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| Mountain By Numbers 375-351 |
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#375
$375,000 was the asking price for the piano used by John Lennon on the night he died. The upright grand piano was part of the Record Plant Recording Studios in New York where Lennon recorded his 1971 ‘Imagine’ album. You can also hear it on ‘Watching The Wheels’ from ‘Double Fantasy,’ the album John and Yoko were working on the night he was murdered in 1980. The piano went up for sale on the Moments in Time memorabilia website in May of this year; so far, no takers. (IMAGINE what you could do with that!)
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#374
The month and year (March,1974) that John Lennon was famously ejected from the Troubadour Club, in LA. Out on a drinking binge with Harry Nilsson, Lennon hurled insults at the performing Smothers Brothers and punched their manager before being forcibly removed. This was during Lennon’s notorious “lost weekend,” which actually lasted about 18 months. He had separated from Yoko Ono and moved from New York to Los Angeles where he shacked up with May Pang, one of John & Yoko’s assistants. May said that while in LA, “at night he (John Lennon) loved to channel-surf, and he would pick up phrases from all the shows. One time, he was watching Reverend Ike, a famous black evangelist, who was saying, "Let me tell you guys, it doesn't matter, it's whatever gets you through the night." John loved it and said, "I've got to write it down or I'll forget it." He always kept a pad and pen by the bed. That was the beginning of ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’."
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#373
The month and year (March, 1973) that the one band who desperately wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine made it on the cover. The band was Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. The group made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine on March 29, 1973, 3 months after ‘The Cover of The Rolling Stone’ was released. The text next to their picture read: "What's Their Names Make The Cover." The song was great publicity for Rolling Stone magazine, which was only 5 years old. The picture chosen for the cover? A caricature drawing of the band.
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#372
The number of miles you’d have to drive to get from Jacksonville, Florida to Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery is the last of three Alabama cities mentioned in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s biggest hit, Sweet Home Alabama. For such a flag-waving pro-Alabama song, you’d think the members all hailed from Alabama. Lead singer Ronnie Van Sant and lead guitarist, Gary Rossington were both from Jacksonville Florida.
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#371
The Rolling Stones gave a performance on March 5, 1977 at the 350 capacity El Mocambo nightclub in Toronto, Canada. The 2-hour set is the first the band gave in a club setting since it played in Bristol, England, in 1964. Mick Jagger said that although it was fun, it wouldn’t be financially feasible to do it again. The crowd was filled with contest winners, so the band had to split the profits from the bar just to be paid. Their take? $371. Brown Sugar from this show was used on the Love You Live disc.
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#370
The number of MILLIONS of records sold by ABBA since they began in 1972.
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#369
This month and year (March, 1969) belonged to the Vietnam War and John & Yoko’s "Bed In" - their non-violent way of protesting wars and promoting peace. Knowing their March 20, 1969 marriage would be a huge press event, John and Yoko decided to use the publicity to promote world peace. They spent their honeymoon in Room 702 at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel for a week between March 25 and 31, inviting the world's press into their hotel room every day between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Their marriage and Bed-In were mentioned in the song The Ballad of John and Yoko.
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#368
The number of miles you’d have to drive each day, at 6 hours a day, for four days, if you wanted to drive from Phoenix Arizona all the way to Tacoma. (Nevermind Philadelphia, Atlanta and LA). "Rock'N Me" by The Steve Miller Band
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#367
The number days after the birth of his daughter Jessica that Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts wrote the instrumental "Jessica." (In other words, Jessica was 1 year old.) Guest guitarist Les Dudek plays the opening measures on acoustic guitar, which gradually builds into the signature main theme played by Dickey Betts on two electric guitars, Gregg Allman on Hammond organ, and Chuck Leavell on Fender Rhodes electric piano.
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#366
The cost, in British Pounds, to hire 40 musicians to record the orchestral parts of “A Day in the Life” on the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” album. (Paul McCartney had originally wanted a 90-piece orchestra but this proved unfeasible; the difference was more than made up, however, as the semi-improvised climax of the song was recorded multiple times and eventually four different recordings were overdubbed into a single massive crescendo.)
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#365
The number of days between the time Chic hit number one with their song “Good Times” and Queen released the song “Another One Bites The Dust” which draws heavily on the bass line of “Good Times.” Bernard Edwards, bassist for Chic said in an interview, “Well, that Queen record came about because that bass player spent some time hanging out with us at our studio. But that's OK. What isn't OK is that the press started saying that we had ripped them off!”
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The month and year (March, 1964) that the bill creating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came before the full Senate for debate, having passed in the House the month before. It eventually passed in the Senate, was signed into law by President Johnson later that summer, and then immortalized in the title song on Bruce Hornsby's first album, The Way It Is. The landmark legislation outlawed segregation in US schools and public places. ("Well they passed a law in 64 To give those who ain¹t got a little more but it only goes so far")
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#363
The month and year (March, 1963) that The Kingsmen recorded their version of "Louie, Louie". The song was the subject of an FBI investigation about the supposed but non-existent obscenity of the lyrics, an investigation that ended without prosecution. The Kingsmen recorded the song at Northwestern, Inc., Motion Pictures and Recording in Portland, Oregon. The group paid a small sum of $52 for a one-hour Saturday morning session. The night before their recording session, the band played a 90-minute version of the song during a gig at a local teen club. The Kingsmen's studio version was recorded in one take.
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#362
The number of days between the recording session for Cream’s song "Badge" in 1968 and the release of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album in 1969. George Harrison and Ringo Starr played on the Cream track, and that song’s musical bridge, a series of guitar arpeggios played through a Leslie speaker, directly inspired the riff in George’s Beatle song "Here Comes the Sun" nearly a year later. (By the way, the name of the song "Badge" came from Clapton’s scribbled note on the lyric sheet of the untitled song. He penciled in the word BRIDGE, but his handwriting was so bad that Ringo misread it as BADGE, so that’s what they decided to call the song.)
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#361
The number of career home runs achieved by Joe DiMaggio, the legendary center-fielder who played his entire major-league career with the New York Yankees, retiring in 1951. ‘Joltin’ Joe won a whole new generation of fans when his name appeared in the lyrics of ‘Mrs. Robinson’ by Simon & Garfunkel in 1968.
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#360
The number of degrees the stage revolved in Peter Gabriel’s 2003 “Growing Up Live” tour. Literally central to a memorable show is a revolving stage that sees Gabriel going for a cycle ride in a circle for the entire performance of 'Solsbury Hill,' performing 'Growing Up' inside a Zorb ball, and delivering a gravity-defying sky walk in 'Downside Up' with daughter Melanie.
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#359
The month and year (March 3, 1959) that the San Francisco Giants had their new stadium officially named Candlestick Park. While the park was never a great place for the Giants to play baseball, it was truly a difficult place for the Beatles to play their last live show. With the cold, the wind and the screaming crowd drowning out the Beatles performance, they took the stage at 8 pm and ended their show about 33 minutes later performing the following songs in order "Rock and Roll Music," "She's A Woman," "If I Needed Someone," "Day Tripper," "Baby's In Black," "I Feel Fine," "Yesterday," "I Wanna Be Your Man," "Nowhere Man," "Paperback Writer," and "Long Tall Sally.”
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#358
The worldwide box-office receipts – $35.8 million – for the film “Garden State,” which includes the scene in which Natalie Portman’s character hands her headphones to Zach Braff’s character so he can hear the Shins song “New Slang.” She tells him, “You gotta hear this one song, it'll change your life."
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#357
The month and year (March, 1957) Elvis Presley purchased Graceland. Originally owned by S. E. Toof, publisher of the Memphis newspaper, the grounds were named after Toof's daughter, Grace, who would come to inherit the farm. Soon after, the portion of the land designated as Graceland today was given to a niece, Ruth Moore, who, in 1939 together with her husband Dr. Thomas Moore, had the present American "colonial" style mansion built. Elvis purchased Graceland in early 1957 for approximately $100,000 after vacating an East Memphis house, because of privacy and security concerns, and the opposition of neighbors to the enthusiastic behavior of the many fans who slowly cruised by his home.
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#356
Actor James Dean used to regularly race a Porsche 356 Speedster. However, in the fall of 1955 he traded it for a faster Porsche 550 Spyder, which he planned to drive in a race in Salinas, California. Instead of taking it to the race on a trailer as most race drivers would, he opted to drive the Spyder to better familiarize himself with the car. During that drive, a Ford driven by a student crossed the center line of a California highway and crashed head-on into Dean’s car. Dean’s last known words, uttered right before impact, were said to have been "That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us.” Had he stayed with the more familiar 356, or trailered the Spyder, he might have avoided the crash. The Eagles immortalized the incident in their song “James Dean” from their 1974 album “On The Border:” “Along came a spyder and picked up a rider, And took him down the road to eternity.”
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#355
The month and year (March 12, 1955) that Charlie Parker passed away. Parker is commonly considered one of the greatest jazz musicians, ranked with such players as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Many artists credit Parker with influencing their music. Walter Becker and Donald Fagan went one step further and immortalized Charlie Parker and his band in song. One of the standout tracks of Steely Dan’s 1974 Pretzel Logic release, "Parker's Band," was a tribute to legendary Parker.
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#354
The number of hours it took to create a giant replica of the original helium-filled Pink Floyd pig, which was flown over the Capitol Records tower in Hollywood to commemorate the release of “Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd” in 2001.
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#353
The number of yards between Elton John’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Liberace’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In a 1971 interview, Elton stated, “He's just so outrageous (referring to Liberace). He's like a middle-aged Mick Jagger. It freaks me out."
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#352
The number of pages in Priscilla Presley’s autobiography “Elvis and Me.” Martin Gore of Depeche Mode read the book, and was inspired to write Personal Jesus (for the way Elvis was to Priscilla).
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#351
The length in minutes and seconds (3:51) of Bonnie Raitt¹s version of "Thing Called Love", about 15 seconds shorter than John Hiatt’s original. Hiatt joked that the royalties from Bonnie’s hit version of the song puthis two kids through college.
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