December 20 – Rosamunde, Teresa Brewer, 1969 Top Ten, Bangles

1823

Premiere of play Rosamunde in Vienna, with libretto by Helmina von Chezy and (wonderful, famous) music by Franz Schubert.
 
Talk about a nice favor for a friend! The play is a total flop. Like much of Schubert’s music, Rosamunde is lost until its famous discovery in 1867 by George Grove and Arthur Sullivan. (*) YTSO: Entr’acte no.3  Der Vollmond  Kleiber:Andante 

1949

18 year-old Teresa Brewer records the song Music! Music! Music! with a peppy, jazzy backing from the Dixieland All-Stars. (*)  (*)

The single, backed with ‘Copenhagen’, is released by London Records as catalog number 604. Thanks in no small part to promotion by NY radio host Gene Rayburn¹  {*}, it becomes a US#1 hit and a million-seller in 1950.👁

A great way to start a career; Brewer releases a string of US Top-100 charting singles lasting until 1963; over 25 reach the US top-40. Some of her Top-10s: Till I Waltz Again with You(1952), Ricochet and Baby, Baby, Baby(1953), Jilted and Let Me Go, Lover!(1954), You Send Me(1957).
( Fansite )

Notes

1. Rayburn later gains fame as the host of TV’s Match Game for two decades.

1969
The greatest week
in rock history

The Billboard Top 10 albums list for this date:

 
#1, ‘Abbey Road,’ the Beatles
#2, ‘Led Zeppelin II,’ Led Zeppelin
#3, ‘Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas,’ Tom Jones
#4, ‘Green River,’ Creedence Clearwater Revival
#5, ‘Let It Bleed,’ the Rolling Stones
#6, ‘Santana,’ Santana
#7, ‘Puzzle People,’ the Temptations
#8, ‘Blood Sweat & Tears,’ Blood Sweat & Tears
#9, ‘Crosby, Stills & Nash,’ Crosby, Stills & Nash
#10, ‘Easy Rider’ soundtrack (featuring the Byrds, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Steppenwolf)
 
“By the end of 1969, only 20 albums in the history of rock had ever sold 1 million copies.” — Salon: The greatest week in rock history

1986

American all-girl group The Bangles get their second top-10 hit with Walk Like an Egyptian.

Foreign types with the hookah pipes say; Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh; Walk like an Egyptian…

Other hits include Manic Monday (#2 in US, UK, DE), a US#2 with Simon & Garfunkel‘s A Hazy Shade of Winter , and ballad Eternal Flame, a #1 in six countries.
 ( Website ) 

August 13 – Vernon Dalhart

1924

Texas native singer-songwriter/borrower Vernon Dalhart ㈇ records ballad Wreck of the Old 97㈇ for Edison. It becomes a runaway hit. (Victor # 19427) Aud

Dalhart moved to NYC in 1910 hoping for an opera career, then began recording in 1916. The song about the Sep 27 1903 derailment of a Southern Railway Fast Mail train near Danville, VA — written, it later turned out, by David Graves George — is country’s first million-seller and the first Southern song to become a national success, selling an unheard-of 7M copies.

In the same year he records The Prisoner’s Song; it spends 12 weeks at US#1 in 1925-26. Both songs will be covered by many later, major stars.

During the ’20s and ’30s, Dalhart uses over 100 pseudonyms to record thousands of 78-rpm singles. ㈇ In 1981, Dalhart, shut down by The Depression and dead in 1948, is inducted into the Country HoF.

▸ MeFi: The first country star ▸ Dalhart discog

See also: Henry Whitter