“Life is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're gonna get.”

The Jerry Lembo Entertainment Group is proud to be running the radio promotion campaign for Astonish Entertainment artist David Martin.

And you can’t help but think that David may be feeling a bit like Forrest Gump today. David is featured on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal. Special thanks to WSJ reporter Ellen Byron. Congratulations and Happy Valentine’s Day David!

Think you can “Beat It”?

I purchased the 25^th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the world’s biggest selling album of all time (104 million copies to date).

According to The Billboard Albums book, Thriller was on the chart for 122 weeks, 37 of those at number one.

It contained seven Top 10 singles with “Beat It” and “Billie Jean” going to number one.

Los Angeles Times staff writers Patrick Day and Todd Martens have compiled 25 Thriller facts.

To put Thriller’s historic accomplishments in perspective, the two biggest sellers on the current Nielsen Soundscan Chart (for the week ending 2/10/08) are:

Nickelback All the Right Reasons 6,604,024 (123 weeks)

Carrie Underwood Some Hearts 6,256,950 (117 weeks)

Michael enlisted multi-platinum artists Akon, Kanye West, Fergie and her Black Eyed Peas bandmate Will.i.am, who contributed to previously unreleased tracks for the 25^th Anniversary Edition of Thriller.

Will any artist ever reach the Epic proportions of Thriller? I think I hear Vincent Price laughing.

The Grammys

I recently had the honor of promoting Herbie Hancock's cd RIVER: The Joni Letters, so needless to say I was delighted to see him add two more Grammy Awards to his already crowded shelf:

Album of the Year
River: The Joni LettersHerbie HancockLeonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Joni Mitchell, Corinne Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza & Tina Turner, featured artists; Herbie Hancock & Larry Klein, producers; Helik Hadar, engineer/mixer; Bernie Grundman, mastering engineer[Verve]

Best Contemporary Jazz Album
River: The Joni LettersHerbie Hancock[Verve]

I was a disco-dj from the mid 70s thru the early 80s and wore out my 12 inch vinyl copy of Herbie's "Rockit". That song was on Columbia Records, a label I would eventually work at from 1986 to 1997.

At 68 years young Herbie beat out platinum artists Kayne West, Amy Winehouse, Vince Gill and the Foo Fighters.

RIVER: The Joni Letters has been number one on the Contemporary Jazz charts for 15 weeks! With his latest wins I would wager it will still be at the top of the charts on his 69th birthday, April 12th.

Here is the complete list of Grammy winners announced on 2/10/08:

http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/