Music History Today: August 27, 2020

August 27, 1988: Tracy Chapman's self-titled debut album races to number 1 in the US.

Tracy Chapman is the self-titled debut album by singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, released on April 5, 1988, by Elektra Records. 

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Three singles were released from the album: "Fast Car," "Talking About a Revolution," and "Can I Hold You. "

Read more:  Wikipedia

August 27, 1955: Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame" hits Number 10 in the US, becoming the first R&B song to hit the Top 10 on the Pop chart. 

Born in 1928, Fats Domino was the youngest of eight children in a French Creole family. He grew up only a few blocks from where he lives now, downriver from the French Quarter in the Ninth Ward. 

 Fats Domino

Today it's a mixed residential and industrial neighborhood, but in Fats' youth, it was pretty much country with unpaved roads, no electricity and small farms. While Fats' father, Antoine Sr., played the fiddle, it was brother-in-law Harrison Verette, a jazz banjo player, who taught young Fats piano.  

Read more: NPR

August 27, 1966: Bobby Hebb's song," Sunny," reached the top of the Cashbox chart. 

Bobby Hebb said in several interviews that he wrote “Sunny” in response to the slaying of his brother Harold outside a Nashville nightclub and to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy a few days before. 

Read more: LA Times

August 27, 1977: Jackson Browne plays the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. His performances of "Running On Empty" and "The Load Out/Stay" from the show are released on the album Running on Empty.

Jackson Browne

"The Load-Out" describes the daily practices of a band and its road crew on a concert tour, and the emotions evoked throughout such an endeavor. The first three verses of the song consist of Browne singing and playing piano with David Lindley playing lap steel guitar. They are later joined by a synthesizer, followed by the rest of the band. Eventually "The Load-Out" segues into an interpretation of Maurice Williams' 1960 hit "Stay."  

Read more: Wikipedia

August 27, 1979:  Pat Benatar released her debut album, In the Heat of the Night, on Chrysalis Records.

Pat Benatar

 With her debut recording In the Heat of the Night, Pat Benatar wasted no time starting out of the gate with the furious leadoff track "Heartbreaker," which solidified her place in a class of women who were taking the rock world by storm in the late '70s.  

Read more: All Music

Can I Hold You
Tracy Chapman