IT’S WHAT’S GOING ON IN AND AROUND THE DETROIT MUSIC SCENE….
The band CREAM as photographed performing at the Olympia on October 14, 1968. (Click on image for larger view).
DETROIT — Robin Seymour, host for CKLW’s “Swinging Time” TV show, recently presented his annual Swingin’ Time Revue for seven days which began Friday, September 20 at the Palms Theater in downtown Detroit. The show billing spotlighted local R&B recording talents such as the Fantastic Four,Lonette, Detroit Emeralds, Little Carl Carlton, and the Precisions. . . . David Ruffin, former lead-singer for the Temptations, filed suit with Wayne County Circuit Court against Motown Records last month for a contract release. Ruffin feels he’s been “put on ice” as a solo artist with the label ever since his split with the group several months back. . . . Atco Records’ own the Cream are scheduled to perform on stage at the Olympia Arena on Monday, October 14. . . . Detroit’s Pioneer Recording Studio sponsored a “producer’s social” at their new studio at 20014 James Couzens. The 8-track complex boasts a 70-minute hour. . . . The Vanilla Fudge is booked into the Masonic Auditorium for Friday, October 18. . . . followed by Jose Feliciano, who will perform there the following Friday, October 25. END.
(Information and news source: Billboard; October 12, 1968).
After More Than 3 Year Absence, WJR Returns to the CBS Network
CBS Radio logo 1963.
DETROIT — After a three-and-a-half-year separation, powerhouse WJR has rejoined CBS Radio, thus filling a glaring gap in the network’s nationwide coverage and adding more CBS “names” to the station’s own extensive personality roster.
The move has spelled no radical change so far in WJR station personnel, though much program shifting has been necessitated by the addition of such shows as “Arthur Godfrey Time,” Art Linkletter’s “Houseparty,” the “Garry Moore Show,” Betty Furness’ “Woman’s Word” and dozens of CBS News programs.
WJR-AM 760 newspaper ad for the Jimmy Wood Show; March 30, 1964. (Click on image for larger view)
Biggest move slices Jim Wood’s popular afternoon broadcast of “Showcase,” an easy-going blend of pop music, album instrumental tracks, interviews, from a daily two hours and 15 minutes, cut down to 50 minutes across-the-board. Most of the lost time is being made up, however, on a new “Jim Wood Show,” from 10:05 to 11:00 P.M. The new program includes some of the “Showcase” ingredients with the addition of humorous skits written and enacted by the ‘man-of-many-voices’ Wood.
The long-time WJR music variety show, “Guest House,” has been torn down after nine-years as an evening program landmark, but re-appears almost intact as “The Bud Guest Show” in the 12:30 P.M. through 12:55 P.M. slot, featuring host Guest and the WJR orchestra led by Jimmy Clark. The shift, meanwhile, has knocked out a WJR music-oriented show, “Time Out For Music,” which will now be heard on Saturdays only.
Popular WJR air-personality J. P. McCarthy, considered by record industry personnel as being the Motor City’s top-rated record-spinner, has lost his Saturday afternoon segment of “Music Hall,” but has an extra 15 minutes tacked onto his late-afternoon into early-evening daily stint. His early morning spot is left as unchanged from Monday through Saturday.
A 50,000 watt, clear-channel station, WJR covers more radio homes than any station outside of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles — 15,500,000 people in four States plus an additional 3,000,000 in Canada. One of the nation’s pioneer stations, WJR began broadcasting in 1922 and has since become Detroit’s premier good-music radio station.
WJR has been a CBS affiliate from September, 1935 through May, 1959, when station management split with the network over the new Program Consolidation Plan. The Program Consolidation Plan (or PCP) involved compensating affiliates with free programing which they could sell to local advertisers, rather than paying the station cash for using network programming.
Cash Is Back
WJR goes CBS with these names for 1963: Dallas Townsend; Robert Trout; Stuart Novine; Jerry Coleman; Richard Hottelet; Alexander Kendrick; Douglas Edwards; George Herman; Winston Burdett; Leonard Berstein (pictured left). Arthur Godfrey; Allan Jackson; Art Linkletter; David Schoenbrun; Betty Furness; Garry Moore; Nancy Dickerson; Charles Collingwood; Lowell Thomas; Chris Schenkel (pictured right)
Stations consider it as an unworkable “barter” system, declared it would hurt the industry and gave the network its six-months’ contractual notice. The plan was dropped by CBS early this year and cash compensation was restored, paving the way for this week’s return.
Since the schism, the CBS Radio Network had been without a regular outlet in the important Detroit market. The NBC outlet of longstanding is WWJ, the Detroit News station. ABC owns and operates WXYZ and WKMH programs Mutual news and sports shows.
Commenting on the move back to WJR, CBS Radio President Arthur Hull Hayes said, “We welcome the re-affiliation of WJR because it reflects the renewed vigor and indestructible importance of (CBS) network radio” having now been enjoined once again in the Detroit market. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; January 12, 1963)
Vintage WJR-AM 760 newspaper ad for J. P. McCarthy’s “Music Hall” return; December 1964
1940:Billboard magazine publishes their first combined record sales chart, ranking the hits of all major labels. Sitting atop the ten entries is Tommy Dorsey’s “I’ll Never Smile Again,” by lead singer Frank Sinatra.
Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley and Bill Black in 1954.
1954: Taking their name from their local hit recording of “Blue Moon Over Kentucky,” Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black perform a concert as the Blue Moon Boys on the back of a flatbed truck outside the grand opening of a Memphis drugstore.
1961: British paper Mersey Beat announces that the Beatles — or rather, the Beat Brothers, as they were then known — have just signed their first recording contract. Not with Capitol, but with famed German producer Bert Kaempfert.
1963: The Beatles nab their first UK No. 1 LP with Please Please Me.
1965:Frank Sinatra leaves his hand prints in cement outside Hollywood landmark Grauman’s Chinese Theater at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Paul McCartney and Jane Asher in 1964.
1968: Aware of Paul McCartney’s various affairs, his fiancee, Jane Asher, announces on the BBC program Dee Time that she has broken off her engagement with the Beatle: “I haven’t broken it off, but it is broken off, finished… I know it sounds corny, but we still see each other, and love each other, but it hasn’t worked out. Perhaps we’ll be childhood sweethearts and meet again, and get married when we’re around seventy.” Paul, watching at home, is reportedly surprised, but rumors has been swirling for months, so perhaps not.
1970: The Carpenters appear as guest bachelor and bachelorette on ABC-TV’s The Dating Game show.
1975:Steven Van Zandt makes his first appearance in concert with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
1986:Carlos Santana celebrates his 39th birthday, as well as the 20th anniversary of his band, by playing a concert in San Francisco featuring all 17 original members of his group.
Deaths:Roy Hamilton; 1969.
Releases:“Judy’s Turn To Cry,” Lesley Gore; 1963. “I’ll Cry Instead,” “And I Lover Her,” The Beatles; 1964. “Do You Believe In Magic,” Lovin’ Spoonful; 1965. “Like A Rolling Stone,” Bob Dylan; 1965.
Recording:“I’m In Love Again,” “Midnight Special,” Paul McCartney; 1987.
Charts:1963: “Surf City,” Jan and Dean; hits No. 1 on the charts. 1968: “Grazing In The Grass,” Hugh Masekela; hits No. 1 on the charts. 1968: “In The Gada-Da-Vida,” Iron Butterfly; enters the charts.
Certifications:1963: “Concert In Rhythm,” “Memories Are Made Of This,” Ray Conniff Singers; are both certified gold.
And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day….
An Open Letter To The Music Industry: April 8, 1967
Gordon McLendon’s Open Letter To The Music Industry… full page ad; Billboard Magazine April 8, 1967. (Click on image for sharper scan).
(Information and news source: Billboard; April 8, 1967).
Addendum: Gordon McLendon, Top 40 radio pioneer and then-owner of several radio stations across the country, including the legendary KLIF in Dallas, voiced great concern in early 1967 as to which way the recording industry was heading, in allowing “raunchy” and suggestive lyrics in popular music airplay on the radio.
Gordon McLendon.
In this Billboard ad, McLendon went on to attack the recording industry, while advocating of his intent to abolish records on all of his McLendon stations, songs that were not accompanied with a lyric sheet per their review.
McLendon, at the time, strongly felt certain songs were undermining the moral character of the country by their questionable “subliminal” context expressing drug or sexual connotations, whether stated or implied, which the McLendon group would ban unsuitable for any airplay if found to be in question. He also went on in further recommending radio broadcasters across the country follow suit likewise, of the guidelines and steps he imposed in the ad.
In Detroit, it bears to note that just one month after this ad was published, WKNR station owner Nellie Knorr barred Tommy James’ “I Think We’re Alone Now” from airplay on Keener, she found the lyrics too “suggestive.” But that’s how radio was trying to “keep it clean” back in 1967.
And what was the one particular recording which prompted McLendon to state of his resolve to ban records he judged “unfit” for airplay on his stations?
From the MCRFB news archives:
