101 # 1 Song of the Day 7-25-12

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the 101 number song of the day was sung by a woman who got her start in music by doing something that her band director thought was terribly abnormal.

As for the “abnormality” he told her that playing the drums was not a normal thing for a young woman to do. That was all she had to hear. She was determined to play the drums after that and she and her brother formed a band with him on the keyboards and her on the skins and then later, on as lead vocals. At first they called the group “Spectrum” but had no success in landing a recording contract until A & M Records head Herb Alpert heard her voice and signed them. They wound up doing a song that Burt Bacharach had hoped Alpert would sing but Herb just couldn’t bring himself to sing the line “So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair.” And that brings us to the number one song on July 24, 1970 for the group now known as “The Carpenters” (They Long to Be) Close to You.