We're all about the history of rock & roll at BoomtownAmerica.com!

Every week, we present “ROCK REMEMBERED,” a deep dive into the hidden history of rock & roll, the stories behind the artists and songs that changed the world. Join host “Boomtown Bill” Cross each Wednesday at 7 pm (Eastern) with an encore broadcast on Saturday at noon (Eastern).

Join us today as we play "The Songs Lennon & McCartney Gave Away!"

Debut albums. They really have never been “make-it-or-break-it” kind of releases as many of rock’s greatest acts had less than stellar initial offerings. But the reverse can sometimes be a bit of a curse.

Here are just a few debut albums that may also be these artists’ best albums:

The Doors – Their first, self-titled LP was an instant classic, giving us “the long version” of “Light My Fire,” which clearly indicated the way rock was going to go in the next few years. It also contained bona fide classics like “Break on Through,” “Soul Kitchen,” and “Twentieth Century Fox.” Add to that one of the obligatory roots blues numbers so popular at that time, “Back Door Man,” and a weird 1925 German opera song written by playwright Bertold Brecht & composer Kurt Weil, “Alabama Song.”

And of course, the cherry on top, the long, stream-of-consciousness ramblings of “The End” (allegedly recorded while Jim Morrison was tripping on acid). While the Doors had a long, successful career until Morrison’s tragic end, as far as the critics were concerned nothing ever matched up to their maiden voyage.

Led Zeppelin – The band actually began life as “The New Yardbirds,” thrown together by Jimmy Page to cover some gigs the Yardbirds had been contracted for before they decided to break up. However, once they got together, Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham decided it made more sense to create a musical identity that owed nothing to the Yardbirds’ past. Their first album was actually recorded before the band even had a record deal. They financed it themselves. This gave the band total creative control. The album was an instant favorite on the newly emerging string of “progressive” radio stations that were popping up on the FM dial. With songs that remained live favorites for years like “Communication Breakdown,” “Dazed and Confused,” and “Good Times Bad Times,” this LP instantly established Led Zeppelin as one of rock’s top acts when it was released in 1968.

Unlike the Doors, many of the group’s subsequent albums were better than or at least equal to this first offering.

Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell – Marvin Aday, under his stage name Meat Loaf, was touring with a National Lampoon stage show. For some reason, fledgling composer Jim Steinman was also along on that tour. The two bonded and began working on a rock opera project based on Peter Pan that Steinman called Neverland. That soon morphed into taking 3 songs from the Neverland project and combining them with 4 new Steinman songs to become a project we now know as Bat Out of Hell.

Unable to get any record label interested in them, Mr. Loaf and Steinman recorded the album by themselves over a two-year period (1975-76). Somehow, the duo landed Todd Rundgren as their producer.

What followed was a series of brutal rejections by virtually every major label. Finally, the album secured a release in 1977 through the tiny Cleveland International label. It went on to sell more than 43 million copies (making the major labels look pretty stupid) and established Steinman as a composer who went on to have hits with artists as wide-ranging as Barry Manilow, Bonnie Tyler, and Boyzone.

Unfortunately, Meat Loaf never did find much success singing anyone else’s songs. After their long-delayed Bat follow-up Dead Ringer stiffed, a brief period of feuding between the two ensued. Eventually, they patched things up and Meat Loaf went on to record 3 more LPs of Steinman’s compositions.

The Cars – By the late 70s, much of rock was mired in over-produced, self-important sludge. The remedy was a back-to-basics movement dubbed “new wave.” And one of the leading proponents of that wave was this little band from Boston led by Ric Ocasek. Their debut album, released in 1978, has some interesting parallels to the Doors. Both LPs came out on Elektra Records. Both featured multiple cuts that got extensive FM airplay, and most critics considered both debut albums to be each band’s best.

While the album peaked at #18 on the Billboard chart, it had remarkable staying power and wound up at #4 when the magazine released its year-end chart covering sales & airplay for all of 1978.

With a second side that featured each track seamlessly segueing into the next, band member Elliot Easton has said of the album, "We used to joke that the first album should be called The Cars' Greatest Hits.”

As the first generation for whom consumption of marijuana spread beyond avant-garde bohemians and jazz musicians, it has been interesting to watch the growing legalization of what we called pot and the kids call weed. Okay, not as dangerous as our parents warned us, but how beneficial is it?

Growing legalization has finally led to scientific studies of the various claims made about marijuana. Studies have confirmed that marijuana has some benefit in reducing chronic pain as well as helping people with sleep problems. But surprisingly, there’s still a lot we don’t know. As with many mind/mood-altering substances, it appears that everyone has different tolerance levels, so medical experts stress newbies should start slow and actually keep a journal of how much marijuana they’re taking and what the effects are.

Also, as the idea of smoking anything has decreased in popularity, gummies and other pot-infused edibles have now overtaken smoking/vaping as the most popular way to consume weed.

Local TV Horror Hosts – most of us had ‘em.

In New York and northern Jersey, it was Zacherley (aka John Zacherle). In L.A., it was Vampira. Milwaukee had Dr. Cadaverino and Tampa had Dr. Paul Bearer. They were the “creatures” who brought us monster movies, good and bad, usually on the weekend and ideally late at night.

For Halloween, here’s a look at some of the men and women who brought us Monster-Horror-Shock-Chiller-Nightmare-Theater!

It was an era when local stations actually did quite a bit of their own programming because the networks weren’t sending out shows around the clock. The hosts also gave the station an advantage. If they were showing a really bad movie, we didn’t care. We’d tune in anyway just to see what the host was up to.

See if your favorite is here:

Dr. Cadaverino (Milwaukee) / Dr. Shock & Bubble (Philadelphia) / Tarantula Ghoul (Portland)

Morgus the Magnificent (New Orleans) / Moona Lisa (San Diego) / Svengoolie (Chicago)

Crematia Mortem (Kansas City) / Dr. Paul Bearer (Tampa) / Sir Cecil Creep (Nashville)

Vampira (L.A.) / The Count (Seattle) / Karlos Barloff (Washington, D.C.)

Jonathan (Roanoke) / Count Graves Ghastly (Cleveland) / Sivad (Memphis)

The Vegas Vampire (Las Vegas) / Selwin (Indianapolis) / The Ghoul (Cleveland)

When we were first adopting blue jeans as our official look, many times our parents would refer to them as dungarees. Ever wonder where that name came from?

The word traces all the way back to 1600s when a rough, cheap cloth was imported to England from India. The cloth took the name from the seaside village that produced it, Dongri. The Hindi name for the cloth was dungri. In the UK, that became “dungaree.”

As the cloth was cheap to produce and very long-lasting, it became a favorite of the poor working class in the UK. The same held true when it was imported into the United States many years later. The most typical pieces of clothing made from this cloth were men’s pants and overalls. As it took two pieces of dungaree to make pants, those pants became known as dungarees – even after denim became the fabric of choice for their manufacture.

Their traditional use by poor laborers and farm field hands is another reason your parents (and your school dress code) typically frowned on blue jeans back in the day.