STUDENTS - EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK

This song kills, and it proves an interesting point about the old days. I heard this song over the end-credits of the Sopranos (re-runs) on my Bangkok cable TV in about 2010. I immediately made the connection with "The Bristol Stomp," and also the common mistake of thinking that it was Frankie Lymon. After looking it up and reading the entire story, I was amazed. Mostly because I had never heard this song before in my life. 

I'm pretty sure about that anyway. Maybe it was on the radio, but not in heavy rotation, hovering around the middle of the Billboard Hot 100 or something. 

That's the point. We missed out on a lot of great records in those days. I lived in New York, so we were lucky in a way. We had four, I think it was four, rock radio stations on the AM dial at the time. WMCA, WABC, WINS, and wasn't there another one? WMGM or something? WGN? Anyway, those three were the most popular. I didn't listen to WWRL until later, that was the black station way over on the right side of the dial. Maybe "the Big RL" played this song. But I never heard it. 

We were all squeezed into a tightly fitting box back then. Racism was rampant, radio programmers were hustling for the ad money, payola was involved for a long time, many records were regional hits only. In the subsequent decades I've heard a lot of great records that I didn't really have access to in the original period. You had to be in the right place at the right time, you had to know about all of the radio stations that you could only pick up after about ten p.m., you had to have friends that had uncles with access to different records. In other words, you had to be lucky. That lightning didn't strike too often. 

So thanks to the show runners and directors who are digging up gems like this for their shows. I don't usually praise people for trying desperately to be hip, but in this case go ahead, y'all! Find the good stuff! Share it!