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Why not tell the story behind the song?
What story?
Glad you asked!
Well, Louis Armstrong had a huge hit in 1964 with a song called Hello Dolly. It went to number one on the Billboard charts. Won a couple Grammy awards.
The record company wanted Louis to follow it up with the same kind of uptempo song.
But instead, Louis recorded a stunningly beautiful ballad called What a Wonderful World.
The head of the record company, Larry Newton, was furious. He hated Wonderful World. Hated it so much he refused to promote it in the USA when it was released in 1967. It was a big hit in the UK and Europe, but in America it sold less than 1,000 copies.
Which is about what my last single sold!
It wasn't until it was included in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam that it hit the Billboard charts--in 1988, more than twenty years later!
So as I was icing my left eyeball, I decided to tell a few stories like that before a few choice songs at the Annenberg.
So I stayed up all night, writing the show.
The next few nights I went to bed memorizing the song and story list. When I woke up in the morning, I'd go over it again. And again.
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