The Mall At Murfreesboro Grand Opening April 28, 29, 30 1977

I've written on the Mall before, so why not do it again. 

The Mall had a sort of soft opening before this (April 4, 1977), but the grand opening was noon on April 28, 1977. It was initially conceived to be part of a much larger development with condominiums, but ended up just being the L shaped mall I loved. I was in 4th grade when it had this grand opening. We were living out on Manson Pike on land where the hospital now sits, but we were to move to Murfree Avenue by 6th grade and then Jones Boulevard afterwards. After living in Smyrna for 8th grade we were back in Murfreesboro living right in the S curve of Clark Boulevard so I was within walking and biking distance to this mall for 3 to 4 years of my life and I spent a good portion of my time there. 

I would also always go with my mother when she went shopping for groceries at Kroger and when she was in there I would wander over to to the Silver Shack to play pinball and then down to Readmore Books where I could lose myself for hours among the books and magazines. Once I got good at pinball I could also play for hours on just a few quarters. There was a record store called Territorial House when the mall first opened, but I don't remember it. I do remember Port o'Call later. The Walgreens had strange electric gates that we kids loved to activate. I also remember the t-shirt shop called T-Express which sold cool heat transfers. When Atari and Intellivision came out K-mart set up free demonstrations of the game systems and kids like myself would spend all afternoon in the store fighting each other over who got to play next. I'm sure the store loved that. We would at least sometimes buy Icees. 

I could go on and on about the mall....buying my first F. Scott Fitzgerald book at Readmore, writing a tune called "Bookstore Angel" about some girl I saw shopping there, wasting a precious quarter or two just to get the little scrolled horoscope from a machine at Silver Shack, playing Defender in the area between the mall and Kroger, hearing Hall and Oates's "Private Eyes" on a stereo spilling out from Radio Shack, finding $40 on the ground outside K-mart one hot summer day, and what's really strange to me is one of my biggest memories is from when the mall didn't exist, but when it was being built probably in the fall of 1976 -  the son of my current babysitter who lived on Battleground Drive took me for a ride on his motorcycle on that random afternoon and I remember being very cold and noticing all of the heavy equipment moving earth not even really aware of what was being built.

The Mall would later be rebadged Stones River Plaza and by 1986 stores began to abandon it to go just up the road to Georgetown Square which I have never understood. I guess Kroger could use the extra room, but I thought other stores had plenty of room. Readmore leaving really tore me up. Their new store was never as good even with extra space. The L shaped inside portion was eventually made into a normal outdoor shopping center except for a small core of stores located right in the 90 degree bend of the L. That's another head scratcher for me. Retail comes and goes, but memories remain.

Soft Opening Ad April 3, 1977 DNJ which means the Mall opened April 4th

Ribbon cutting April 28, 1977

The photo I have been using at the top of my page is from the 1st anniversary weekend in 1978. I think it was posted by Troy Bell to a Murfreesboro or Rutherford County FB history page. I'm going to put it here also since I will change the top photo in July. Notice Stephanie's ear piercing store in the background.

The first anniversary ads I found are not great quality, but I'll share them anyways. I do like the McAdoo's ad which shows the storefront. 

The Mall celebrated its second anniversary in May of 1979 and for some reason invited Darth Vader to it. Maybe they were fans of the Empire. Radio station WMTS was in on the big party too with their rocket and an invitation to have a "Close Encounter Of The Savings Kind." And indeed, I wrote about this event briefly back in December 2019.

Notice the list of stores had changed in two years. A key making store AAA Lock & Key Service was now where T-Express had been located and someone posted a photo of it on FB so I'm grabbing it and sharing it here too. Hope they don't mind. If you were entering through the Kroger side of the mall it would be on your left directly in front of Walgreens. 

That's all for now. I wish there were more photos of the stores inside. I would absolutely love to see some of Readmore, Port o'Call, and most especially the Silver Shack game room. It was the first place I ever played Pac-Man. I do know it was owned by Lakeland Marine Inc. when it opened and Lakeland whose president was James J. Haynes and treasurer was George Haynes. John Dedman came over from the M.T.S.U. game room to be the first manager of the arcade so if anyone knows how to get in touch with those folks let me know. I've tried FB with no luck. 

Sunday Showcase May 1, 1977

It's another Sunday....at least I think it is (the days blend together during these pandemic days)....so it's time to look through another Sunday Showcase from the past. It's slightly interesting to see Nixon referred to as "Former President" on the cover since all former Presidents now are still just called President after they leave office. Perhaps it's because he resigned. The David Frost interviews were a big television deal back in 1977. I know it's still April, but let's go forward to May by going backwards today. I think this is the first look at a 1977 Sunday Showcase for me.

This week's Sunday Showcase is brought to us by Bernie's which was a fixture on Charlotte for many years. Everyone under the sun does shop there. 

The pop music world was abuzz with the baking news of Bread reuniting the previous year. This reunion would be short lived. Yacht rocker Stephen Bishop was the opener for the Bread reunion date on Saturday May 14 at Municipal Auditorium. I dig the soft rock of Bread plus I really liked their name when I was a kid. I hear that lots of people really knead their music to get through the day.

Nyacht Yacht Rock, but still a cool tune

the real star of this Bread performance in 1977's Midnight Special is the bass sound (wow)

"Green Grass And High Tides" Southern rockers the Outlaws would play Municipal Auditorium the night before on Friday the 13th. Note that the show is presented by FM 103. Atlanta Rhythm Section opened the show. They are considered to be Southern yacht rockers. 

"So Into You" is on the boat.

Stick Around For Some Rock And Roll Outlaws style!

Just like the concerts noted above this upcoming Fleetwood Mac show was a Sound Seventy Production. WMAK program director Joe Sullivan partnered with Roger McDaniel to create the company which became the premier promotor of live music in the Southeast. I believe the first concert that was promoted by Sound Seventy was a Steppenwolf concert at Municipal Auditorium. This particular Fleetwood Mac show was widely bootlegged. Another Yacht Rock superstar in the making Kenny Loggins opened this show. 

"Go Your Own Way" live in Nashville 1977

It's once again Action Auction time for channel 8. I still remember these well. It was a staple of childhood to turn on the station and be massively disappointed that Sesame Street, Zoom, The Electric Company, Villa Alegre, Dr. Who, Monty Python, or European soccer was not on. Heck, I even missed Julia Child's cooking show. 

Back to the music scene in Nashville during May of 1977: Dave Brubeck was coming to play the War Memorial with his kids. He had grown his hair out. Lots of jazz players were trying to keep up with the contemporary scene, but Brubeck had always been cool even when his hair was short. Heck, he even has an asteroid belt named for him. 

The Exit/In had a great line-up for this week but did misspell Flora Purim's last name,  and if their eclectic calendar didn't catch your fancy you could visit One Eyed Jack's or head up to West End to Luv's Disco. 

  

It's 1977 and the CB radio fad is still on or is it losing the signal? Maybe it was just a selling tactic to sell them at 66% off. How about a bunch of random CB radio clips after this ad? 10-4 Good Buddy! Let them truckers roll.

Volume and squelch

A Tandy Company

Another Radio Shack CB commercial

Look out Smokey I'm coming through

Fair Park was now open for the season. I always enjoyed going there, but it was in the early 80's when I got to go. I rode the Skyliner rollercoaster over and over one summer with my cousin Freddy only to see it close mere weeks later. There are lots of cool YouTube clips of Fair Park.

Memories Of Nashville Fair Park segment

I have tried to figure out what GG Ball was, but the older news article I found by Larry Woody wasn't all that illuminating. Great Girls (that's what GG stood for) in leotards play a game that is a cross between football, baseball, hopscotch, wrestling, volleyball, and belly dancing with a Nerf sized ball. Two 8 women teams face off against each other and the reason for the form fitting uniforms was to convey their femininity according to the sports inventor Vince Fodera. This first exposition match ended up drawing 367 people to the 8,175 seat Municipal according to an article I found in the May 13, 1977 Miami News. Funny though that The Tennessean article about the game said it only drew 200. The Georgia Blossoms beat the Tennessee Galaxies 64-50. I can't find any record of other games being played, but I didn't devote too much time to looking. This story could possibly be a good Netflix special or something. 

Finally we come to this week's top 10 records. Leo Sayer is on top with "When I Need You", but the Eagles "Hotel California" is coming for him. Kenny Rogers "Lucille" brings him back into the big time where he would stay the rest of his career. There are several acts on this list that aren't as well know so I'll highlight those for this post. Another typo found too: it's not Travares, it's Tavares. Where's the phone...call Sherlock Holmes so we can find out who made the mistakes in this week's Sunday Showcase. The Starz tune "Cherry Baby" only got up to number 33 nationally, but here it hits the local top ten proving Nashville music consumers had good taste.

Hot - Angel In Your Arms

Tavares - Whodunit

Starz - Cherry Baby

That does it for this week's review. Next week I'm headed back even farther into the past. 

Film Flashback April 24, 1978

This week's Film Flashback takes us to a Monday in Murfreesboro, Tennessee with some action, comedy, and drama movies to choose from. First let's go get an early supper. I'm going to get extra hushpuppies, hold the slaw. Don't forget the side order of crumbs too. 

The Turning Point is playing Cinema One. It was directed by Herbert Ross and stars Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft, Tom Skerritt, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. That last name mentioned should be a clue that this movie centers around ballet. A dancer joins a ballet company and her mother is now reminded that she gave up her dreams of the stage to raise a family. 

The Marbro has teen sex comedy Hollywood High which is about four high school ladies partying in the big house of some retired actor and frolicking on the beach. And then there is Young Cycle Girls AKA Cycle Vixens which is about three teenage girls running away from home who end up involved with really bad people. 

I think I'll pass on the Cinema One and the Marbro on this night and head over to the Martin Twin instead. I'm almost positive I saw Great Smokey Roadblock in the theatre since I was obsessed with trucking movies back then. Henry Fonda stars as Elegant John Howard who leaves the hospital where he was being treated for a terminal disease, steals his truck Elenor back after it was repossessed, and then makes one last perfect run hauling a bunch of hookers across the country. The truck itself was a 1976 Kenworth W900. The hookers were led by Eileen Brennan playing Penelope Pearson and features Susan Sarandon and Melanie Myron among their ranks. A pre-Freddy Robert Englund plays the hitchhiking Beebo whom Elegant John picks up early in the film. This is just a strange movie caught between being an outright sex farce and a good ole boy trucking movie. It apparently had sat on the shelf for awhile and had been retooled some before its release. I watched it again recently on Amazon Prime and it was just okay. 

Jodie Foster and David Niven star in the Disney flick Candleshoe which is about a con artist using a foster child (literally since it's Jodie Foster...right) to help him find a treasure. Jodie had just been seen in Taxi Driver and The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane so it was a bit strange to see her playing a role in a family film again, but I assume she still owed Disney some movies. Candleshoe also features Helen Hayes as the owner of the manor that harbors the treasure. It's been many years since I've seen it.

That's all for this week's film flashback. Come back next week to see what year we end up in next.

Sunday Showcase April 20, 1986

How many of you are going crazy from shelter in place? The local Wal-Mart here is now requiring all of its employees to wear masks and may soon require customers to as well. Thank goodness I stopped shopping there. I think I have enough peanut butter and crackers to ride this pandemic out, but we'll see. I've survived this week so here's another look back at a Sunday Showcase. The April 20, 1986 edition's cover boasts Dorothy Hamill who is coming to town for a Festival On Ice, some scary clowns from the Shrine Circus, Garrison Keillor, Billy Sherrill, and Van Halen who would be playing at Municipal Auditorium on that very night. 

The Shrine Circus made the cover, but there's a big ad in the Showcase for Ringling Bros. Barnun & Bailey Circus which would be coming to town in June. Talk about advance notice. Apparently they had gone back to the P.T. Barnum adage about a sucker being born every minute since this circus would have a real live.....UNICORN.....oh my gosh!

Another circus had been going on in rock and roll with David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen and then the subsequent joining together of Sammy Hagar and Van Halen. Some, like myself, dubbed this union Van Hagar. I was a fan of Sammy's solo work and knew a little of Montrose, but Van Halen with David Lee Roth was one of my favorite bands ever. The first big concert I ever saw was Van Halen on the 1984 tour. I was pretty much crushed with the development, but I thought the 5150 album wasn't too bad. I felt Sammy's lyrics were pretty awful at times and I wasn't too keen on the ballads, but Eddie was still the greatest living guitar player in my eyes. Since I had seen them with Dave I didn't even think about going to this show, but the Gonz called me up and insisted we go so off we went to Municipal Auditorium not really knowing what to expect with Sammy as frontman. There had been lots of vitriol from the Van Halen camp as you can see from this interview with Alex Van Halen and I didn't like that at all.

I ended up having a great time at the concert. I didn't like Sammy running Dave down which he did at times and his stupid lyrics like "US prime grade A stamped guaranteed grease it up and turn on the heat...." and "wanna play some love with them human toys" from "Good Enough" and "Summer Nights" were still stupid even if the music was great. "Summer Nights" was especially cool that evening, but the track that blew my mind live was "5150." I might prefer the Dave years, but "5150" may be my favorite Van Halen track. Eddie's solo that night in Nashville was better than the one on the 1984 tour too. I strongly recommend you watch the entire Live Without A Net concert on YouTube. There was no ads for the concert in this Showcase or any of them up to a month before. There was really little promotion out there for the 5150 tour at this point. 

"5150" from Live Without A Net New Haven, Connecticut

The only thing that can top Van Halen live might just be Chuck Norris. So be sure to grab your Invasion U.S.A. videocassette at your local Xanadu store. Invasion U.S.A. should be considered a Christmas movie classic.

The circus wasn't the only thing being sold months in advance. The Charlie Daniels Band's Volunteer Jam wasn't going to happen until July 12 at Starwood Amphitheatre, but you better get your tickets before it sold out. It would be the 12th one and I assume it was for charity. It may be because I was born in Tennessee, but I love Charlie Daniels and I might just fight you if you say mean things about him.

From Volunteer Jam XII Starwood Amphitheatre

I did a whole post about Sal's Rock-n-Roll Club, but I missed this ad where they featured a "Rock Video Night" on a Thursday night. Yes, children, there was once a world where rock and roll music videos were so popular that a night club could get people in the door just to watch them. Rox Sedan were from Indiana and they had a cool tune called "Better Off Dead" which is on YouTube.

Rox Sedan

The Top 10 records are about as Eighties as it gets. Just take a look at the artists listed. Sly Fox is the only one on the list that rates as a one hit wonder to me and what a great hit "Let's Go All The Way" was that spring. Prince gets 2 cuts in the Top Ten since he wrote the Bangles "Manic Monday" along with "Kiss" which blew our minds back then with its minimalistic funk. 

Sly Fox original promo video

It is a Sunday....Showcase review

you don't have to be beautiful

And here's Prince doing Manic Monday

That's all for this Sunday Showcase. Next week I'm heading to a year that I've not ever ventured to before.

Linebaugh Library 1971

Those that know me personally know my position on time travel. If I was suddenly granted the right to travel through time I would go straight to 1970's era Linebaugh Library. I didn't participate in story hours or any of the reading activities for youth. The only time I visited during the day was rarely on a Saturday morning. My father generally went once a week on Thursday nights and that was when I visited the library. The kids section in the basement was usually unattended by an adults and I would have the run of the section until I grew bored and then I would go upstairs and look through the adult section for books on sports, movies, and other things that interested me. There would usually be very few people in the adult sections too. I loved the modern addition to the building and how tall the shelves were as I went down each row while my father generally spent his time looking through any books related to astrology, numerology, coin collecting, metal detecting, or treasure hunting. Time seemed to be suspended as long as I was inside the building so perhaps I have already time traveled. Here is an ad from the April 18, 1971 Daily News Journal kicking off National Library Week at Linebaugh.

Film Flashback April 17, 1985

It was a Wednesday in Murfreesboro on April 17, 1985. My senior year of high school was in its last furious full swing. We'd dodged having to move graduation until the middle of June by having our spring break taken after January and February snows caused us to miss almost 4 weeks of school. Those were glorious frozen days, but the spring thaw had come and fresh movies had arrived along with one film that was in its second to last night after playing for 19 straight weeks.

The Cinema Twin offers up the biographical story of the The Killing Fields. It's about a journalist trapped in Cambodia during the dark and terrible reign of Pol Pot. The trailer is very intense. The other movie is Stephen King's Cat's Eye. I haven't seen it, but the trailer is interesting. It's an anthological horror film with a stray cat linking each story. Both of these movies played for just one week so they were near the end of their stay in Murfreesboro.

 

The Martin Four has got you covered with fantasy, cop comedy and drama, and one of my favorite films ever made.

Ladyhawke directed by Richard Donner stars Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, and Michelle Pfeiffer and is a megadose of fantasy. This movie would stick around for an additional week.

Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment continues in the dumb humor style of the first movie. Bobcat Goldthwait steals the show as the evil Zed. I didn't see this one in the theatre, but I saw it on VHS back in the day. Guttenberg and company would play at the Martin Four for 9 weeks. This was its 3rd week.

Beverly Hills Cop was in its 19th and final week at the Martin Four. Somehow I never went to see it, but I caught it later on video. Eddie Murphy is great as Axel Foley. It really is a deft fish out of water comedy mixed with just enough drama to have you on the edge of your seat. There's a reason it played so long and that reason is it's a darn good movie.

The last movie is the one dearest to my heart. The Breakfast Club was the perfect movie for a high school senior to watch. I'm not going to delve into the plot because if you've read this far I'm sure you know it yourself. I did love how the movie was more like a play and the actors were all fantastic. I bought a movie poster of it from Collector's World even. Most intriguing for me was when I thought back to when I had seen it because after delving deeper into the past I discovered a mystery. There were a couple of things I knew for a fact. 

I saw the film one week before seeing Vision Quest which is another essential 80's movie and I saw the film with teammates of the Riverdale Quiz Bowl team. We had been at a competition at Martin College in Pulaski on a Friday. We drove back to Murfreesboro that evening and I insisted we needed to see the movie so myself, DD Blank, Radargirl, the Katman, and perhaps Rob P also went to see it. I remember Radargirl loving the Bowie quote from "Changes" used at the beginning of the film. Since The Breakfast Club general release was on February 15th that had to be the night we saw it, right? Wrong. Boy was I wrong. It's not your heart that dies when you get older it's your memory.

So I did some research. It turned out that Vision Quest came out on February 15th also and unlike The Breakfast Club it did play in Murfreesboro on that date. It played for two weeks. I definitely went to see Vision Quest on February 15 because I met my cousin Freddy in town and he had brought along a couple of girls. We saw the movie and then drove around town in my old Plymouth Fury II with the ladies. That was a bit unusual as I didn't see my cousin as much in those days as I had when we were younger. So why had I remembered seeing The Breakfast Club the week before? Had I really seen it then and then seen it again with my Quiz Bowl teammates? I had. And here's how:

February 8, 1985 DNJ

I was there that night for this sneak peek. I had seen a trailer and the movie looked interesting to me. So I had seen it before Vision Quest. Note, I had not even seen Sixteen Candles at this point. I vaguely recognized Molly Ringwald as having been in the movie Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone which I had seen at the theatre outside Hickory Hollow a year or so before and I remembered her from the first half season of The Facts Of Life as she was part of the original cast. She was not yet the icon that The Breakfast Club made her. Seeing her in The Breakfast Club made me want to see her in other things and ABC was about to air a TV movie about teen suicide titled Surviving. This aired on February 10, 1985. There was even a blurb about it in that same issue of DNJ. Of course, I watched this movie when it aired. 

I had already seen The Breakfast Club long before I saw it again with my Quiz Bowl teammates. The movie began its regular showing at the Martin on April 12th. So that was the day of our competition at Martin College. I insisted they see it because I had seen it and knew it was great. I was going to see it again with or without them. But seeing it with them made it all that much better. There was a core group of us on that Quiz Bowl team that had gone to all of the early morning practices and had gone to every competition and we had a great time together. I loved all of then and love them all still. A good friend of mine once said the best thing about being in the marching band was being part of something bigger than themselves and that's the way I feel about Quiz Bowl too. My senior year of high school was pretty darn cool and the last few months were close to being outright magical. The whole world seemed to be opening up for me and everything seemed to be in on it....if you get my drift. Writer and director of The Breakfast Club John Hughes definitely was in on it. Oh, and in case you are wondering The Breakfast Club only played for one week in Murfreesboro.

When I helped deejay the student council dance I brought The Breakfast Club soundtrack.

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... ...an athlete... ... a basket case... ...a princess... ...and a criminal... Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

Monday Music

How about a few Beatles tunes today. If you could go back in time to 1973 you could wait a week or so for this sale at Clarks in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. So I'm picking tunes that were on these compilations (perhaps not the versions on the records) and it will probably be Lennon heavy since he was my favorite.

Ticket To Ride

Help

I Feel Fine

Paperback Writer

Strawberry Fields Forever

Revolution

Don't Let Me Down

Something

Sunday Showcase April 15, 1979

Happy Easter 2020 or as happy as you can make it during this pandemic. I'm going back to one of my favorite Sunday Showcase years again. This week's issue is from the April 15, 1979 Sunday Tennessean. Kevin Dobson is in between Kojak and Knots Landing (he joined that show's cast in 1982) so he's making television movies.  ABC News is doing a story about men in siege due to liberated women. It's all so Seventies out there!

Tom Jones would be coming to the Municipal Auditorium in the next month. Tickets seem expensive to me, but I don't think I was in the right demographic for Mr. Jones. I am very confused as to why WSM was promoting the show. Sure, Tom had cut "Green, Green Grass of Home" way back in 1967, but he wouldn't put out an actual country record until 1982. During this period Tom was cutting disco numbers like everybody else in the music industry. He was one of my father's favorite singers. Opener Freddie Roman was a stand up comedian. It was standard practice for pop singers to have comedians open for them. 

Tom Jones "Shadow Dancing" his way into our hearts

Coming much sooner to Municipal was The Black Expo Concert on April 20. Sound Seventy and WVOL are presenting this big concert. Trivia time: WVOL 1470 AM The Mighty 147 was the first media company to hire Oprah Winfrey as a broadcaster when she was still in high school. Since it is 1979 most of these artists were also trying their luck with disco which was fine with me. Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers were the lone exception with their band leader and guitarist Chuck Brown credited with inventing "Go-Go" music. I would have enjoyed this concert.

Howard Kenney save some for the children 1978

Tyrone Davis tells us you know what to do in 1979

Betty Wright circa 1979

Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers were bustin' loose!!!

The night before the 20th you could check out Cheap Trick with their opening act TKO at War Memorial Auditorium. My friend the Xman got to see this concert. He said that TKO was brilliant and it's a shame they never made it big, but Cheap Trick was next level and awe inspiring as the Heaven Tonight/Budokan era Cheap Trick was untouchable. I bet they were. One of the first records I ever bought that wasn't birthday or Christmas money related was Live At Budokan. I still remember walking up to Jackson Heights Plaza to the Sound Shop and grabbing it off the rack. I consider "Surrender" to be the greatest rock song ever composed.

Rock N'Roll Again

got my Kiss record out

Cheap Trick Rockpalast 1979

If you watched the Rockpalast concert all the way through you actually saw the Kiss record that the parents got out, but we're on to the Top 10 Records of Nashville for the week preceding April 2, 1979. There's some major disco hits on this chart with the Bee Gees, Gloria Gaynor, and Amii Stewart with some dance floor fillers. Frank Mills hits with "Music Box Dancer" and local Nashville TV station WNGE 2 started playing it before it became a hit. It's very interesting that he says melody hasn't been very popular lately due to disco. Blondie's discofied "Heart of Glass" is on the Nashville chart for its second week. I went crazy for Blondie after seeing them perform on the Mike Douglas Show and "Heart Of Glass" was a huge favorite of mine. I would get the album Parallel Lines for my birthday later that year. The Doobie Brothers hit massively with "What A Fool Believes" which is the gold plated standard for Yacht Rock. I'm going to include a funny NSFW video of how that song came about too. I recommend the whole Yacht Rock series if you want a good laugh. I watch every 6 months or so. Let's throw in Kenny Loggins's version of the tune also. 

Frank Mills on WNGE News 2 program 1979

once had love and it was a gas

muster a smile for his nostalgic tale

Yacht Rock episode 1

Kenny's version was release first!

Old soul stars, Tom Jones, Blondie, plus The Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart were all going disco so The Beach Boys joined in with an almost 11 minute disco version of "Here Comes The Night" on their L.A. (Light Album) release in 1979. They would be coming to play M.T.S.U's Murphy Center on April 24th. 

Here Comes The Night disco short version

The concert got major coverage in the May 3, 1979 Murfreesboro Press so since I love The Beach Boys (except for their foray into disco which was mildly interesting at best) I am including this as a bonus. All of those photos are by Mike West.

Back to our regularly scheduled Sunday Showcase clippings. If you couldn't be at The Beach Boys concert on April 24th you could dress up like the early 1960's and attend filming of concert scenes in Coal Miner's Daughter at Municipal Auditorium on April 24 and 25th.

Look quick and see some of the shots inside Municipal and other Nashville spots

The Great Escape had its grand opening sale going on at 1925 Broadway. My 6th grade peers that were lucky enough to visit the store that spring would come back to Murfreesboro and regale me with stories of all of the comic books for sale. I wouldn't get to visit there until 1985, but made up for lost time afterwards. I was there shopping on the last day that location was open. Of course, once the pandemic quarantine is over you should be able to visit their Charlotte Pike location, Murfreesboro, and Bowling Green, Kentucky stores again.

Now for the oddity that was NBC's version of the After School Special with Reading, Writing, and Reefer. I think ABC's fictionalized ones were better. Strangely enough you can see all of this special on YouTube. So check out Brian getting high. Note: I clipped this this before I found the clip. 

Are you high right now? Yeah, a little.

Finally we bring this Sunday Showcase review to a close with this contest ad where you could win a 2 bedroom luxury apartment at Nashboro Village courtesy of KDF. When I would go up to Nashville via Murfreesboro Road as a kid and young adult I would always remember seeing the Nashboro Village sign (I really liked the letter font used) and wonder what it was like over there. I finally went to an apartment there once in the 90's and it was very nice then. I wonder if it still is. I hope the person who won the contest enjoyed their time there. Perhaps they are still there.

Bonus Cheap Trick material: the Xman just sent me additional info from that night back in 1979.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget Cheap Trick playing “Heaven Tonight “live. It was mesmerizing.

BTW- we arrived at War Memorial about 4 in the afternoon and just walked in. When we came into the hall, Cheap Trick was doing sound check, which we sat in the back and watched. Robin waved at us at one point. Then, Rick jumps off the stage and starts walking towards us. I remember it was really weird because he had a huge piece of red licorice that he was eating. He approached us with his hands out like he was about to choke us, then walked down and introduced himself and we shook hands. Then George Harrell, who was with us, asked him if he had a guitar pick. He put one in his mouth and spit it right to him!

They finally asked us to leave, and we came back that night. Had great seats as I recall. Something like second or third row.