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 ! ! !
SUSAN BOYLE * A NEW YEAR’S EVE * AULD LANG SYNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voq8OIU9kTM
ON NEW YEAR’S ROCKIN’ EVE 2013 . . . REMEMBERING DICK CLARK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3A8QsSQHL0
LOU MONTE * PEPINO THE ITALIAN MOUSE * 1962
‘RESCUE ME’ SINGER FONTELLA BASS DIES AT 72
From current MCRFB news services:
BASS DIES AT A ST. LOUIS HOSPICE; COMPLICATIONS FROM HEART ATTACK SUFFERED WEEKS PRIOR
From USA Today and AP services: Wednesday, December 26, 2012
January 1966 photo of Fontella Bass. (Photo below: Popperfoto/Getty Images)
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Fontella Bass, a St. Louis-born soul singer who hit the top of the R&B charts with Rescue Me in 1965, has died. She was 72.
Bass died Wednesday night at a St. Louis hospice of complications from a heart attack suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, said. Bass also had suffered a series of strokes over the past seven years.
“She was an outgoing person,” Mitchell said of her mother. “She had a very big personality. Any room she entered she just lit the room up, whether she was on stage or just going out to eat.”
Bass was born into a family with deep musical roots. Her mother was gospel singer Martha Bass, one of the Clara Ward Singers. Her younger brother, David Peaston, had a string of R&B hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Peaston died in February at age 54.
Bass began performing at a young age, singing in her church’s choir at age 6. She was surrounded by music, often traveling on national tours with her mother and her gospel group.
Her interest turned from gospel to R&B when she was a teenager and she began her professional career at the Showboat Club in north St. Louis at age 17. She eventually auditioned for Chess Records and landed a recording contract, first as a duet artist. Her duet with Bobby McClure, Don’t Mess Up a Good Thing, reached No. 5 on the R&B charts and No. 33 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1965.
She co-wrote and later that year recorded Rescue Me, reaching No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 4 on the Billboard pop singles chart. Bass’ powerful voice bore a striking resemblance to that of Aretha Franklin, who often is misidentified as the singer of that chart-topping hit.
Bass had a few other modest hits but by her own accounts developed a reputation as a troublemaker because she demanded more artistic control, and more money for her songs. She haggled over royalty rights to Rescue Me for years before reaching a settlement in the late 1980s, Mitchell said. She sued American Express over the use of Rescue Me in a commercial, settling for an undisclosed amount in 1993.
Rescue Me has been covered by many top artists, including Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Melissa Manchester and Pat Benatar. Franklin eventually sang a form of it too — as Deliver Me in a Pizza Hut TV ad in 1991.
Bass lived briefly in Europe before returning to St. Louis in the early 1970s, where she and husband Lester Bowie raised their family. She recorded occasionally, including a 1995 gospel album, No Ways Tired, that earned a Grammy nomination.
Bass was inducted into the St. Louis Hall of Fame in 2000.
Funeral arrangements for Bass were incomplete. She is survived by four children. Bowie died in 1999.
(Article originally published in the Thursday, December 27, 2012 edition of USA Today).
WXYZ-AM 1270 * THE DETROIT SOUND SURVEY * DECEMBER 26, 1966
From the MCRFB archive files:
THE TOP 35 HITS ON WXYZ THIS DATE IN 1966
The very last WXYZ Detroit Sound Survey issued for the Motor City; WXYZ drops Top 40 for “Sound Of The Good Life” for 1967
(WXYZ scans courtesy from the Jim Heddle Collection).