shrewd move on Syd Nathan’s
The full-page ad placed in Billboard‘s August 17, 1968 issue promised controversy: Bill Gavin, publisher of the influential Gavin Report is on record as saying “Mom (Can I Talk To You?)” by Jan Rhodes should be given airplay. If Gavin were still with us, I would very much like to
Larry Adler became a “professional” musician in the eyes of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) when he joined Local 47 in Beverly Hills, where he lived, on July 10, 1948. As the front page of Billboard‘s July 17, 1948 edition reported in deadpan fashion — “Adler Now Rates” [see
Zero to 180 turns seven today, which means another opportunity to muddy the waters with the musical equivalent of home movies — it’s okay if you want to sit this one out. Last December 12th’s dubious dub-inspired “Mrs. Fletcher” (you might recall) was a late-year release that got buried in
It must have been the year before last when I was enjoying a madcap musical romp through Thailand and its wildly imaginative bootleg EP scene — 7-inch picture sleeves that used filched images, with four songs often (but not always) by four different artists, produced in renegade fashion without regard
Penny Von Eschen‘s Satchmo Blows Up the World — observes Muneer Nasser in 2017’s Upright Bass: The Musical Life and Legacy of Jamil Nasser (in the chapter entitled ‘Getting the Soviets to Swing’) — “reinforces the myth that [Benny Goodman] introduced jazz to the Soviet Union”: Benny Goodman became the first
When I was in 11th grade, the unthinkable happened: I received two Fs in the same quarter! One of the Fs was in Physics class, an absolute nightmare. Thankfully, Paul Guinnessy of the American Institute of Physics has helped me deprogram from this hellish experience, thus empowering this historian-in-training to
COPYRIGHT © 2012-2022 ZERO TO 180. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Recent Comments