Give Me Those Old Time Oldies On Gold Star Radio

Gold Star Oldies USA

March 20

First Day of Spring

2026

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Sweeper From Evelyn Laurie Records

Origins and Founders

Laurie Records was founded in March 1958 by Robert and Gene Schwartz and Allan I. Sussel, with arranger Eliot Greenberg joining as a minority partner in the early 1960s. The label’s name came from Sussel’s daughter, Laura “Laurie” Sue Sussel. Sussel had previously run Jamie Records, and Laurie became his more successful second act.

🎵 Breakthrough Artists and Sound

Laurie quickly carved out a niche in the late‑1950s/early‑1960s New York pop scene. Its roster included:

Dion & The Belmonts — the label’s first major hitmakers with “I Wonder Why” (1958).
The Chiffons — girl‑group staples with a polished Brill Building sound.
The Mystics, The Jarmels, Bobby Goldsboro, and The Royal Guardsmen.
Laurie also served as the U.S. outlet for Gerry & The Pacemakers, linking the label to the British Invasion.

A key creative force was songwriter Ernie Maresca, who penned several of Dion’s biggest hits and became part of the label’s internal engine.

🏢 Business Evolution and Subsidiaries

Laurie operated several subsidiary labels—Rust Records, Legrand Records, and others—allowing it to diversify its catalog and distribution footprint. The company maintained steady output through the 1960s and 1970s, typically anchored by one major act at a time.

By the early 1980s, Laurie rebranded as 3C Records, and its master recordings eventually came under the Capitol Records division of Universal Music Group.

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Legends Remembered & Celebrated — Gold Star Oldies Tributes

March 20, 1921 — Sister Rosetta Tharpe is born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, growing up to become a "hymn singing, guitar swinging evangelist" and America's first gospel superstar in the 1940s. Her performance style with its flashy electric guitar pyrotechnics influences early rockers and earns her the nickname "The Godmother of Rock and Roll." Tharpe's first record is "Rock Me" in 1941, a mix of blues and traditional gospel that works its way into R&B and soul.
1959 — Bobby Rydell makes his teen television debut, performing on ABC-TV's "American Bandstand." Thirty years later to the day, longtime show host Dick Clark retired from the program, replaced by David Hirsch. The show folds several months later.
1969 — John Lennon and Yoko Ono are wed at the Rock of Gibraltar.

March 21, 1952 — Cleveland disc jockey Alan "Moondog" Freed holds the first rock 'n' roll concert — the Moondog Coronation Ball — an ill-fated event shut down by police after the opening song when a surge of youths breaks down the doors trying to force their way into the vastly oversold venue, leading to a riot.


  2006 — Two years after filing suit, the family of South African Zulu musician Solomon Linda (right), who wrote and waxed the 1939 record "Mbube" ("Lion"), reach agreement with the song's publisher giving them partial royalties to the music that became "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Linda, who died destitute in 1962, signed away his rights to the song for a pittance a decade earlier to the South African record company that had originally issued it.
March 22, 1956 — Carl Perkins is seriously injured in a Delaware car accident en route to an appearance on NBC-TV's Perry Como Show, depriving him of his first national broadcast exposure while his record "Blue Suede Shoes" is climbing the charts. From a hospital bed, he watches it sung instead on another nationwide program by an emerging Elvis Presley, who recorded a competing version. Perkins' finally appears on Como's show two months later, a few weeks after his record has peaked. Although it had reached much higher on the music charts than Presley's, he never has another major hit.

March 23, 1955 — The movie Blackboard Jungle is released, launching its theme song, "Rock Around The Clock," into a hit for Bill Haley and His Comets a year after it flopped as the B-side of a moderately successful record, "Thirteen Women." With teens dancing in the aisles to the music, the film is widely credited as a catalyst for rock 'n' roll's growth.

  1956 — Alan Freed holds a three day "Rock 'n' Roll Stage Show" in Hartford, Connecticut with stars including Fats Domino and Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. Although Freed denies there was a riot, eleven teenagers are arrested over the weekend. The events prompt Dr. Francis J. Braceland of the Institute of Living in Hartford to call the music a "communicable disease.... It's cannibalistic and tribalistic." His remarks prompt a published defense of Freed by three well known bandleaders of the previous generation — Sammy Kaye, Benny Goodman, and Paul Whiteman.

March 24, 1958 — Elvis Presley goes to the Memphis, Tennessee, draft board for his induction into the U.S. Army.

March 25, 1958 — Elton John is born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in Pinner, Middlesex, England. His stage name, taken at age 20, comes from two members of the band Bluesology — Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.
  2001 — Bob Dylan wins the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Things Have Changed" from the movie Wonder Boys.

2007 — Elton John sets the record for the most performances at New York's Madison Square Garden when he performs there for the 60th time — on his 60th birthday.

March 26, 1966 — After 14 years on television and 10 years on radio before that, ABC-TV broadcasts the final episode of "The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet," which made Ricky Nelson a household name.
1971 — The Rolling Stones' lips and tongue logo appears for the first time when it is used on VIP passes for their show at the Marquee Club in London. It was designed by John Pasche, a student at London's prestigious Royal College of Art. Pasche, who earned £50 (about $75) for his efforts, says did not consciously base the design on Jagger's lips, but admits he may have done so subconsciously.

Sources:
Eight Days a Week (Ron Smith)
On This Day in Black Music History (Jay Warner)
Chronology of American Popular Music, 1900-2000 (Frank Hoffman)