Month: October 2014
FROM THE MCRFB MUSIC COLLECTION: ’73 MEMORIES!
DETROIT MOTOWN MONDAY RECORD FLASHBACK ’64!
CAROLYN CRAWFORD * Forget About Me * MOTOWN * 1964
DETROIT RADIO SIDEBAR: WLBS-FM BILLBOARD NOTES
From the MCRFB RADIO notebook: 1979
Station Milestones
WLBS-FM
DETROIT (April 28, 1979) — WLBS-FM (Formerly WBRB-FM) in Detroit’s suburban Mt. Clemens, is planning to increase power from 17 kw to 45 kw for its new disco format. The station was recently acquired by New York-based Inner City Broadcasting, which also operates WBLS-FM New York. Billboard’s man in Detroit John Battaglia reports it has the following new on-air lineup: Keith Bell, from ABC’s WRIF-FM Detroit, from 6-10 a.m.; Pat Edwards, from WKLR-FM Toledo, from 10-2 a.m.; Brent Wilson, from WJZZ-FM Detroit, 2-7 p.m.; Jim Siciliano, from CJOM-FM Windsor, Ont., 7-midnight; and Tom Duggan, from WJZZ, midnight-6 a.m. Working weekends is Dennis Rice, from WWWW-FM Detroit. Edwards is also the music director and Wilson is the station’s program director. END
DETROIT (September 20, 1980) — WLBS-FM, Detroit’s Inner City Broadcasting outlet, collected well over 100,000 signatures for a giant get-well card to ailing comic Richard Pryor. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard Magazine. All excerpts culled as was first published from the dated editions as noted above)
OCTOBER ’68: FELICIANO ANTHEM PRESSED ON VINYL
O C T O B E R 1 7 , 1 9 6 8 : T O D A Y I N M U S I C H I S T O R Y
1 9 6 8 : On this date, October 17, RCA Records released Jose Feliciano’s rendition of the national anthem. Suggested by Detroit Tigers’ broadcaster Ernie Harwell that Feliciano perform the national anthem at Tiger Stadium, Detroit, before game 5 of the 1968 World Series (October 7), Feliciano instead sang his version of The Star Spangled Banner — away from the anthem’s traditional chords in “bluesy-like” fashion — thereafter drawing an immediate firestorm which the singer to this day has laid claim, that event alone, nearly ruined his career. Five weeks on the singles chart, the recording peaked at No. 50 on Billboard, November 30, 1968.
Today In Pop Music History: October 17, 1968
THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER * Jose Feliciano * RCA Records (1968)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: BRIAN HYLAND * ’70 * SIM STEREO
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: PYRAMIDS * 1964 * SIM STEREO
FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: OCTOBER 16
From the MCRFB music calendar:
Events on this date: OCTOBER 16
1951: Jump-blues singer Richard Penniman, already going by the stage name Little Richard, makes his first recordings at Atlanta radio station WGST, though it would take four years and a move to clubs in New Orleans’ French Quarter to turn him into a rock and roll phenomenon.
1954: Elvis Presley, still stinging from his rejection at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, joins the Shreveport, LA radio broadcast Louisiana Hayride, appearing weekly for the grand sum of eighteen dollars. The show, broadcast on local station KWKH-AM, represents Presley’s first major musical exposure and would prove invaluable to getting him noticed nationally.
1962: Motown launches its first “package tour,” a revue of the label’s artists featuring Marvin Gaye, The Miracles, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and Mary Wells, in Washington DC.
1966: Folk singer Joan Baez is among 124 antiwar protesters arrested for blocking entrance to an Army Induction Center in Oakland, CA. She is sentenced to ten days in jail.
1972: Internal strife between the three remaining band members — reportedly due to leader John Fogerty’s reluctance to give up creative control — lead to today’s public breakup of Creedence Clearwater Revival. The press statement tries to put the best possible face on the incident, “We don’t regard this as breaking up. We look at it as an expansion of our activities.”
1986: Chuck Berry is the center of an all-star “60th birthday” bash in his hometown of St. Louis, a tribute concert — held three days before his actual 60th — where the legendary rocker is joined by Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Etta James, Robert Cray, Linda Ronstadt, and many others on stage at the local Fox Theatre. The making of the concert and the show itself are filmed by veteran director Taylor Hackford for the critically acclaimed hits 1987 documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll.
1993: Aretha Franklin sings the US national anthem in Toronto before tonight’s World Series game between the city’s Blue Jays and the visiting Philadelphia Phillies.
2001: After Bob Dylan hires extra security guards in preparation for his comeback “Love And Theft” tour, two of the guards turn Dylan himself back when the singer forgets his own pass. The new guards are fired.
2002: Country legend Dolly Parton begins her first tour of the United Kingdom in nearly two decades.
2002: Billy Joel leaves the Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, CT, where it is rumored he’s been undergoing treatment for alcoholism.
2003: Simon and Garfunkel open their new “Old Friends” tour with a concert in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
Deaths: 1969: Leonard Chess; 1973: Gene Krupa; 1990: Art Blakey; 1999: Ella Mae Morse; 2001: Etta Jones
Births: 1911: Mahalia Jackson; 1923: Bert Kaempfert; 1935: Sugar Pie DeSanto; 1937: Emile Ford (Emile Ford and the Checkmates); 1938: Nico; 1942: Dave Lovelady (The Fourmost); 1943: C.F. Turner (Bachman-Turner Overdrive); 1947: Bob Weir (The Grateful Dead)
Releases: 1957: Sam Cooke, “You Send Me” 1971: Isaac Hayes, “Theme From Shaft”
Recording: 1941: Will Bradley, “Fry Me Cookie, With A Can Of Lard” 1951: Johnnie Ray, “Cry” 1965: The Beatles: “Day Tripper,” “If I Needed Someone” 1968: Jay and the Americans, “This Magic Moment”
Charts: 1976: Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots’ “Disco Duck” hits No. 1 nationally on the charts 1976: Stevie Wonder’s album ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’ hits No. 1 nationally on the LP charts
And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day . . . .
STARS SIGN ON FILMED TRIBUTE TO CHUCK BERRY . . . AUGUST 23, 1986
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1986
Stars Pays Homage to Chuck Berry On Film in Celebrating His 60th
(SEE ALSO: Flashback Pop Music History 1986: October 16)
LOS ANGELES — Feature film director Taylor Hackford has agreed to shoot “Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock-n-Roll,” a tribute concert that originally planned as a music video and has now escalated into a major Universal Studios theatrical project for release next year.
MCA Home Entertainment will fund the project, which will be produced in association with Connecticut-based Delilah Films. Delilah president Stephanie Bennett will produce. Rolling Stone Keith Richards will act as musical director and put the back-up band together, and former Band member Robbie Robertson will be creative consultant.
MCA will have pay-cable and home video rights, and MCA Records will issue the soundtrack.
Bennett produced “The Compleat Beatles,” “The Everly Brothers Reunion Concert,” “Girl Groups: The Story Of A Sound,” and “Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session With Carl Perkins And Friends.” She has just wrapped an MCA Home Video original called “Women In Rock,” and, after the Berry film project is completed, plans are in the working stages to develop a feature film on the life of Janis Joplin.
Bennett says the project was first discussed as a home video and pay cable special but that the interest shown in it by major rock names and the involvement of Taylor Hackford made it feature film material.
The role model for the movie, Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz,” the Band’s star-studded farewell concert. It won’t be strictly a concert film, though, says Bennett.
“Taylor Hackford believes Chuck Berry has never been properly shown on film doing anything other than his music,” she says.
“Everyone involved,” adds Bennett, “will be networking with artists who may appear.” Like Hackford, she is hoping that the concert will include the participation of major musical figures. “But the idea is not to solicit rock figures for name value. All the artists, such as Keith Richards, were strongly influenced by Chuck Berry. Fortunately, the lack of a Stones tour freed Richards to get involved.”
Hackford says, “This will be a complex film, a lot more than a concert film. Chuck Berry has the attributes of an actor. He’s moody. He has phenomenal presence. I want to get that on film.”
Hackford says the concert itself, with Berry the principal performer, will be shot in a stylized, brightly lit fashion.” He hopes to film on a concert stage in the Midwest as well as on location at Berry’s Missouri farm.
“I’d like to have five superstar guitarists and five major vocalists,” says Hackford. “I envision scenes of Chuck rehearsing with them at his farm and then cutting away to the concert. There will be vocal duets. One other element I’m planning is is visual dramatizations of Chuck’s songs interwoven into the film. I’d like to do it in a non-documentary style and break the cinema verite mold.”
Bennett says the concert will be shot sometime in the fall, possibly in September or October. Details on a venue is still being negotiated. Bennett surmise the film will be released to theaters possibly sometime in April 1987. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; August 23, 1986)
FROM THE MCRFB MUSIC COLLECTION: ’65 MEMORIES!