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| Mountain By Numbers 275 - 251 |
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#275
27.5 million. That’s how many copies of Michael Jackson’s Thriller have been sold according the to industry copy counter, the RIAA. That adds up to one copy of Thriller being sold every 30 seconds.
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#274
Number of revolutions an original vinyl copy of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Physical Graffiti’ will make playing at 33 1/3 RPM for the 8 1/2 minute duration of the song ‘Kashmir.’
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#273
Number of days between Ry Cooder’s first recording session with the Rolling Stones in 1968 and the Stones release of Honky Tonk Woman. Keith Richards claimed he took the opening riff of the song from Ry Cooder, who taught Richards how toplay in the "open-G" guitar tuning that he used on that song and many other Stones songs. Cooder has accused the Stones of "ripping him off," and to date refuses to speak in specifics about his sessions with the Stones.
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#272
Month and day Britain’s biggest pop band at the time (T. Rex) began their first headlining US tour. The tour started in Seattle. He was touring in support of his album Electric Warrior which featured the song, “Get It On (Bang A Gong)".
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#271
Number of days between the time Harry Nilsson released Nilsson Schmilsson and Gary Wright took his long, musically inspirational trip to India with friend George Harrison (facts of which will be revealed in an upcoming number). Nilsson Schmilsson – a platinum record for Nilsson, featured the song Without You which, according to the album’s producer, Richard Perry "…was a different record for its time. It was a big ballad with a heavy backbeat, and although many artists have cut songs like it since, no one was doing it then. It has a very romantic feel, and you know who was playing piano on that? It was Gary Wright, and that was years before he hit it big with 'Dream Weaver.'"
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#270
Cost in tens of thousands of dollars ($27,000) for 4 years of tuition and housing costs for a student to attend UCLA (Randy Newman’s alma mater) in 1970 (the year Three Dog Night hit #1 with their cover of Randy Newman’s song “Mama Told Me Not To Come.”) Founding member, Cory Wells, had petitioned for months to have the rest of the band cover the song with him and when they finally acquiesced, the band hit the top of the charts. Days later, "Mama Told Me" was certified a million-seller. After it passed the three-million mark, Randy Newman phoned the group to offer his congratulations. "He said, 'Cory, thanks for putting my kids through college,'" recalled Wells. "And then he hung up."
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#269
Number of days between Shawn Colvin’s big break in the music industry singing backup on Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ and Suzanne Vega returning the favor and singing backing vocal on Shawn’s debut studio album, ‘Steady On.’ Shawn had been a full-fledged member of Suzanne’s touring band during the Solitude Standing tour.
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#268
Studio hours spent by the band Looking Glass trying to record their biggest hit. Looking Glass cut the song at least three times, first as a part of their demo and then at an unsuccessful session in Memphis. The third version was recorded in New York, in a marathon production that ran many more hours that the first two attempts in Memphis. After being disappointed before, the group redid the song three or four times, until guitars, drums, and voices blended perfectly. Then the track was added to their first album, which was issued by Epic early in 1972. It’s title? Brandy.
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#267
Weeks between the article in which the New York Times explored the question “Is God Dead?” and the release of Elton John’s “Levon,” whose lyrics refer to the day “the New York Times said God is dead.” (Although it wasn't really on Christmas Day; it was in January of 1966.) (The title, by the way, was an homage paid to The Band member, Levon Helm – whom both Elton and writer, Bernie Taupin were big fans of at the time.)
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#266
Number of hits (in hundreds of thousands) an Italian website promoting the “fact” and purported evidence that Paul Is Dead has received. The website purports that Billy Shepherd took on the role of Paul McCartney at the time of the real McCartney’s demise in September of 1966. On The Beatles’ ‘White Album,’ the song ‘Glass Onion’ refers to what it has been like to be in the spotlight as the Beatles were all these years, and even alludes to the Paul Is Dead frenzy within the song’s lyrics.
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#265
Number of days between the release of the New Radicals only album, ‘Maybe You¹ve Been Brainwashed Too,’ and the official announcement by frontman Gregg Alexander that the group was through. He stated that he "accomplished all of [his] goals with this record" and that "the fatigue of traveling & getting three hours sleep in a different hotel every night to do boring 'hanging and schmoozing' with radio and retail people, is definitely not for [him]", that he "lost interest in fronting a 'One Hit Wonder' to the point that [he] was wearing a hat while performing so that people wouldn't see [his] lack of enthusiasm".
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#264
Monthly wage ($264) for Jim Croce as an Army recruit at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. It was at Ft. Dix that Croce ran into a character who would become the focal point of his most famous song. Croce met him in lineman (telephone) school at Ft. Dix. His friend stayed there about a week, and one evening he turned around and said he was really fed up and tired. He went AWOL, and then came back at the end of the month to get his pay check. They put handcuffs on him and took him away. Croce said that just to listen to him talk and see how 'bad' he was, he knew someday he was going to write a song about him.
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#263
Number of days between Bruce Springsteen’s demo recording and the official release of the Nebraska album. He originally laid down sparse demos -- in one day -- on a 4-track recorder in the bedroom of his New Jersey house thinking he’d flesh the songs out later with the E-Street Band. But the spare, haunting quality of the songs was lost when the band tried them, so Bruce released the demos as is. The opening lines of the album’s best-known song, "Atlantic City," refer to a mob hit in South Philadelphia: "Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night, now they blew up his house too." The "chicken man" was a mafia boss named Philip Testa, who was killed by a bomb planted under the porch of his duplex in March of 1981. Bruce saw the headline “Chicken Man blown up in Philly” and thought there was a song there.
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#262
The cost of a 25 count pack plus tax of Ludens Wild Cherry cough drops. In 1970, as Rob Parissi lay in a hospital bed for a few days after he put a band together, the other members of the band came to see him. They brought him a care package and one of the things in the care package was a box of cough drops. As they were getting ready to leave, one of them said, 'Hey, we don't have a name for our band.' So Parissi held up the box of cough drops, as a joke, and said, 'You can call it this,' and pointed to the words 'Wild Cherry.' They liked it, and Parissi hated it. He said, “It took me a long time to get used to that name, he said in an interview years later.” It was Wild Cherry’s 1976 hit, “Play That Funky Music” that vaulted the band to number one, got them a gold record and launched them into the annals of rock history.
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#261
Number of days between the time Linda Ronstadt’s former backup band (The Eagles) recorded the first song Don Henley and Glenn Frey ever wrote together and the time Linda Ronstadt released the song as a single. Though Ronstadt had successwith the song in 1973, it became an Eagles staple ever since it showed up on the band’s second album. The Eagles formed in 1971 after a two month tour backing Ronstadt. The song they shared with her? Desperado.
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#260
Number of members in the University of Southern California marching band. In 1979, the marching band was made famous by Fleetwood Mac’s use of them on the song & video to their hit “Tusk.” A platinum album went to Fleetwood Mac and USC.
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#259
Time into Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ at which you can hear members of the Detroit Lions begin talking in the background during the party going on in the background of the song. Gaye spent the first few years after singing partner Tammi Terrell's death withdrawn and depressed. To the ultimate frustration of Motown head Berry Gordy, he had no desire to record or tour, and instead attempted to pursue a career in the NFL. He trained for the Detroit Lions and increased his weight by nearly fifty pounds in the process. After being cut from training camp, Gaye returned to recording and began work on a song written by Al Cleveland and the Four Tops' Obie (Renaldo) Benson. Gaye invited some friends, including two of his buddies from the Lions, Lem Barney and Mel Farmer, into the studio to record "What's Going On."
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#258
The number of years prior to the release of ‘Wrapped Around Your Finger,’ on the Police album ‘Synchronicity,’ that the character Mephistopheles is described as a devil in the form of a monk. In other words, the year 1725. If you were an English Lit major you might know all the details, but the point is, Sting is quite a smarty-pants. He’s done some book learnin’.
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#257
Number of copies (in hundreds of thousands) Rod Stewart’s "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was selling per week in February 1979, the month it made number one. It was the fastest-selling single in Warner history and their first platinum single of the year. A special twelve-inch version was said to be the first 48-track disco mix ever made (only 300,000 copies were pressed as collector's items). The song topped charts in eleven countries, including the US, France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Belgium, England, Australia, and Canada.
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#256
I’m Not In Love – 10CC - This song incorporated the backing of a large wordless choir, which in reality was the group's voices. It was painstakingly built up from chord loops and multi tracks. Some 256 vocal dubs were required to complete the lush harmonies behind Eric Stewart's vocal.
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#255
Number of seconds it took for John Popper to record the harmonica solo in Dave Matthews’ song, “What Would You Say.” Matthews says that he took a break to let Popper record the solo, went to the restroom and when he came back, Popper had finished the recording.
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#254
Number of months between Brian Wilson’s breakdown which found him spending three years in his bedroom sleeping, taking drugs, and overeating and Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies writing a song about him. Page wrote the song in his parent’s basement on his 20th birthday. Brian Wilson actually rearranged and sang the song a cappella with his new band at live concerts, one of which was recorded for a live album he recorded in 2000. One of the stories Page often tells is about the time Brian Wilson came to the studio while the Barenaked Ladies were recording Maroon to play the track for the band. At the end, he turned to them and asked, "is it cool?" Upon his departure, his advice to the band was "don't eat too much."
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#253
Number of seconds Joe Cocker had to endure John Belushi’s spot on impersonation of him on Saturday Night Live October 25, 1975 while the two performed a duet of Feelin’ Alright.
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#252
Number of miles (as the crow flies) from Mason City, Iowa to Fargo, North Dakota – the distance Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper needed to travel to make it to their next show. The plane crashed Feb. 3, 1959 – the Day the Music Died.Number of miles (as the crow flies) from Mason City, Iowa to Fargo, North Dakota – the distance Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper needed to travel to make it to their next show. The plane crashed Feb. 3, 1959 – the Day the Music Died.
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#251
Number of seconds into “American Pie” when Don McLean references “Eight Miles High.”
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