Spinning Wheel!

As we continue our countdown of  suggested songs for our VU Centennial Class 40th Reunion CD to be played at our Friday night party on October 4, the latest suggestion comes from my WRVU buddy, Dan Brown. It's probably one he played while he was the DJ and I was his newsman during an afternoon shift back in the late 60s and early 1970s.

It's "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears. The song, featured on the album above was a monster hit in 1969. Released as a single, it peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and remained there for three weeks. The song, written by Canadian band member and soloist David Clayton Thomas, also had great cross-over appeal, being #1 on the Billboard Easy Listening Chart for two weeks in August, 1969 and reaching #45 on the U.S. R&B list. The song won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement in 1970, while the album won Album of the Year that same year.

Here it is, courtesy of YouTube......

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK62tfoCmuQ

In closing, I must tell one story about Dan and I on the air on WRVU "back in the day." Or maybe I should say when we accidentially put the station "off the air" temporarily one afternoon.

I has left the newsroom and gone downstairs to get a coke out of our machine on the landing near the production room (and near the balcony in Neely Auditorium). The door leading back upstairs was always left open (and for a good reason). When it closed, it automatically locked!

Sure enough, Dan came bounding downstairs behind me, and somehow the dor slammed shut (and locked) behind us. Until Mary Bristow, the station's business manager, came by the studios after class about an hour later, we had no way to get back upstairs and into the studio or the newsroom. So when Dan's last record ended (it was proably a 45 on a turntable), the station went silent.

Ah, the good ole days....as our Spinnng Wheel at WRVU kept going, round and round.