Month: January 2013
CKLW * JANUARY 9, 1968
SAM COOKE EULOGIZED; FUNERAL HELD IN CHICAGO . . . JANUARY 2, 1965
From the MCRFB news archive: 1965
15,000 Attend Rites to Sam Cooke
CHICAGO — A crowd estimated at 15,000 flocked to the Tabernacle Baptist Church on the South Side Thursday night, December 17, to pay last respects to the late Sam Cooke, who was shot and killed in Los Angeles on December 11 (last year).
Only a third of the crowd could be accommodated in the church and 50 policemen were called to shepherd the overflow which milled about in near zero weather for several hours until permitted to file past Cooke’s casket after the church emptied.
Earlier in the day heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay viewed Cooke’s body at the A. R. Leak Funeral Home, where he laid in an open coffin in three-quarter view, shielded under a protective glass cover.
The RCA recording artist was fatally shot in Los Angeles by a woman hotel manager who said Cooke had burst in her office threateningly and a scuffle ensued between the two. After the police conducted their investigation the shooting was ruled as justifiable homicide. The report concluded the hotel proprietor had acted accordingly in self-defense during an attack allegedly perpetrated by Cooke.
Tearful and poetic eulogies were intoned by several Negro ministers who knew Cooke from the days he and his seven brothers and sisters formed a gospel singing group called the Child Singers. This was shortly after the family moved to Chicago from Mississippi.
Cooke graduated to the Highway’s QC’s, winning a wide and divided and devoted gospel-mode following in the great Chicago ghetto. In 1949, he joine the Soul Stirrers, and led the troupe from the church circuit to the Copa.
“The world is better because Sam Cooke lived,” eulogized the Reverend Lewis Rawls. “He inspired many youths of all races and creeds.”
E. Rodney Jones, representing WVON radio station owner Leonard Chess, said: “As long as music exists, Sam Cooke will live.” WVON broadcast the entire memorial service.
Cooke was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. He was 33. END.
MCRFB Addendum: There has been several variations and accounts on what actually took place on December 11, 1964, the morning Sam Cooke died at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles.
For more on the career, untimely death of Sam Cooke, go here. For a detailed, comprehensive account of Cooke’s shooting, begin here. Here also, a Los Angeles police crime scene photo showing Sam Cooke as he was found at the motel. Below: Dick Clark interviews Sam Cooke on AB in 1964. And, the official Sam Cooke Facebook page today, here.
(Information and news source: Billboard; January 2, 1965).
WCFL CAPSULE COUNTDOWN – 1-7-1967
HAVE A GREAT SUNDAY
LINDA SCOTT * 1961
GARY & DAVE * I MAY NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN * 1974
ONE OF A KIND RADIO STATION: DETROIT’S WJR-AM 1966
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxswozcNZnw
MCRFB note: This film promo, presented here in three installments, was produced by the WJR radio sales department exclusively for advertisers in 1966. The film was introduced by famed radio news broadcaster Lowell Thomas. Film narrative by J. P. McCarthy. (Also, you may view the entire 22 minute film, uninterrupted, in the bottom frame).
FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: JANUARY 1
From the MCRFB music calendar:
Events on this date: JANUARY 1
1936: Billboard magazine publishes its very first record sales chart, with the first Number One listed as Joe Venuti’s “Stop! Look! Listen!”
1940: New York radio station W2XDG, broadcasting from the Empire State Building, becomes the first to broadcast with the new Frequency Modulation technology, making it the first FM station in the world licensed by the FCC.
1950: Sam Phillips, a 26-year-old disc jockey, opens his new Memphis Recording Service — later to be immortalized as Sun Studios — in Memphis, TN, at the corner of Union and Marshall streets.
1957: BBC-TV premieres its new musical variety show Cool For Cats.
1959: While on furlough from his Army outfit, Elvis Presley takes his new BMW out for a spin on Germany’s famed Autobahn highway and totals it (fortunately leaving the scene of the accident without a scratch).
1959: For the first time, ABC-TV’s teen dance program American Bandstand leads the US daytime television ratings.
1960: Johnny Cash makes his very first appearance on stage in a prison, singing for the inmates at San Quentin prison in San Rafael, CA, including one Merle Haggard, currently serving a three-year stint for burglary.
1962: The Beatles (still with Pete Best on drums) perform at their very first major-label audition, recording “Like Dreamers Do,” “Money (That’s What I Want),” “Till There Was You,” “The Sheik Of Araby,” “To Know Her Is To Love Her,” “Take Good Care Of My Baby,” “Memphis, Tennessee,” “Sure To Fall (In Love With You),” “Hello Little Girl,” “Three Cool Cats,” “Crying, Waiting, Hoping,” “September In The Rain,” “Besame Mucho,” “Searchin’,” and the lone original song, “Love Of The Loved,” for Decca Records.
Decca A&R man Dick Rowe, in an infamous move, passes on signing them, and instead signs Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, who had also recorded a test session this day. Rowe’s reasoning for his personal decline in signing the lads, as he tells manager Brian Epstein: “Guitar groups are on the way out.”
1964: BBC-TV premieres a new musical variety show entitled Top Of The Pops, kicked off by Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want To Be With You,” followed by lip-synced performances from the Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, The Hollies and The Swinging Blue Jeans.
1965: British acts The Zombies, The Nashville Teens, and the Hullabaloos — all currently in the US as part of a package tour — have their work visas denied by the US State Department.
1966: CBS-TV’s Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, a mainstay on television for 14 years, and 12 before that on NBC radio, as well as the launching pad for Ricky Nelson’s stardom, films its very last episode.
1967: The San Francisco chapter of the Hell’s Angels holds the first annual New Year’s Wail, a goodwill concert for the Haight-Ashbury hippies who bailed one of their members out of jail. Musical guests include the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company, featuring Janis Joplin.
1968: Berkeley, CA rock group The Golliwogs (huh?) makes the momentous decision to change its name to Creedence Clearwater Revival.
1968: According to Billboard magazine, LPs are now outselling 45 rpm singles for the first time.
1972: The annual New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses parade allows its first rock group on a float — in this case, Three Dog Night.
1976: Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant walks for the first time following his horrible car accident in Greece the previous year.
1980: Cliff Richard is honored with an MBE (Member of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II, only the third rocker to be so honored, behind the Beatles and Elton John.
1987: Elton John is admitted to a hospital in Sydney, Australia, for emergency throat surgery, and is forbidden from performing for four months.
1990: Florida’s WKRL-FM switches to an all-Led Zeppelin format, kicking off the change with 24 straight hours of “Stairway To Heaven.”
1993: Elton John’s new single “The Last Song” hits the Top 40, giving him a unbroken record-setting string of consecutive years with a chart hit — 23, beating out Elvis Presley’s old record of 22.
2000: George Harrison is informed that he will be able to play guitar again following knife injuries to his hand during Michael Abram’s recent home invasion.
2002: At the christening of his daughter, Julie Rose, Eric Clapton surprises the attendees by marrying the mother, Melia McEnery, a woman almost half his age.
2003: Michigan’s first female governor, Jennifer Granholm, is sworn into office, with special guest Aretha Franklin performing the US National Anthem.
Birthdays: 1942: Country Joe McDonald; 1950: Morgan Fisher (Mott The Hoople)
Releases: 1956: “Blue Suede Shoes,” Carl Perkins
Recordings: 1964: “Fun, Fun, Fun,” The Beach Boys
Charts: 1955: Joan Weber’s “Let Me Go Lover” hits No. 1 on the charts; 1966: Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds Of Silence” hits No. 1 on the charts; 1972: Carole King’s LP Music hits No. 1 on the Billboard LP charts.
Certifications: none
1953: Hank Williams; 1984: Alexis Korner; 1991: Buck Ram; 1997: Townes Van Zandt; 2007: Del Reeves
And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day . . . . 
H A P P Y N E W Y E A R 2 0 1 3 F R O M M C R F B . C O M ! ! !