​To strike someone with the "underrated greatness" term always carries a bit of weight behind it. You know, the quick snap question of "do they deserve it" comes to mind.

Sorry, in the class of underrated greatness, diva subsection, lives Roberta Flack who at the platinum age of 75 still takes risks musically and creatively.

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​Today would have been country legend and pioneer Ernest Tubb's 98th birthday. Born in 1914 in Crisp, Texas near Dallas, his hometown is now designated as ghost town. For forty years, Tubb was a mainstay on the country circuit and the charts, with songs like "Walking the Floor Over You", "Waltz Across Texas", and "Thanks A Lot", in addition to versions of "Goodnight, Irene" and "The Yellow Rose Of Texas".

My first introduction to Tubb, dubbed "The Texas Troubadour" was in around 1989, sitting next to my grandfather in his swank, black Chevy Silverado on the way to elementary school in Alvin. We were listening to a cassette of what must have been a later period live show, because I remember hearing cheering and a man drawling "Hello everybody" here and there.

It was this day or maybe another that my grandfather let me know that he once met Tubb at some beer hall back "before you were even around" and that he signed his cowboy boots for him. Grandpa never pulled the boots out for me to gander at Mr. Tubb's scrawl -- and I think the boots got accidentally sold at a garage sale -- but in the back of my mind, I knew that the man was to be a big part of my relationship with Grandpa. Tubb was important to him, along with Hank Sr., Bob Wills, and Georges Strait and Jones. Being a fanboy is my DNA I guess.

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Courtesy Jacksboro Highway

L-R: Pete Best, John Lennon, Delbert McClinton, Bruce Chanel, Paul McCartney, George Harrison

​Lonesome, Onry and Mean didn't get in much trouble in school. So his parents were a little disturbed to find the eighth grader in the principal's office on the afternoon of February 10, 1964. He and his best friends, Mike Clowdus, Brad Rutledge, and Larry "Suitcase" Simpson, had been written up and sent to the office by Mr. Stephen Haynes, the eighth grade honors algebra teacher.

The infraction? Combing our hair like the Beatles.

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Courtesy LC Media

​I was living in Holland in 1977 when my younger brother, who had attended Wayland Baptist University on a track scholarship until booze and girls were discovered in his dorm room, came for a visit. While living in Plainview, his stomping grounds had been the gin joints of Lubbock. Upon arrival, he immediately opened his suitcase and pulled out an album he said I had to hear. It was some guy he had seen play in Lubbock who had just put out his first album.

It was what is known as Joe Ely's "white album." Self-titled, it has sometimes been referred to as the "No Loud Talk" album because of the sign on the wall behind the band on the back photo. Looking at the credits, I was amazed to see that Bob Johnston was the producer. He produced several of Bob Dylan's seminal sides.

Dropping the needle on side one of Joe Ely, my entire musical horizon changed.

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​ Once upon a time, LL Cool J was merely a Kangol wearing rapper who aimed for the ladies long before urban radio knew of such things from rappers. Now, he's on CBS Tuesdays on an NCIS spinoff and is hosting The Grammys this year. Not bad for someone I thought would shrink into musical obscurity as he continued to reinvent himself in the '90s.

In another inexplicable case of reinventions that worked, LL Cool J decided to interpolate Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody" into a song for the Beavis and Butt-head Do America soundtrack with the same name. Oddly enough the track reached number one in the UK while also garnering accolades as being the background song while cartoon Bruce Willis had sex with cartoon Demi Moore on film. Or at least got to second base, whatever.

While it may be the weirdest LL jam to ever reach #1, it's certainly not the best and considering Valentine's Day is on the horizon, here are five odes a ton better than "Ain't Nobody."

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Keep that blimp hand strong

​Today is the 267th birthday of one Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, who with his brother Joseph-Michele pioneered the first manned lighter than air flight. The Chinese had been using hot-air powered signal lanterns since the time of the Three Kingdoms, but it was the Montgolfier Brothers who were the first to send man skyward using the technology.

Joseph, a born genius and head of the family's paper manufacturing business was inspired when he was laundry drying over a fire rise. He recruited Etienne to his subsequent experiments, and their progress would be mirrored by the space program centuries later. First they proved they could lift off, then they sent some animals up to make sure being so high didn't kill you, then on October 15, 1783 Etienne became the first man to ascend in flight.

Lighter than air travel has always fascinated us, so in honor of aeronaut numero uno, here's seven tunes that Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier made possible.

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Photo By Groovehouse

Fat Mike of NOFX at the House Of Blues in January 2011

​Aside from the blood, bruises, beer, and the bands, the one thing you could always count on punk-rock for was to provoke unpopular thought. To make you go against what polite society and your parents had taught you. NOFX has been making punkers snicker and scratch their heads since 1983, this one included.

The band began writing odes to drugs, drinking, and sex, but as the band and lead singer Fat Mike Burkett got older and grew their own families, the sociopolitical bent to the madness became more pronounced. And listeners like myself welcomed it, even if our brains had been trained to disagree.

Today Fat Mike turns 45 years old, and he hasn't shown any signs of wavering in his questioning of this spinning ball of mud. Just a few months ago he was sporting a mohawk, at an age when most guys his age should be settling into hirsute normalcy. Yes, that was him on the red carpet at the recent AVN Awards in Las Vegas with his girlfriend, Mistress Soma.

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​Today is National Gorilla Suit Day. We're not explaining it for you because something so magical needs neither intellectual discourse, nor to be held up against the scrutiny of skeptics who are clearly dead inside. Just accept it. Today is National Gorilla Suit Day, and all are commended to observe.

In the name of doing our part, we present the following five National Gorilla Suit Day carols.

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Marco Torres

Alicia Keys at Toyota Center

​There's a reason why we lauded Alicia Keys when her debut album Songs In A Minor dropped a little more than a decade ago. The young piano prodigy had the look of a new age starlet, Billie Holiday with a fedora and braids and on her 31st birthday, revisiting her classic debut album is a necessity.

Keys had vibrancy about her from the moment "Fallin" nestled its way onto Top 40 radio playlists and stayed there for the better part of two years. A James Brown sample wrapped around a thundering piano loop and one heart-wrenching tale of love gone in vertigo put her on comparisons with notable songstresses such as Aretha Franklin and others.

It was gospel-driven, almost in the same way Adele patterns most of her big records behind Southern style choral arrangements and a big booming voice.  You loved "Fallin", I loved "Fallin" and later on when Keys admitted she played the piano sometimes in the buff, I swooned.

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​There is no more brilliant musician and lyricist than Edward Ka-Spel, the leader of the Legendary Pink Dots who turns 58 years old today. Ka-Spel has appeared on something like 50 albums in his lifetime, with the Dots, solo, and with cEvin Key in Tear Garden. His songs dance the lines between psychedelia, goth, pop, and rock and he is bar-non the most interesting person we have ever seen perform.

Houston has always had a hardcore following for the Prophet, but sadly every show we attend has fewer and fewer people in the audience. As a birthday present for one of the unsung geniuses of modern music, we thought we'd present the top 10 songs we've run across in hopes of maybe re-sparking a love of the man.

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