When TV historians tell you that the sit-coms That Girl, Julia, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show were the first American TV series to feature a working woman who wasn’t a domestic servant as the lead, they’re just wrong.

The actual honor goes to a sit-com called Private Secretary that debuted almost at the dawn of television – 1953 – and ran quite successfully for 5 seasons on CBS. The show was built around the talents of actress Ann Southern, who had risen to fame in the 1940s playing brassy, wisecracking heroines with hearts of gold, most notably as the star of a series of B-movies for M-G-M as aspiring showgirl Mazie Ravier.

Moving to television was a shrewd career move as, by 1953, Sothern was already in her mid-40’s and well past the sell-by date for most showgirl roles in the movies. In Private Secretary, she played the title character, Susie McNamara, although she was much more what we would now call a Personal Assistant than secretary for a very powerful talent agent, Peter Sands, played by Don Porter.

The show also featured Ann Tyrell as the agency’s easily flustered receptionist and Susie’s best friend, Vi Praskins. Jesse White, who would later find his greatest fame as the Maytag Repairman, had a recurring role as “Cagey” Calhoun, a much lower-rent rival agent to Sands.

Most of the plots centered around schemes Susie came up with to help her boss. The schemes would then backfire, but somehow manage to work out favorably for her boss by the fade out. The show began by alternating the same time slot with The Jack Benny Program and always performed well in the ratings. In fact, the show was renewed for a 6^th season when Sothern, who owned a piece of the show, got into a dispute with the producer over how big a share that should be.

Sothern walked away from Private Secretary, along with series regulars Porter, White & Tyrell to launch The Ann Sothern Show, which ran an additional 3 seasons. Meanwhile, Private Secretary reruns were retitled Susie and had a long, successful run in syndication, showing up as late as 1990 on Nickelodeon’s Nick at Nite program block.

Sothern continued to work on stage and television until a back injury sustained while appearing in a play finally forced her to reduce her work schedule. Porter went on to work for most of his life also achieving some fame as father to girl surfer, Gidget in both Gidget Goes to Rome and the short-lived ABC sit-com that starred Sally Field.

Private Secretary appears to have fallen into public domain, but to date, only around 16 episodes (out of more than 100) have been available on home video.

While not as big a hit as some of their other releases, “Darling Be Home Soon” by the Lovin’ Spoonful has increased in stature over the years, with cover versions being recorded by Joe Cocker, Bobby Darin, the Association and even Slade and the Tedeschi Trucks Band.

The song was commissioned by then-beginning film director, Francis Ford Coppola for his coming-of-age comedy You’re a Big Boy Now. Coppola wanted the song for the film’s pivotal seduction scene. He had been using “Monday Monday” by the Mamas and Papas as a placeholder & told songwriter (and the Spoonful’s leader & songwriter) John Sebastian that he wanted the Spoonful’s song to be the same tempo.

Sebastian had been thinking about how many rock songs were written about guys on the road hoping to get back to their girl. He decided it was time to reverse that dynamic. He wrote about a guy who was waiting for his girl to return from the road. He deliberately kept the lyrics vague. We’re not sure if the guy is singing to his girl just before she leaves or he’s singing it after she’s already gone to cope with his loneliness.

No matter which interpretation you want to give it, his band did not like the song. They didn’t think it rocked enough and was “too emotional.” Most of their earlier hits had all been up-tempo pop tunes with much more playful lyrics. In addition, it became the first Spoonful song to receive a full orchestral backing which took the group’s sound farther away from their usual folk-rockabilly leanings.

To this point, the band had successfully bucked the prevailing trend in rock recording, which was to use studio musicians instead of actual band members during the recording process. But the rhythm track on “Darling Be Home Soon” proved especially tricky and in the end, the Spoonful’s drummer, Joe Butler, was replaced by studio player, Billy LaVorgna.

Unfortunately, You’re a Big Boy Now bombed at the box office, which hurt the songs chances on the charts. It broke into the Top 20, but stalled at 15. Nevertheless, it went on to become a favorite of Sebastian’s and one that he nearly always plays during his live shows.

'Fess up! How many of you either had this game or had sisters who had this game?

The latest research shows what was once “common knowledge” was wrong. Turns out our metabolism doesn’t slow down all that much after we hit 60. So why does that body we had in our 20s continue to elude us?

Well, it seems we don’t get enough protein, something we actually need more of, not less, as we age. For women, that’s at least 25 grams of protein with every meal – for men at least 30.

If you want to win the battle of the bulge, the experts also say you should:

• Eat fruits & veggies at every meal and as your snack
• Increase your intake of fiber (dieticians recommend beans, lentils & split peas)
• Try exercising a bit more (something that’s been “common knowledge” & turns out to be true)

One of the greats in the first wave of “stoner” albums, the Moody Blues’ In Search of the Lost Chord was actually the band’s 3^rd studio album, but the first to make its presence known on American album charts.

Of course, the band had been part of the British Invasion that was touched off by the Beatles in 1964. They scored a significant American hit with their single “Go Now,” hitting the U.S. Top 10 in 1965. But their first album didn’t sell in the States in any great number.

The band then went through a small personnel change and a big change in musical direction. Original Moodys John Lodge, Ray Thomas & Graeme Edge were joined by Justin Hayward & Mike Pinder. Their musical focus changed from American R&B to the then-emerging progressive rock sound that was fusing classical music styles and instruments with the guitars & drums of rock & roll.

Their second album, Days of Future Past, released in 1967, was actually the first album to showcase what we came to know as the classic Moody Blues' sound. They recorded that album with the London Symphony Orchestra. But again, the album failed to dent the American charts (at least right away).

So, for their third LP, the lads decided to forego the orchestra and try to play as many instruments as the could by themselves. Like DOFP, In Search of the Lost Chord would also be a “concept” album about exploration and discovery, both physical and intellectual.

Obviously drenched in the emerging hippie and drug culture of that period (with cuts like “Thinking Is the Best Way to Travel” and “Legend of a Mind” – an homage to LSD and Timothy Leary, who seemed to be everywhere proselytizing for its use), the album also leaned heavily on instrumentation borrowed from the classic music of India (then being popularized by the Beatles’ George Harrison). The Moody Blues displayed tremendous versatility playing some 33 instruments on the album’s various tracks.

By the time of the album’s 1968 release, American radio was evolving with FM stations in larger cities becoming the launch pad for a new format, first labeled “progressive rock” and then, “album rock.” Thanks to these new arbiters of rock & roll taste, In Search of the Lost Chord broke through, especially with tracks like “Ride My See-Saw,” “Voices in the Sky” and the album’s closing track “Om.” With this new form of airplay, the LP reached #23 on the American charts. Not as impressive as some of the group’s subsequent albums, but high enough to secure the band’s until-then shaky future with their record label (UK’s London Records).

Finally getting recognition on both sides of the Atlantic, each of the Moodys’ subsequent albums continued to sell better and better until A Question of Balance finally reached the Top 5 behind a solid hit single, “Question.” Seventh Sojourn (actually the group’s 8^th album) finally hit the #1 spot. “Nights in White Satin” from DOFP was re-released and this time raced up the Billboard Hot 100 and propelling the album onto the American album charts 5 years after its initial release – hitting #3.

But the Moodys’ rise to fame really began with the album no self-respecting hippie in 1968 would have been without: In Search of the Lost Chord.

4-20 was last week. Sorry, we're a little late, but we had the munchies and went out looking for Doritos. Anyway, hope your desperate search for thrills had a happy ending!

When Goldfinger stuck some real gold at the box office in 1965, suddenly espionage became the #1 genre for movies and TV shows. That craze burned brightly for 3 years and has never been completely extinguished. (James Bond continues to exercise his license to kill and new additions, like Jason Bourne, crop up from time to time.)

But back when spies were all the rage, the most successful spy at the movie theaters after 007 was actually Dean Martin as Matt Helm! Like Bond, Helm began as a series of novels. The character was created by author Donald Hamilton as a ruthless, no-nonsense counter agent who was hard-boiled and brutal and continued his career through 27 novels right up to 1993.

But Matt Helm in the movies was an entirely different story. The movies simply took the character name and the titles from some of the novels, but then went in a wildly different direction (something that wouldn’t happen with the Bond series until after Thunderball). Instead of being ruthless and hard-boiled, Helm’s character was simply reworked into the same character Dean Martin played his whole life – that of an easy-going, wisecracking, alcohol-loving skirt chaser.

The plots are extremely silly, often making no sense at all. They find ways to get Dean Martin songs onto the soundtrack even though Matt Helm never sings at all in any of the films, and there is the occasional Frank Sinatra joke that pops up. Although it may seem to be difficult, these films succeed in being even more sexist than the Bond films.

Surprisingly, the Matt Helm series lasted longer than any of the other Bond-wannabes racking up 4 features between 1966 and 1969: The Silencers, Murderer’s Row, The Ambushers and The Wrecking Crew. Viewed today, it’s hard to understand why this series went through 3 sequels when Our Man Flint or Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer were each only good for a pair of pictures. The only explanation can be:
1.) The enduring popularity of Dean Martin

2.) The multitude of curvaceous women who wiggled their way through these films, including Stella Stevens, Ann-Margaret, Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate and Tina Louise.

Although a 5^th movie (The Ravagers) was announced at the end of The Wrecking Crew, disappointing box office for that 4^th film meant there would be no more Helm films.

Today, these movies present a pretty good time capsule of what popular entertainment was like in the “adult” world of the 1960s before the Boomers took over Hollywood and the style of movie-making shifted radically. A DVD set of all 4 films was released back in 2005 but is currently out of print in the US (although it remains in print in the UK) and commanding pretty steep prices on the second-hand market.

Maybe it would be better to buy yourself a good bottle of Scotch and listen to an old Dean Martin CD.

It’s a lucky person who can go through a typical day without at least one call on their smartphone from a potential scam artist.  The experts say there are 3 simple steps you can use to protect yourself from being ripped off:

1.) Never answer a phone call from a number you don’t recognize. Let it go to voicemail. Then, listen to any voicemail they may have left to see if it’s from a friend or business you recognize.

2.) Never make a quick decision (especially if it’s about money or sharing personal information) during a phone conversation.

3.) Before committing to any investment “opportunity,” ask for the broker’s name. Then, check them out with your state’s securities regulator to see if he or she is registered in your state or visit brokercheck.finra.org, where you can compare the information the person on the phone gave you with the officially listed details.

Great news! Researchers at John Hopkins University have uncovered a link between music and a healthy brain.  According to their study, listening to music on a regular basis (like logging onto BoomtownAmerica.com every day) can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, pain as well as improving memory, mood, mental alertness and sleep quality.

So, rock on! It helps keep you young & healthy!

Art Rupp is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Yet, most people are totally unaware of who he is and the role he played in the early days of rock & roll.

Art Rupp was one of the white guys (along with Leonard Chess & Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler) who founded an independent record label in the 1950s dedicated to signing black recording acts and getting their music in front of a white audience. In Rupp’s case, he founded Specialty Records in Los Angeles. Among the acts he signed were Lloyd Price (“Personality”), Larry Williams (“Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” “Bony Maronie”) and a gospel group called the Soul Stirrers. That group featured a young singer named Sam Cooke, who wanted a solo career. He also wanted to appeal to the widest possible audience. So, he cut a record for Rupp named “You Send Me.” Rupp didn’t think it sounded black enough – it was too pop oriented. So, he let Cooke take the record to RCA, who bought it and launched Cooke on a string of hit records that only ended with Cooke’s untimely death.

But by far, his greatest discovery was a young kid from Macon, Georgia who went by the stage name Little Richard. After signing Richard in 1955, Rupp and his producer Bump Blackwell were having a tough time getting anything worth releasing. During a break from one recording session, Richard and Blackwell were at an inn near the studio. Richard started playing on the eatery’s piano and singing a song he often performed live but thought too dirty to record – “Tutti Fruitti.” Blackwell realized that Richard really came alive only when playing the piano while he sang. Prior to this, the producer had Richard standing by a microphone and not playing while singing.

Back to the studio they went. They cleaned up the lyrics of Richard’s song (like changing “Tutti Frutiti, Good Booty” to “Tutti Fruitti, Aw Rootie!” Released in September of 1955, the record quickly became one of the songs that helped shape and define the music we now call rock & roll. Little Richard, as we know, went on to record an incredible string of hits for Rupp (“Long Tall Sally,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Rip It Up” and many more).

But there was a darker side to Rupp. Like many of the other white label owners, while they brought black music to white America, they kept most of the profits that music generated to themselves. Eventually, Richard would sue Rupp for back royalties, ultimately accepting a meager $11,000 settlement.

Rupp left the music business, selling its catalog to Fantasy Records in the 1990s and Rupp founded a charitable foundation which supports education. Rupp passed away over the weekend of April 17^th. He was 104!