—MY FAVORITE THINGS—
“My Favorite Things” is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass released a version in 1969 as a single from their 1968 album, Christmas Album. It reached No. 45 on the Billboard 100.
(Source: WiKipedia)
— Christmas Memories From the Soundtrack of Your Life —
HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS * 06 * DECEMBER 20
—IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR—
“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is a popular Christmas song written in triple time in 1963 by Edward Pola and George Wyle. It was recorded and released that year by pop singer Andy Williams for his first Christmas album, The Andy Williams Christmas Album. However, the song was not released as a promotional single by Williams’ record label (Columbia Records) that year, as they instead opted to promote his cover of “White Christmas” as the official promo single from the album.
(Source: WiKipedia)
— Christmas Memories From the Soundtrack of Your Life —
ANDY WILLIAMS * 07 * DECEMBER 19
— Christmas Memories From the Soundtrack of Your Life —
A DEAN MARTIN CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
Guests: Dom DeLouise, Bob Newhart and Dennis Weaver. Plus cameos by dozens of celebrities, including Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra Jr. William Holden, Johnny Carson, announcing the sending of gifts of toys to children in hospitals and through various charities at end of show.
Aired 12-19-68 Detroit NBC WWJ-TV (Channel 4), 10:00 p.m., 51 years ago, today.
THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW * NBC-TV * THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1968
—SLEIGH RIDE—
“Sleigh Ride” was covered by the American girl group the Ronettes. The Phil Spector-produced recording has become the most popular version outside the traditional pop standard genre, charting yearly in Billboard’s Top Ten U.S. Holiday 100 and was #26 in 2018 in the Hot 100. It features the well-known “Ring-a-ling-a-ling, ding-dong-ding” background vocals, and the clip-clop and whinny of a horse at its beginning and end.
(Source: WiKipedia)
— Christmas Memories From the Soundtrack of Your Life —
THE RONETTES * 12 * DECEMBER 14
—ABOUT THIS ALBUM—
The husband-and-wife duo of Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme were firmly established as one of the best traditional pop acts in the United States when they recorded this lush Christmas offering for Columbia Records in 1964. On ‘That Holiday Feeling!‘, Steve and Eydie deliver solid solo performances — Gorme on “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “White Christmas,” Lawrence with “Let Me Be The First To Wish You Merry Christmas” and “The Christmas Song” — while they show off the splendid vocal give and take that made them stars on “Sleigh Ride,” “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Featuring arrangements from some of the best studio men in the business (including Don Costa, Al Cohn, and Patrick Williams), That Holiday Feeling! is a beautifully crafted artifact from the era of great singers, and captures Steve & Eydie at their best.
(Source: AllMusic)
— Christmas Memories From the Soundtrack of Your Life —
Click on (COMPLETE LP) for the complete track listing on this album.
The Top 40 Story
In this special edition we have interviewed the key programmers that helped shape the direction of the format to its present state. Our sincere thanks to Gordon McLendon, respected as the most creative radio programmer in history. Almost every format heard on the radio today has been influenced by this man. We are also indebted to Rick Sklar, VP ABC Radio, who has guided the ABC stations to dominant market positions,
Bill Drake, who had the most dramatic effect on the format and is still today the most successful programmer
with over 200 stations currently under his guidance.
Paul Drew, who until recently was VP Programming for RKO, and Kent Burkhart, a man who has been taught by the best and has since added quite a bit to the format himself.
If it were not for these people and the many others involved in the creation of this publication, taking the time to share their knowledge, the opportunity to learn from history might still not exist.
Bill Drake (January 14, 1937 – November 29, 2008), born Philip Yarbrough, was an American radio programmer who co-developed the Boss Radio format with Gene Chenault via their company Drake-Chenault.
It was later at KYNO in Fresno, California that he met Gene Chenault, who became his business partner. Together, the pair developed highly influential radio programming strategies and tactics, as well as working with future “Boss Jocks” (their new name for on-air radio talent).
Drake-Chenault perfected the Top 40 radio format, which had been created by Todd Storz, Gordon McLendon and other radio programmers in the late 1950s, which took a set list of popular songs and repeated them all day long, ensuring the widest possible audience for the station’s music. Jingles, news updates, traffic, and other features were designed to make Top 40 radio particularly attractive to car listeners. By early 1964, the era of the British Invasion, Top 40 radio had become the dominant radio format for North American listeners and quickly swept much of the Western world.
(Source: WiKipedia)
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—ABOUT THIS ALBUM—
We Wish You a Merry Christmas is a 1962 album by Ray Conniff. The album was one of two platinum albums over the course of Conniff’s career and earned him the title of CBS Records Best Selling Artist for 1962.
(Source: WiKipedia)
— Christmas Memories From the Soundtrack of Your Life —
Click on (COMPLETE LP) for the complete track listing on this album.
Jack Scott is a Rockabilly singer and songwriter born Giovanni Domenico Scafone, Jr., Jan. 24, 1936.
Jack Scott Remembered. By Susan Whitall (The Detroit News; December 13, 2019)
Motor City Radio Flashbacks extends our expressed deepest sympathy and heartfelt condolences to the entire Scott family
— 52 YEARS AGO —
. . . By 1967, the band was traveling to performances in Redding’s Beechcraft H18 airplane. On December 9, 1967, they appeared on the Upbeat television show produced in Cleveland. They played three concerts in two nights at a club called Leo’s Casino. After a phone call with his wife and children, Redding’s next stop was Madison, Wisconsin; the next day, Sunday, December 10, they were to play at the Factory nightclub, near the University of Wisconsin.
Although the weather was poor, with heavy rain and fog, and despite warnings, the plane took off. Four miles (6.4 km) from their destination at Truax Field in Madison, the pilot radioed for permission to land. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed into Lake Monona. Bar-Kays member Ben Cauley, the accident’s only survivor, was sleeping shortly before the accident. He woke just before impact to see bandmate Phalon Jones look out a window and exclaim, “Oh, no!” Cauley said the last thing he remembered before the crash was unbuckling his seat belt. He then found himself in frigid water, grasping a seat cushion to keep afloat. As a non-swimmer, he was unable to rescue the others. The cause of the crash was never determined. James Brown claimed in his autobiography The Godfather of Soul that he had warned Redding not to fly in the plane.
The other victims of the crash were four members of the Bar-Kays—guitarist Jimmy King, tenor saxophonist Phalon Jones, organist Ronnie Caldwell, and drummer Carl Cunningham; their valet, Matthew Kelly; and the pilot, Richard Fraser.
Redding’s body was recovered the next day when the lake was searched. The family postponed the funeral from December 15 to 18 so that more could attend. The service took place at the City Auditorium in Macon. More than 4,500 people came to the funeral, overflowing the 3,000-seat hall. Redding was entombed at his ranch in Round Oak, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Macon. Jerry Wexler delivered the eulogy. Redding died just three days after re-recording “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” He was survived by Zelma and four children, Otis III, Dexter, Demetria, and Karla. On November 8, 1997, a memorial plaque was placed on the lakeside deck of the Madison convention center, Monona Terrace.
(Source: Wikipedia)
—Tuesday, December 12, 1967—
___
Above article is courtesy freep.com newspaper archive. Copyright 2019. Newspapers.com.
The above newspaper feature was ‘clipped,’ saved, and was digitally imaged from the credited source by Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
—ABOUT THIS ALBUM—
The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album is the seventh studio album by the Beach Boys, released in November 1964. ii contains five original songs and seven standards on a Christmas theme. The album proved to be a long-running success during subsequent Christmas seasons, initially reaching number six in the US Billboard 200 chart in its year of release and eventually going gold. Music historian James Perone wrote that it is “regarded as one of the finest holiday albums of the rock era”.
While leader Brian Wilson produced and arranged the rock songs, he left it to Dick Reynolds (an arranger for the Four Freshmen, a group Wilson idolized) to arrange the forty-one piece orchestral backings on the traditional songs to which the Beach Boys would apply their vocals. One single was released from the album, the original song “The Man with All the Toys” backed with the group’s rendition of “Blue Christmas”. “Little Saint Nick”, a single which had already been released the previous year, was included on the album.
(Source: Wikipedia)
— Christmas Memories From the Soundtrack of Your Life —
Click on (COMPLETE LP) for the complete track listing on this album.
