Throwing back to the week of October 7, 1963, we find Bobby Vinton in the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 with his recording of ‘Blue Velvet.’
This classic song was written in 1950 by Bernie Wayne and was first recorded by Tony Bennett a year later. Bennett’s version reached #16 on the chart that pre-dated the Hot 100 (charmingly named “Records Most Played by Disc Jockeys”). The song was covered by The Clovers and The Statues, among others, in subsequent years.
The Rolling Stones took a break for the first few years of the 90s. Both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards released solo albums, as did Ron Wood and Charlie Watts, and the band’s original bassist, Bill Wyman, left the band. The Stones also switched record labels from Columbia to Virgin.
When they regrouped, they released their 20th studio album, one that built on the success of “comeback” record Steel Wheels — 1994’s Voodoo Lounge.
Another three years passed before The Rolling Stones dropped Steel Wheels, their final album of the 80s and a return to form after an uneven decade.
The 80s were undoubtedly the band’s least successful decade artistically and critically, and the span where their personal relationships suffered the most. Commercially, though, it was a different story. The Stones released two platinum and three multi-platinum albums during those ten years, and cemented their legacy as the world’s biggest and best rock band.
The Rolling Stones had been putting out an album every year or two (sometimes more than one per year) since their inception in 1964. But the band’s internal turmoil in the early to mid 80s caused their output to slow. The 1986 album Dirty Work dropped three years after previous release Undercover.
Tensions between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were higher than ever, in part because Jagger had embarked on a solo career, releasing his debut album a year earlier. Richards’ full attention was still on The Stones, and he was annoyed by his partner’s wandering eye. At 1985’s Live Aid concert, Jagger performed a set with Tina Turner while Richards and Ronnie Wood played for Bob Dylan.
The 1983 Rolling Stones release Undercover found Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the middle of an ugly spat that kept getting uglier. Returning to the studio after the patchwork construction of Tattoo You, they found themselves trying to pull the band in different directions.
Richards favored the R&B and blues sound of the band’s heyday, while Jagger wanted to experiment with the burgeoning musical styles and production techniques of the new decade. The resulting album was a Frankenstein monster combining both of those dueling approaches.
Meet Me In Montauk 