Podcasts about Baby I Love You

¡bienvenidos!  A little bit of everything, a little bit of nothing. Whakarongo! Mohamad Karzo - C'est La Vie Marlena Shaw - Where Can I go?, California Soul, I'm Satisfied Nathan Haines - Squire for Hire, RIGHT NOW featuring Marlena Shaw Willie West - Baby, Baby I Love You, After The Storm Grace Slick - Didn't Think So, Often As I May, Nature Boy Carlos Dafé - Cantar Com o Coraçā, Bem querer  Kia ora The Tuning Fork !  

¡bienvenidos!  A little bit of everything, a little bit of nothing. Whakarongo! Mohamad Karzo - C'est La Vie Marlena Shaw - Where Can I go?, California Soul, I'm Satisfied Nathan Haines - Squire for Hire, RIGHT NOW featuring Marlena Shaw Willie West - Baby, Baby I Love You, After The Storm Grace Slick - Didn't Think So, Often As I May, Nature Boy Carlos Dafé - Cantar Com o Coraçā, Bem querer  Kia ora The Tuning Fork !  

May 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Andy Kim's “Rock Me Gently,” a song absolutely nobody wanted to sign, produce, or play on the radio in the beginning, but here we are, being in top-rated shows, millions of spins around the world, and no stopping all these years later. The record was a massive hit in 1974, going all the way to Number 1 in the U.S. and Number 2 in the U.K. as part of its staggering four-month run on the charts. Even if you weren't alive back then to experience the song's inexorable pop pull, you've probably heard it since, on shows like Ray Donovan and Sex Education or commercials for the Jeep Liberty. And that's not even mentioning the 1989 cover by country artist Michelle Wright, nor the sample of “Rock Me Gently” that showed up in Mint Royale's “Take It Easy” 10 years later. Given its enduring appeal, one can easily forget that, at the time of “Rock Me Gently's” original release, Kim was already considered washed up in the music business. He was no longer the kid who had driven from his native Montreal to New York on a wing and a prayer to find work at the famous Brill building. The success that had followed included co-writing and singing on the Number 1 song of 1969, “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies, and shifting more than 1.5 million copies of his own take on the Phil Spector/Ronettes classic “Baby I Love You” the very same year. But by 1974, nobody wanted to know. Kim had to release “Rock Me Gently” on his own label, after turndowns from absolutely every producer and established record company he approached. In fact, it was a tough go at radio at first, but the writer who became his own producer of the song never believed in the word ‘no' to mean anything but another opportunity to create his own destiny. A variety of forces—including ever-shifting cultural currents and the death of his father—ensured that his career continued to have more than its share of ups and downs. And truth be told, it's never been in his nature to prioritize the spotlight of personal glory over the work anyway. But when you've touched so many people with your songs—your song in particular, the one with your name on it, that you put so much on the line to record and release—your fans won't let you fade into obscurity. At age 77, Kim finds himself in the enviable position of being hailed as an elder statesman of pop while enjoying a newfound relevance to contemporary audiences. “I Forgot To Mention,” his 2004 collaboration with one of those aforementioned fans, Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, got him named the Best Solo Indie Artist of the Year during Canadian Music Week. That paved the way for “comeback albums” like 2010's Happen Again and 2015's It's Decided, the latter of which put Kim on the Arts & Crafts label with hip latter-day artists like Feist, Chilly Gonzales, The Stills and Stars, thanks to Kevin Drew, founder of Arts & Crafts, showcasing his admiration for the iconic artist's timeless music. This collaboration brings together two generations of Canadian music talent, bridging the gap between past and present in the indie music scene. Drew's decision reflects not only his business acumen but also his deep appreciation for Kim's enduring musical legacy. And every year, his Andy Kim Christmas Show raises big money – over $2.5 million so far - for Toronto charities, thanks in part to support from a roster of talents that's included Broken Social Scene, Metric, Maestro Fresh Wes, Sarah Harmer, Sam Roberts, Lights, Rush's Alex Lifeson, Finger Eleven and Ron Sexsmith. Kim's name now hangs in a veritable mansion's worth of hallowed halls, including the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Billboard's Hit Parade Hall of Fame. He also has his own spot of Canada's Walk of Fame. And last year, he received the ultimate honor by being made an officer of the Order of Canada, for his irreplaceable contributions to the cultural landscape of his country. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/east-coast-dna/message

You know our guest today from his iconic timeless hits "Sugar, Sugar" (Candy Girl), "Be My Baby", "Baby I Love You", and what brings us together today, the 50th anniversary of "Rock Me Gently". He is the one and only Andy Kim! The beautiful thing about this conversation is beyond Andy telling us his origin story into music and how the tracks came to be, he takes a beyond the surface perspective to genuinely talk about life, finding yourself, the importance to embrace the time we have on earth, and truly leaves us with one of our favorite segments we ever recorded.

Sintonía: "Gota Find Me A Lover (24 Hours a Day)" - Erma Franklin"By The Time I Get To Phoenix", "Change My Thoughts From You", "Light My Fire", "You´ve Been Cancelled" (E. Franklin), "For Once In My Life", "Can´t See My Way" (E. Franklin), "Hold On, I´m Coming" y "Baby I Love You", extraídas del álbum "Super Soul Sister" (Brunswick, 1968/Vampisoul CD 029, 2003) de Erma Franklin "Whispers (Gettin´ Louder)" es un bonus track de la reedición de Vampisoul, grabada en 1970"Please Send Me Someone To Love", "Try Me and See", "My Prayer", "This Bitter Earth" y "Miss Brown´s Blues", extraídas del álbum "Black Is Brown and Brown Is Beautiful" (Skye Records, 1969/Vampisoul CD 047, 2005) de Ruth Brown"(I Get The) Sweetest Feelin´" es otro bonus track de la reedición (en CD) de Vampisoul, grabada en 1970Escuchar audio

Aujourd'hui, nous allons parler du disque qui, plus que tout autre, a assuré la place de Phil Spector dans l'histoire de la musique populaire - un disque qui a changé la vie de plusieurs personnes qui l'ont écouté pour le meilleur, qui a changé la vie de sa chanteuse pour le pire, et qui possède l'intro de batterie la plus imitée de tous les temps. Nous allons nous pencher sur un chef d'oeuvre intemporel, sur une intro de batterie reconnaissable entre mille : "Be My Baby" des Ronettes The Ronettes, "Be My Baby" Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, "Why Do Fools Fall In Love ?" Ronnie and the Relatives, "I Want a Boy" Ronnie and the Relatives, "I'm Gonna Quit While I'm Ahead" Joey Dee and the Starliters, "The Peppermint Twist" Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah". Connie Francis, "Second-Hand Love" Veronica, "Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love ?" The Crystals, "The Twist"The Crystals, " The Wah-Watusi "Jeff Barry, "It's Called Rock and Roll" Sam Cooke, "Teenage Sonata" Ray Peterson, "Tell Laura I Love Her" Ellie Gaye, "Silly, Isn't It ?" Jay and the Americans, "This is It" Darlene Love, "(Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry" Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others' Hearts ?" Ellie Greenwich "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy (demo)" The Ronettes, "Be My Baby"" The Ronettes" (The Wrecking Crew), Tedesco and Pitman". The Ronettes, "Baby I Love You" The Ronettes Featuring Veronica, "Walking in the Rain" The Ronettes, "I Can Hear Music" Ronnie Spector, "Try Some, Buy Some" Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes, "You Mean So Much To Me" Ronnie Spector et le E-Street Band, "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" Eddie Money, "Take Me Home Tonight"

This story...uuugh, it irritates me.  This story is all about social media putting a man in a very awkward situation.   Listen to how one man's crush turns into another man's nightmare.  All featured on a national television show, Jenny Jones.Leaving you with a happy ending and on a good note, as always.  This week we are featuring:    Old Mountain Acid Test, "Baby I Love You".Old Mountain Acid Test Social Media:Bandcamp:  https://xironsharpensironx.bandcamp.com/track/old-mountain-acid-test-baby-i-love-youfacebook:youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRc80oBf7lvwcuqfXbalSwWritten by Your Highness Hosted by BOOT (Ron Boot)  andYOUR HIGHNESS  (Mary Boot)Brought to you by  Boot Productions and listener donations.  Reach out to us, we would love to hear from you! michiganmurdersmusic@gmail.com We are also on Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok. Would you like to help keep us independent and commercial free?  You can support us monthly through the following link.  We like to call our supporters SUGAR MOMMA'S AND SUGAR DADDIE'S.  We love you!Support the showFeeling Tipsy???https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thebootsMerch:https://michigan-murders-music.myspreadshop.com/

Our new Andy Kim Interview (Nov, 2023). We chat about the hits, "Baby, I Love You," "Be My Baby,""Rock Me Gently" and The Archies hit he cowrote "Sugar, Sugar." Plus, of course, working with Jeff Barry in the famous New York City Brill Building" Check out the entire new Video 2023 video Interview with Andy Kim https://youtu.be/MroOU6Wv1LACheck out Andy Kim's official site https://www.andykimmusic.com/If you would like to donate to "Rock History Music" https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=VB2DNTLWAK8RNJoin our Patreon to get early access to our videos https://www.patreon.com/RockHistoryChannelsHELP SUPPORT ROCK HISTORY MUSIC..CHECK OUT OUR STORE FOR T-SHIRTS, MUGS ETC https://rock-history-music-store.creator-spring.comOur Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/rockhistorymusic/?hl=enCHECK OUT OUR TIKTOK CHANNEL https://www.tiktok.com/@johnbeaudin80Check out the ‘Rock History Book' PodcastSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0LYdVTfmXN5khxXor8TzPg?si=9OY8tLroRJ6iVgGeUwe6yAiHeart “Rock History Music” Podcast https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-rock-history-book-80154771/Tune-In “Rock History Music” Podcast https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1419168/Our Apple Podcast Apple Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/rock-history-book/id1560259111We have 3 active channelsRock History Music - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChUv5CZuAuh08DfHA8klNSARock History Book - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDKUUfqq_iuwk63pZEUOTIQRock History Canada - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFpz17zDi5ShOVQBiNZV8xASupport the show

Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth Interview with Andy Kim, Iconic Pop Music Star About Harvey's guest: Today's special guest, Andy Kim, is an iconic singer and songwriter who's given us numerous Top 40 hit songs including “How'd We Ever Get This Way”, “Shoot ‘em up Baby”, “Baby I Love You”, “So Good Together”, “Be My Baby”, “Fire, Baby I'm on Fire”, “I Forgot to Mention” - and, of course, “Rock Me Gently”, which went straight to #1 on the Billboard charts and remained on the charts for a staggering 4 months.   He also co-wrote and sang on the enduring classic pop song, ”Sugar, Sugar” for the fictitious pop group “The Archies”, which stayed at No. 1 for 4 weeks and became Billboard's Record of the Year and the biggest-selling record of 1969, AND the song ranks at number 90 on Billboard's list of the Greatest Songs of All Time.    Our guest has received top industry honours including two JUNO Awards.  In fact, in 1970 he received the very first JUNO Award ever given out, and it was for Male Vocalist of the Year.  In 2004, he was voted by Canadian Music Week as the Best Solo Indie Artist of the Year.   He's been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and Billboard's Hit Parade Hall of Fame.   He has a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame, and in 2017, for the 2nd time in their 70-year history, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada – better known as SOCAN - honoured our guest with their Cultural Impact Award.   Over his epic career, he has sold over 30 million records, and has had over half a billion streams on Spotify and YouTube.   And if all of that weren't enough, I'm absolutely THRILLED to share the recent announcement that our guest will be appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for his contributions to Canadian music as a trailblazer and legendary artist.    And for those of you living in the Toronto area, our guest will be returning to Massey Hall for his 19th annual Christmas show on Wednesday, December 6, for an unforgettable evening celebrating the magic of the season, with performances from our guest, along with some of Canada's top music stars, with all proceeds donated to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.  For more interviews and podcasts go to: https://www.harveybrownstoneinterviews.com/ To see more about Andy Kim, go to:http://www.andykimmusic.comhttps://www.facebook.com/AndyKimMusic/ https://www.instagram.com/andykim.co/https://twitter.com/AndyKimMusic #AndyKim    #harveybrownstoneinterviews

Episode 168 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “I Say a Little Prayer”, and the interaction of the sacred, political, and secular in Aretha Franklin's life and work. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "Abraham, Martin, and John" by Dion. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by Aretha Franklin. Even splitting it into multiple parts would have required six or seven mixes. My main biographical source for Aretha Franklin is Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz, and this is where most of the quotes from musicians come from. Information on C.L. Franklin came from Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America by Nick Salvatore. Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a great overview of the soul music made in Muscle Shoals, Memphis, and Nashville in the sixties. Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom is possibly less essential, but still definitely worth reading. Information about Martin Luther King came from Martin Luther King: A Religious Life by Paul Harvey. I also referred to Burt Bacharach's autobiography Anyone Who Had a Heart, Carole King's autobiography A Natural Woman, and Soul Serenade: King Curtis and his Immortal Saxophone by Timothy R. Hoover. For information about Amazing Grace I also used Aaron Cohen's 33 1/3 book on the album. The film of the concerts is also definitely worth watching. And the Aretha Now album is available in this five-album box set for a ludicrously cheap price. But it's actually worth getting this nineteen-CD set with her first sixteen Atlantic albums and a couple of bonus discs of demos and outtakes. There's barely a duff track in the whole nineteen discs. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A quick warning before I begin. This episode contains some moderate references to domestic abuse, death by cancer, racial violence, police violence, and political assassination. Anyone who might be upset by those subjects might want to check the transcript rather than listening to the episode. Also, as with the previous episode on Aretha Franklin, this episode presents something of a problem. Like many people in this narrative, Franklin's career was affected by personal troubles, which shaped many of her decisions. But where most of the subjects of the podcast have chosen to live their lives in public and share intimate details of every aspect of their personal lives, Franklin was an extremely private person, who chose to share only carefully sanitised versions of her life, and tried as far as possible to keep things to herself. This of course presents a dilemma for anyone who wants to tell her story -- because even though the information is out there in biographies, and even though she's dead, it's not right to disrespect someone's wish for a private life. I have therefore tried, wherever possible, to stay away from talk of her personal life except where it *absolutely* affects the work, or where other people involved have publicly shared their own stories, and even there I've tried to keep it to a minimum. This will occasionally lead to me saying less about some topics than other people might, even though the information is easily findable, because I don't think we have an absolute right to invade someone else's privacy for entertainment. When we left Aretha Franklin, she had just finally broken through into the mainstream after a decade of performing, with a version of Otis Redding's song "Respect" on which she had been backed by her sisters, Erma and Carolyn. "Respect", in Franklin's interpretation, had been turned from a rather chauvinist song about a man demanding respect from his woman into an anthem of feminism, of Black power, and of a new political awakening. For white people of a certain generation, the summer of 1967 was "the summer of love". For many Black people, it was rather different. There's a quote that goes around (I've seen it credited in reliable sources to both Ebony and Jet magazine, but not ever seen an issue cited, so I can't say for sure where it came from) saying that the summer of 67 was the summer of "'retha, Rap, and revolt", referring to the trifecta of Aretha Franklin, the Black power leader Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (who was at the time known as H. Rap Brown, a name he later disclaimed) and the rioting that broke out in several major cities, particularly in Detroit: [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "The Motor City is Burning"] The mid sixties were, in many ways, the high point not of Black rights in the US -- for the most part there has been a lot of progress in civil rights in the intervening decades, though not without inevitable setbacks and attacks from the far right, and as movements like the Black Lives Matter movement have shown there is still a long way to go -- but of *hope* for Black rights. The moral force of the arguments made by the civil rights movement were starting to cause real change to happen for Black people in the US for the first time since the Reconstruction nearly a century before. But those changes weren't happening fast enough, and as we heard in the episode on "I Was Made to Love Her", there was not only a growing unrest among Black people, but a recognition that it was actually possible for things to change. A combination of hope and frustration can be a powerful catalyst, and whether Franklin wanted it or not, she was at the centre of things, both because of her newfound prominence as a star with a hit single that couldn't be interpreted as anything other than a political statement and because of her intimate family connections to the struggle. Even the most racist of white people these days pays lip service to the memory of Dr Martin Luther King, and when they do they quote just a handful of sentences from one speech King made in 1963, as if that sums up the full theological and political philosophy of that most complex of men. And as we discussed the last time we looked at Aretha Franklin, King gave versions of that speech, the "I Have a Dream" speech, twice. The most famous version was at the March on Washington, but the first time was a few weeks earlier, at what was at the time the largest civil rights demonstration in American history, in Detroit. Aretha's family connection to that event is made clear by the very opening of King's speech: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Original 'I Have a Dream' Speech"] So as summer 1967 got into swing, and white rock music was going to San Francisco to wear flowers in its hair, Aretha Franklin was at the centre of a very different kind of youth revolution. Franklin's second Atlantic album, Aretha Arrives, brought in some new personnel to the team that had recorded Aretha's first album for Atlantic. Along with the core Muscle Shoals players Jimmy Johnson, Spooner Oldham, Tommy Cogbill and Roger Hawkins, and a horn section led by King Curtis, Wexler and Dowd also brought in guitarist Joe South. South was a white session player from Georgia, who had had a few minor hits himself in the fifties -- he'd got his start recording a cover version of "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor", the Big Bopper's B-side to "Chantilly Lace": [Excerpt: Joe South, "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor"] He'd also written a few songs that had been recorded by people like Gene Vincent, but he'd mostly become a session player. He'd become a favourite musician of Bob Johnston's, and so he'd played guitar on Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme albums: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "I am a Rock"] and bass on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, with Al Kooper particularly praising his playing on "Visions of Johanna": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Visions of Johanna"] South would be the principal guitarist on this and Franklin's next album, before his own career took off in 1968 with "Games People Play": [Excerpt: Joe South, "Games People Play"] At this point, he had already written the other song he's best known for, "Hush", which later became a hit for Deep Purple: [Excerpt: Deep Purple, "Hush"] But he wasn't very well known, and was surprised to get the call for the Aretha Franklin session, especially because, as he put it "I was white and I was about to play behind the blackest genius since Ray Charles" But Jerry Wexler had told him that Franklin didn't care about the race of the musicians she played with, and South settled in as soon as Franklin smiled at him when he played a good guitar lick on her version of the blues standard "Going Down Slow": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Going Down Slow"] That was one of the few times Franklin smiled in those sessions though. Becoming an overnight success after years of trying and failing to make a name for herself had been a disorienting experience, and on top of that things weren't going well in her personal life. Her marriage to her manager Ted White was falling apart, and she was performing erratically thanks to the stress. In particular, at a gig in Georgia she had fallen off the stage and broken her arm. She soon returned to performing, but it meant she had problems with her right arm during the recording of the album, and didn't play as much piano as she would have previously -- on some of the faster songs she played only with her left hand. But the recording sessions had to go on, whether or not Aretha was physically capable of playing piano. As we discussed in the episode on Otis Redding, the owners of Atlantic Records were busily negotiating its sale to Warner Brothers in mid-1967. As Wexler said later “Everything in me said, Keep rolling, keep recording, keep the hits coming. She was red hot and I had no reason to believe that the streak wouldn't continue. I knew that it would be foolish—and even irresponsible—not to strike when the iron was hot. I also had personal motivation. A Wall Street financier had agreed to see what we could get for Atlantic Records. While Ahmet and Neshui had not agreed on a selling price, they had gone along with my plan to let the financier test our worth on the open market. I was always eager to pump out hits, but at this moment I was on overdrive. In this instance, I had a good partner in Ted White, who felt the same. He wanted as much product out there as possible." In truth, you can tell from Aretha Arrives that it's a record that was being thought of as "product" rather than one being made out of any kind of artistic impulse. It's a fine album -- in her ten-album run from I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You through Amazing Grace there's not a bad album and barely a bad track -- but there's a lack of focus. There are only two originals on the album, neither of them written by Franklin herself, and the rest is an incoherent set of songs that show the tension between Franklin and her producers at Atlantic. Several songs are the kind of standards that Franklin had recorded for her old label Columbia, things like "You Are My Sunshine", or her version of "That's Life", which had been a hit for Frank Sinatra the previous year: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "That's Life"] But mixed in with that are songs that are clearly the choice of Wexler. As we've discussed previously in episodes on Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, at this point Atlantic had the idea that it was possible for soul artists to cross over into the white market by doing cover versions of white rock hits -- and indeed they'd had some success with that tactic. So while Franklin was suggesting Sinatra covers, Atlantic's hand is visible in the choices of songs like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "96 Tears": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "96 Tears'] Of the two originals on the album, one, the hit single "Baby I Love You" was written by Ronnie Shannon, the Detroit songwriter who had previously written "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Baby I Love You"] As with the previous album, and several other songs on this one, that had backing vocals by Aretha's sisters, Erma and Carolyn. But the other original on the album, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)", didn't, even though it was written by Carolyn: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)"] To explain why, let's take a little detour and look at the co-writer of the song this episode is about, though we're not going to get to that for a little while yet. We've not talked much about Burt Bacharach in this series so far, but he's one of those figures who has come up a few times in the periphery and will come up again, so here is as good a time as any to discuss him, and bring everyone up to speed about his career up to 1967. Bacharach was one of the more privileged figures in the sixties pop music field. His father, Bert Bacharach (pronounced the same as his son, but spelled with an e rather than a u) had been a famous newspaper columnist, and his parents had bought him a Steinway grand piano to practice on -- they pushed him to learn the piano even though as a kid he wasn't interested in finger exercises and Debussy. What he was interested in, though, was jazz, and as a teenager he would often go into Manhattan and use a fake ID to see people like Dizzy Gillespie, who he idolised, and in his autobiography he talks rapturously of seeing Gillespie playing his bent trumpet -- he once saw Gillespie standing on a street corner with a pet monkey on his shoulder, and went home and tried to persuade his parents to buy him a monkey too. In particular, he talks about seeing the Count Basie band with Sonny Payne on drums as a teenager: [Excerpt: Count Basie, "Kid From Red Bank"] He saw them at Birdland, the club owned by Morris Levy where they would regularly play, and said of the performance "they were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before. What I heard in those clubs really turned my head around— it was like a big breath of fresh air when somebody throws open a window. That was when I knew for the first time how much I loved music and wanted to be connected to it in some way." Of course, there's a rather major problem with this story, as there is so often with narratives that musicians tell about their early career. In this case, Birdland didn't open until 1949, when Bacharach was twenty-one and stationed in Germany for his military service, while Sonny Payne didn't join Basie's band until 1954, when Bacharach had been a professional musician for many years. Also Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet bell only got bent on January 6, 1953. But presumably while Bacharach was conflating several memories, he did have some experience in some New York jazz club that led him to want to become a musician. Certainly there were enough great jazz musicians playing the clubs in those days. He went to McGill University to study music for two years, then went to study with Darius Milhaud, a hugely respected modernist composer. Milhaud was also one of the most important music teachers of the time -- among others he'd taught Stockhausen and Xenakkis, and would go on to teach Philip Glass and Steve Reich. This suited Bacharach, who by this point was a big fan of Schoenberg and Webern, and was trying to write atonal, difficult music. But Milhaud had also taught Dave Brubeck, and when Bacharach rather shamefacedly presented him with a composition which had an actual tune, he told Bacharach "Never be ashamed of writing a tune you can whistle". He dropped out of university and, like most men of his generation, had to serve in the armed forces. When he got out of the army, he continued his musical studies, still trying to learn to be an avant-garde composer, this time with Bohuslav Martinů and later with Henry Cowell, the experimental composer we've heard about quite a bit in previous episodes: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] He was still listening to a lot of avant garde music, and would continue doing so throughout the fifties, going to see people like John Cage. But he spent much of that time working in music that was very different from the avant-garde. He got a job as the band leader for the crooner Vic Damone: [Excerpt: Vic Damone. "Ebb Tide"] He also played for the vocal group the Ames Brothers. He decided while he was working with the Ames Brothers that he could write better material than they were getting from their publishers, and that it would be better to have a job where he didn't have to travel, so he got himself a job as a staff songwriter in the Brill Building. He wrote a string of flops and nearly hits, starting with "Keep Me In Mind" for Patti Page: [Excerpt: Patti Page, "Keep Me In Mind"] From early in his career he worked with the lyricist Hal David, and the two of them together wrote two big hits, "Magic Moments" for Perry Como: [Excerpt: Perry Como, "Magic Moments"] and "The Story of My Life" for Marty Robbins: [Excerpt: "The Story of My Life"] But at that point Bacharach was still also writing with other writers, notably Hal David's brother Mack, with whom he wrote the theme tune to the film The Blob, as performed by The Five Blobs: [Excerpt: The Five Blobs, "The Blob"] But Bacharach's songwriting career wasn't taking off, and he got himself a job as musical director for Marlene Dietrich -- a job he kept even after it did start to take off.  Part of the problem was that he intuitively wrote music that didn't quite fit into standard structures -- there would be odd bars of unusual time signatures thrown in, unusual harmonies, and structural irregularities -- but then he'd take feedback from publishers and producers who would tell him the song could only be recorded if he straightened it out. He said later "The truth is that I ruined a lot of songs by not believing in myself enough to tell these guys they were wrong." He started writing songs for Scepter Records, usually with Hal David, but also with Bob Hilliard and Mack David, and started having R&B hits. One song he wrote with Mack David, "I'll Cherish You", had the lyrics rewritten by Luther Dixon to make them more harsh-sounding for a Shirelles single -- but the single was otherwise just Bacharach's demo with the vocals replaced, and you can even hear his voice briefly at the beginning: [Excerpt: The Shirelles, "Baby, It's You"] But he'd also started becoming interested in the production side of records more generally. He'd iced that some producers, when recording his songs, would change the sound for the worse -- he thought Gene McDaniels' version of "Tower of Strength", for example, was too fast. But on the other hand, other producers got a better sound than he'd heard in his head. He and Hilliard had written a song called "Please Stay", which they'd given to Leiber and Stoller to record with the Drifters, and he thought that their arrangement of the song was much better than the one he'd originally thought up: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Please Stay"] He asked Leiber and Stoller if he could attend all their New York sessions and learn about record production from them. He started doing so, and eventually they started asking him to assist them on records. He and Hilliard wrote a song called "Mexican Divorce" for the Drifters, which Leiber and Stoller were going to produce, and as he put it "they were so busy running Redbird Records that they asked me to rehearse the background singers for them in my office." [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Mexican Divorce"] The backing singers who had been brought in to augment the Drifters on that record were a group of vocalists who had started out as members of a gospel group called the Drinkard singers: [Excerpt: The Drinkard Singers, "Singing in My Soul"] The Drinkard Singers had originally been a family group, whose members included Cissy Drinkard, who joined the group aged five (and who on her marriage would become known as Cissy Houston -- her daughter Whitney would later join the family business), her aunt Lee Warrick, and Warrick's adopted daughter Judy Clay. That group were discovered by the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and spent much of the fifties performing with gospel greats including Jackson herself, Clara Ward, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. But Houston was also the musical director of a group at her church, the Gospelaires, which featured Lee Warrick's two daughters Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick (for those who don't know, the Warwick sisters' birth name was Warrick, spelled with two rs. A printing error led to it being misspelled the same way as the British city on a record label, and from that point on Dionne at least pronounced the w in her misspelled name). And slowly, the Gospelaires rather than the Drinkard Singers became the focus, with a lineup of Houston, the Warwick sisters, the Warwick sisters' cousin Doris Troy, and Clay's sister Sylvia Shemwell. The real change in the group's fortunes came when, as we talked about a while back in the episode on "The Loco-Motion", the original lineup of the Cookies largely stopped working as session singers to become Ray Charles' Raelettes. As we discussed in that episode, a new lineup of Cookies formed in 1961, but it took a while for them to get started, and in the meantime the producers who had been relying on them for backing vocals were looking elsewhere, and they looked to the Gospelaires. "Mexican Divorce" was the first record to feature the group as backing vocalists -- though reports vary as to how many of them are on the record, with some saying it's only Troy and the Warwicks, others saying Houston was there, and yet others saying it was all five of them. Some of these discrepancies were because these singers were so good that many of them left to become solo singers in fairly short order. Troy was the first to do so, with her hit "Just One Look", on which the other Gospelaires sang backing vocals: [Excerpt: Doris Troy, "Just One Look"] But the next one to go solo was Dionne Warwick, and that was because she'd started working with Bacharach and Hal David as their principal demo singer. She started singing lead on their demos, and hoping that she'd get to release them on her own. One early one was "Make it Easy On Yourself", which was recorded by Jerry Butler, formerly of the Impressions. That record was produced by Bacharach, one of the first records he produced without outside supervision: [Excerpt: Jerry Butler, "Make it Easy On Yourself"] Warwick was very jealous that a song she'd sung the demo of had become a massive hit for someone else, and blamed Bacharach and David. The way she tells the story -- Bacharach always claimed this never happened, but as we've already seen he was himself not always the most reliable of narrators of his own life -- she got so angry she complained to them, and said "Don't make me over, man!" And so Bacharach and David wrote her this: [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Don't Make Me Over"] Incidentally, in the UK, the hit version of that was a cover by the Swinging Blue Jeans: [Excerpt: The Swinging Blue Jeans, "Don't Make Me Over"] who also had a huge hit with "You're No Good": [Excerpt: The Swinging Blue Jeans, "You're No Good"] And *that* was originally recorded by *Dee Dee* Warwick: [Excerpt: Dee Dee Warwick, "You're No Good"] Dee Dee also had a successful solo career, but Dionne's was the real success, making the names of herself, and of Bacharach and David. The team had more than twenty top forty hits together, before Bacharach and David had a falling out in 1971 and stopped working together, and Warwick sued both of them for breach of contract as a result. But prior to that they had hit after hit, with classic records like "Anyone Who Had a Heart": [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Anyone Who Had a Heart"] And "Walk On By": [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Walk On By"] With Doris, Dionne, and Dee Dee all going solo, the group's membership was naturally in flux -- though the departed members would occasionally join their former bandmates for sessions, and the remaining members would sing backing vocals on their ex-members' records. By 1965 the group consisted of Cissy Houston, Sylvia Shemwell, the Warwick sisters' cousin Myrna Smith, and Estelle Brown. The group became *the* go-to singers for soul and R&B records made in New York. They were regularly hired by Leiber and Stoller to sing on their records, and they were also the particular favourites of Bert Berns. They sang backing vocals on almost every record he produced. It's them doing the gospel wails on "Cry Baby" by Garnet Mimms: [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms, "Cry Baby"] And they sang backing vocals on both versions of "If You Need Me" -- Wilson Pickett's original and Solomon Burke's more successful cover version, produced by Berns: [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "If You Need Me"] They're on such Berns records as "Show Me Your Monkey", by Kenny Hamber: [Excerpt: Kenny Hamber, "Show Me Your Monkey"] And it was a Berns production that ended up getting them to be Aretha Franklin's backing group. The group were becoming such an important part of the records that Atlantic and BANG Records, in particular, were putting out, that Jerry Wexler said "it was only a matter of common decency to put them under contract as a featured group". He signed them to Atlantic and renamed them from the Gospelaires to The Sweet Inspirations.  Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham wrote a song for the group which became their only hit under their own name: [Excerpt: The Sweet Inspirations, "Sweet Inspiration"] But to start with, they released a cover of Pops Staples' civil rights song "Why (Am I treated So Bad)": [Excerpt: The Sweet Inspirations, "Why (Am I Treated So Bad?)"] That hadn't charted, and meanwhile, they'd all kept doing session work. Cissy had joined Erma and Carolyn Franklin on the backing vocals for Aretha's "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You"] Shortly after that, the whole group recorded backing vocals for Erma's single "Piece of My Heart", co-written and produced by Berns: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] That became a top ten record on the R&B charts, but that caused problems. Aretha Franklin had a few character flaws, and one of these was an extreme level of jealousy for any other female singer who had any level of success and came up in the business after her. She could be incredibly graceful towards anyone who had been successful before her -- she once gave one of her Grammies away to Esther Phillips, who had been up for the same award and had lost to her -- but she was terribly insecure, and saw any contemporary as a threat. She'd spent her time at Columbia Records fuming (with some justification) that Barbra Streisand was being given a much bigger marketing budget than her, and she saw Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, and Dionne Warwick as rivals rather than friends. And that went doubly for her sisters, who she was convinced should be supporting her because of family loyalty. She had been infuriated at John Hammond when Columbia had signed Erma, thinking he'd gone behind her back to create competition for her. And now Erma was recording with Bert Berns. Bert Berns who had for years been a colleague of Jerry Wexler and the Ertegun brothers at Atlantic. Aretha was convinced that Wexler had put Berns up to signing Erma as some kind of power play. There was only one problem with this -- it simply wasn't true. As Wexler later explained “Bert and I had suffered a bad falling-out, even though I had enormous respect for him. After all, he was the guy who brought over guitarist Jimmy Page from England to play on our sessions. Bert, Ahmet, Nesuhi, and I had started a label together—Bang!—where Bert produced Van Morrison's first album. But Bert also had a penchant for trouble. He courted the wise guys. He wanted total control over every last aspect of our business dealings. Finally it was too much, and the Erteguns and I let him go. He sued us for breach of contract and suddenly we were enemies. I felt that he signed Erma, an excellent singer, not merely for her talent but as a way to get back at me. If I could make a hit with Aretha, he'd show me up by making an even bigger hit on Erma. Because there was always an undercurrent of rivalry between the sisters, this only added to the tension.” There were two things that resulted from this paranoia on Aretha's part. The first was that she and Wexler, who had been on first-name terms up to that point, temporarily went back to being "Mr. Wexler" and "Miss Franklin" to each other. And the second was that Aretha no longer wanted Carolyn and Erma to be her main backing vocalists, though they would continue to appear on her future records on occasion. From this point on, the Sweet Inspirations would be the main backing vocalists for Aretha in the studio throughout her golden era [xxcut line (and when the Sweet Inspirations themselves weren't on the record, often it would be former members of the group taking their place)]: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)"] The last day of sessions for Aretha Arrives was July the twenty-third, 1967. And as we heard in the episode on "I Was Made to Love Her", that was the day that the Detroit riots started. To recap briefly, that was four days of rioting started because of a history of racist policing, made worse by those same racist police overreacting to the initial protests. By the end of those four days, the National Guard, 82nd Airborne Division, and the 101st Airborne from Clarksville were all called in to deal with the violence, which left forty-three dead (of whom thirty-three were Black and only one was a police officer), 1,189 people were injured, and over 7,200 arrested, almost all of them Black. Those days in July would be a turning point for almost every musician based in Detroit. In particular, the police had murdered three members of the soul group the Dramatics, in a massacre of which the author John Hersey, who had been asked by President Johnson to be part of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders but had decided that would compromise his impartiality and did an independent journalistic investigation, said "The episode contained all the mythic themes of racial strife in the United States: the arm of the law taking the law into its own hands; interracial sex; the subtle poison of racist thinking by “decent” men who deny they are racists; the societal limbo into which, ever since slavery, so many young black men have been driven by our country; ambiguous justice in the courts; and the devastation in both black and white human lives that follows in the wake of violence as surely as ruinous and indiscriminate flood after torrents" But these were also the events that radicalised the MC5 -- the group had been playing a gig as Tim Buckley's support act when the rioting started, and guitarist Wayne Kramer decided afterwards to get stoned and watch the fires burning down the city through a telescope -- which police mistook for a rifle, leading to the National Guard knocking down Kramer's door. The MC5 would later cover "The Motor City is Burning", John Lee Hooker's song about the events: [Excerpt: The MC5, "The Motor City is Burning"] It would also be a turning point for Motown, too, in ways we'll talk about in a few future episodes.  And it was a political turning point too -- Michigan Governor George Romney, a liberal Republican (at a time when such people existed) had been the favourite for the Republican Presidential candidacy when he'd entered the race in December 1966, but as racial tensions ramped up in Detroit during the early months of 1967 he'd started trailing Richard Nixon, a man who was consciously stoking racists' fears. President Johnson, the incumbent Democrat, who was at that point still considering standing for re-election, made sure to make it clear to everyone during the riots that the decision to call in the National Guard had been made at the State level, by Romney, rather than at the Federal level.  That wasn't the only thing that removed the possibility of a Romney presidency, but it was a big part of the collapse of his campaign, and the, as it turned out, irrevocable turn towards right-authoritarianism that the party took with Nixon's Southern Strategy. Of course, Aretha Franklin had little way of knowing what was to come and how the riots would change the city and the country over the following decades. What she was primarily concerned about was the safety of her father, and to a lesser extent that of her sister-in-law Earline who was staying with him. Aretha, Carolyn, and Erma all tried to keep in constant touch with their father while they were out of town, and Aretha even talked about hiring private detectives to travel to Detroit, find her father, and get him out of the city to safety. But as her brother Cecil pointed out, he was probably the single most loved man among Black people in Detroit, and was unlikely to be harmed by the rioters, while he was too famous for the police to kill with impunity. Reverend Franklin had been having a stressful time anyway -- he had recently been fined for tax evasion, an action he was convinced the IRS had taken because of his friendship with Dr King and his role in the civil rights movement -- and according to Cecil "Aretha begged Daddy to move out of the city entirely. She wanted him to find another congregation in California, where he was especially popular—or at least move out to the suburbs. But he wouldn't budge. He said that, more than ever, he was needed to point out the root causes of the riots—the economic inequality, the pervasive racism in civic institutions, the woefully inadequate schools in inner-city Detroit, and the wholesale destruction of our neighborhoods by urban renewal. Some ministers fled the city, but not our father. The horror of what happened only recommitted him. He would not abandon his political agenda." To make things worse, Aretha was worried about her father in other ways -- as her marriage to Ted White was starting to disintegrate, she was looking to her father for guidance, and actually wanted him to take over her management. Eventually, Ruth Bowen, her booking agent, persuaded her brother Cecil that this was a job he could do, and that she would teach him everything he needed to know about the music business. She started training him up while Aretha was still married to White, in the expectation that that marriage couldn't last. Jerry Wexler, who only a few months earlier had been seeing Ted White as an ally in getting "product" from Franklin, had now changed his tune -- partly because the sale of Atlantic had gone through in the meantime. He later said “Sometimes she'd call me at night, and, in that barely audible little-girl voice of hers, she'd tell me that she wasn't sure she could go on. She always spoke in generalities. She never mentioned her husband, never gave me specifics of who was doing what to whom. And of course I knew better than to ask. She just said that she was tired of dealing with so much. My heart went out to her. She was a woman who suffered silently. She held so much in. I'd tell her to take as much time off as she needed. We had a lot of songs in the can that we could release without new material. ‘Oh, no, Jerry,' she'd say. ‘I can't stop recording. I've written some new songs, Carolyn's written some new songs. We gotta get in there and cut 'em.' ‘Are you sure?' I'd ask. ‘Positive,' she'd say. I'd set up the dates and typically she wouldn't show up for the first or second sessions. Carolyn or Erma would call me to say, ‘Ree's under the weather.' That was tough because we'd have asked people like Joe South and Bobby Womack to play on the sessions. Then I'd reschedule in the hopes she'd show." That third album she recorded in 1967, Lady Soul, was possibly her greatest achievement. The opening track, and second single, "Chain of Fools", released in November, was written by Don Covay -- or at least it's credited as having been written by Covay. There's a gospel record that came out around the same time on a very small label based in Houston -- "Pains of Life" by Rev. E. Fair And The Sensational Gladys Davis Trio: [Excerpt: Rev. E. Fair And The Sensational Gladys Davis Trio, "Pains of Life"] I've seen various claims online that that record came out shortly *before* "Chain of Fools", but I can't find any definitive evidence one way or the other -- it was on such a small label that release dates aren't available anywhere. Given that the B-side, which I haven't been able to track down online, is called "Wait Until the Midnight Hour", my guess is that rather than this being a case of Don Covay stealing the melody from an obscure gospel record he'd have had little chance to hear, it's the gospel record rewriting a then-current hit to be about religion, but I thought it worth mentioning. The song was actually written by Covay after Jerry Wexler asked him to come up with some songs for Otis Redding, but Wexler, after hearing it, decided it was better suited to Franklin, who gave an astonishing performance: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Chain of Fools"] Arif Mardin, the arranger of the album, said of that track “I was listed as the arranger of ‘Chain of Fools,' but I can't take credit. Aretha walked into the studio with the chart fully formed inside her head. The arrangement is based around the harmony vocals provided by Carolyn and Erma. To add heft, the Sweet Inspirations joined in. The vision of the song is entirely Aretha's.” According to Wexler, that's not *quite* true -- according to him, Joe South came up with the guitar part that makes up the intro, and he also said that when he played what he thought was the finished track to Ellie Greenwich, she came up with another vocal line for the backing vocals, which she overdubbed. But the core of the record's sound is definitely pure Aretha -- and Carolyn Franklin said that there was a reason for that. As she said later “Aretha didn't write ‘Chain,' but she might as well have. It was her story. When we were in the studio putting on the backgrounds with Ree doing lead, I knew she was singing about Ted. Listen to the lyrics talking about how for five long years she thought he was her man. Then she found out she was nothing but a link in the chain. Then she sings that her father told her to come on home. Well, he did. She sings about how her doctor said to take it easy. Well, he did too. She was drinking so much we thought she was on the verge of a breakdown. The line that slew me, though, was the one that said how one of these mornings the chain is gonna break but until then she'll take all she can take. That summed it up. Ree knew damn well that this man had been doggin' her since Jump Street. But somehow she held on and pushed it to the breaking point." [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Chain of Fools"] That made number one on the R&B charts, and number two on the hot one hundred, kept from the top by "Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)" by John Fred and his Playboy Band -- a record that very few people would say has stood the test of time as well. The other most memorable track on the album was the one chosen as the first single, released in September. As Carole King told the story, she and Gerry Goffin were feeling like their career was in a slump. While they had had a huge run of hits in the early sixties through 1965, they had only had two new hits in 1966 -- "Goin' Back" for Dusty Springfield and "Don't Bring Me Down" for the Animals, and neither of those were anything like as massive as their previous hits. And up to that point in 1967, they'd only had one -- "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the Monkees. They had managed to place several songs on Monkees albums and the TV show as well, so they weren't going to starve, but the rise of self-contained bands that were starting to dominate the charts, and Phil Spector's temporary retirement, meant there simply wasn't the opportunity for them to place material that there had been. They were also getting sick of travelling to the West Coast all the time, because as their children were growing slightly older they didn't want to disrupt their lives in New York, and were thinking of approaching some of the New York based labels and seeing if they needed songs. They were particularly considering Atlantic, because soul was more open to outside songwriters than other genres. As it happened, though, they didn't have to approach Atlantic, because Atlantic approached them. They were walking down Broadway when a limousine pulled up, and Jerry Wexler stuck his head out of the window. He'd come up with a good title that he wanted to use for a song for Aretha, would they be interested in writing a song called "Natural Woman"? They said of course they would, and Wexler drove off. They wrote the song that night, and King recorded a demo the next morning: [Excerpt: Carole King, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (demo)"] They gave Wexler a co-writing credit because he had suggested the title.  King later wrote in her autobiography "Hearing Aretha's performance of “Natural Woman” for the first time, I experienced a rare speechless moment. To this day I can't convey how I felt in mere words. Anyone who had written a song in 1967 hoping it would be performed by a singer who could take it to the highest level of excellence, emotional connection, and public exposure would surely have wanted that singer to be Aretha Franklin." She went on to say "But a recording that moves people is never just about the artist and the songwriters. It's about people like Jerry and Ahmet, who matched the songwriters with a great title and a gifted artist; Arif Mardin, whose magnificent orchestral arrangement deserves the place it will forever occupy in popular music history; Tom Dowd, whose engineering skills captured the magic of this memorable musical moment for posterity; and the musicians in the rhythm section, the orchestral players, and the vocal contributions of the background singers—among them the unforgettable “Ah-oo!” after the first line of the verse. And the promotion and marketing people helped this song reach more people than it might have without them." And that's correct -- unlike "Chain of Fools", this time Franklin did let Arif Mardin do most of the arrangement work -- though she came up with the piano part that Spooner Oldham plays on the record. Mardin said that because of the song's hymn-like feel they wanted to go for a more traditional written arrangement. He said "She loved the song to the point where she said she wanted to concentrate on the vocal and vocal alone. I had written a string chart and horn chart to augment the chorus and hired Ralph Burns to conduct. After just a couple of takes, we had it. That's when Ralph turned to me with wonder in his eyes. Ralph was one of the most celebrated arrangers of the modern era. He had done ‘Early Autumn' for Woody Herman and Stan Getz, and ‘Georgia on My Mind' for Ray Charles. He'd worked with everyone. ‘This woman comes from another planet' was all Ralph said. ‘She's just here visiting.'” [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"] By this point there was a well-functioning team making Franklin's records -- while the production credits would vary over the years, they were all essentially co-productions by the team of Franklin, Wexler, Mardin and Dowd, all collaborating and working together with a more-or-less unified purpose, and the backing was always by the same handful of session musicians and some combination of the Sweet Inspirations and Aretha's sisters. That didn't mean that occasional guests couldn't get involved -- as we discussed in the Cream episode, Eric Clapton played guitar on "Good to Me as I am to You": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Good to Me as I am to You"] Though that was one of the rare occasions on one of these records where something was overdubbed. Clapton apparently messed up the guitar part when playing behind Franklin, because he was too intimidated by playing with her, and came back the next day to redo his part without her in the studio. At this point, Aretha was at the height of her fame. Just before the final batch of album sessions began she appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, and she was making regular TV appearances, like one on the Mike Douglas Show where she duetted with Frankie Valli on "That's Life": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin and Frankie Valli, "That's Life"] But also, as Wexler said “Her career was kicking into high gear. Contending and resolving both the professional and personal challenges were too much. She didn't think she could do both, and I didn't blame her. Few people could. So she let the personal slide and concentrated on the professional. " Her concert promoter Ruth Bowen said of this time "Her father and Dr. King were putting pressure on her to sing everywhere, and she felt obligated. The record company was also screaming for more product. And I had a mountain of offers on my desk that kept getting higher with every passing hour. They wanted her in Europe. They wanted her in Latin America. They wanted her in every major venue in the U.S. TV was calling. She was being asked to do guest appearances on every show from Carol Burnett to Andy Williams to the Hollywood Palace. She wanted to do them all and she wanted to do none of them. She wanted to do them all because she's an entertainer who burns with ambition. She wanted to do none of them because she was emotionally drained. She needed to go away and renew her strength. I told her that at least a dozen times. She said she would, but she didn't listen to me." The pressures from her father and Dr King are a recurring motif in interviews with people about this period. Franklin was always a very political person, and would throughout her life volunteer time and money to liberal political causes and to the Democratic Party, but this was the height of her activism -- the Civil Rights movement was trying to capitalise on the gains it had made in the previous couple of years, and celebrity fundraisers and performances at rallies were an important way to do that. And at this point there were few bigger celebrities in America than Aretha Franklin. At a concert in her home town of Detroit on February the sixteenth, 1968, the Mayor declared the day Aretha Franklin Day. At the same show, Billboard, Record World *and* Cash Box magazines all presented her with plaques for being Female Vocalist of the Year. And Dr. King travelled up to be at the show and congratulate her publicly for all her work with his organisation, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Backstage at that show, Dr. King talked to Aretha's father, Reverend Franklin, about what he believed would be the next big battle -- a strike in Memphis: [Excerpt, Martin Luther King, "Mountaintop Speech" -- "And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right."] The strike in question was the Memphis Sanitation Workers' strike which had started a few days before.  The struggle for Black labour rights was an integral part of the civil rights movement, and while it's not told that way in the sanitised version of the story that's made it into popular culture, the movement led by King was as much about economic justice as social justice -- King was a democratic socialist, and believed that economic oppression was both an effect of and cause of other forms of racial oppression, and that the rights of Black workers needed to be fought for. In 1967 he had set up a new organisation, the Poor People's Campaign, which was set to march on Washington to demand a program that included full employment, a guaranteed income -- King was strongly influenced in his later years by the ideas of Henry George, the proponent of a universal basic income based on land value tax -- the annual building of half a million affordable homes, and an end to the war in Vietnam. This was King's main focus in early 1968, and he saw the sanitation workers' strike as a major part of this campaign. Memphis was one of the most oppressive cities in the country, and its largely Black workforce of sanitation workers had been trying for most of the 1960s to unionise, and strike-breakers had been called in to stop them, and many of them had been fired by their white supervisors with no notice. They were working in unsafe conditions, for utterly inadequate wages, and the city government were ardent segregationists. After two workers had died on the first of February from using unsafe equipment, the union demanded changes -- safer working conditions, better wages, and recognition of the union. The city council refused, and almost all the sanitation workers stayed home and stopped work. After a few days, the council relented and agreed to their terms, but the Mayor, Henry Loeb, an ardent white supremacist who had stood on a platform of opposing desegregation, and who had previously been the Public Works Commissioner who had put these unsafe conditions in place, refused to listen. As far as he was concerned, he was the only one who could recognise the union, and he wouldn't. The workers continued their strike, marching holding signs that simply read "I am a Man": [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "Blowing in the Wind"] The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the NAACP had been involved in organising support for the strikes from an early stage, and King visited Memphis many times. Much of the time he spent visiting there was spent negotiating with a group of more militant activists, who called themselves The Invaders and weren't completely convinced by King's nonviolent approach -- they believed that violence and rioting got more attention than non-violent protests. King explained to them that while he had been persuaded by Gandhi's writings of the moral case for nonviolent protest, he was also persuaded that it was pragmatically necessary -- asking the young men "how many guns do we have and how many guns do they have?", and pointing out as he often did that when it comes to violence a minority can't win against an armed majority. Rev Franklin went down to Memphis on the twenty-eighth of March to speak at a rally Dr. King was holding, but as it turned out the rally was cancelled -- the pre-rally march had got out of hand, with some people smashing windows, and Memphis police had, like the police in Detroit the previous year, violently overreacted, clubbing and gassing protestors and shooting and killing one unarmed teenage boy, Larry Payne. The day after Payne's funeral, Dr King was back in Memphis, though this time Rev Franklin was not with him. On April the third, he gave a speech which became known as the "Mountaintop Speech", in which he talked about the threats that had been made to his life: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Mountaintop Speech": “And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."] The next day, Martin Luther King was shot dead. James Earl Ray, a white supremacist, pled guilty to the murder, and the evidence against him seems overwhelming from what I've read, but the King family have always claimed that the murder was part of a larger conspiracy and that Ray was not the gunman. Aretha was obviously distraught, and she attended the funeral, as did almost every other prominent Black public figure. James Baldwin wrote of the funeral: "In the pew directly before me sat Marlon Brando, Sammy Davis, Eartha Kitt—covered in black, looking like a lost, ten-year-old girl—and Sidney Poitier, in the same pew, or nearby. Marlon saw me, and nodded. The atmosphere was black, with a tension indescribable—as though something, perhaps the heavens, perhaps the earth, might crack. Everyone sat very still. The actual service sort of washed over me, in waves. It wasn't that it seemed unreal; it was the most real church service I've ever sat through in my life, or ever hope to sit through; but I have a childhood hangover thing about not weeping in public, and I was concentrating on holding myself together. I did not want to weep for Martin, tears seemed futile. But I may also have been afraid, and I could not have been the only one, that if I began to weep I would not be able to stop. There was more than enough to weep for, if one was to weep—so many of us, cut down, so soon. Medgar, Malcolm, Martin: and their widows, and their children. Reverend Ralph David Abernathy asked a certain sister to sing a song which Martin had loved—“Once more,” said Ralph David, “for Martin and for me,” and he sat down." Many articles and books on Aretha Franklin say that she sang at King's funeral. In fact she didn't, but there's a simple reason for the confusion. King's favourite song was the Thomas Dorsey gospel song "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", and indeed almost his last words were to ask a trumpet player, Ben Branch, if he would play the song at the rally he was going to be speaking at on the day of his death. At his request, Mahalia Jackson, his old friend, sang the song at his private funeral, which was not filmed, unlike the public part of the funeral that Baldwin described. Four months later, though, there was another public memorial for King, and Franklin did sing "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at that service, in front of King's weeping widow and children, and that performance *was* filmed, and gets conflated in people's memories with Jackson's unfilmed earlier performance: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord (at Martin Luther King Memorial)"] Four years later, she would sing that at Mahalia Jackson's funeral. Through all this, Franklin had been working on her next album, Aretha Now, the sessions for which started more or less as soon as the sessions for Lady Soul had finished. The album was, in fact, bookended by deaths that affected Aretha. Just as King died at the end of the sessions, the beginning came around the time of the death of Otis Redding -- the sessions were cancelled for a day while Wexler travelled to Georgia for Redding's funeral, which Franklin was too devastated to attend, and Wexler would later say that the extra emotion in her performances on the album came from her emotional pain at Redding's death. The lead single on the album, "Think", was written by Franklin and -- according to the credits anyway -- her husband Ted White, and is very much in the same style as "Respect", and became another of her most-loved hits: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Think"] But probably the song on Aretha Now that now resonates the most is one that Jerry Wexler tried to persuade her not to record, and was only released as a B-side. Indeed, "I Say a Little Prayer" was a song that had already once been a hit after being a reject.  Hal David, unlike Burt Bacharach, was a fairly political person and inspired by the protest song movement, and had been starting to incorporate his concerns about the political situation and the Vietnam War into his lyrics -- though as with many such writers, he did it in much less specific ways than a Phil Ochs or a Bob Dylan. This had started with "What the World Needs Now is Love", a song Bacharach and David had written for Jackie DeShannon in 1965: [Excerpt: Jackie DeShannon, "What the "World Needs Now is Love"] But he'd become much more overtly political for "The Windows of the World", a song they wrote for Dionne Warwick. Warwick has often said it's her favourite of her singles, but it wasn't a big hit -- Bacharach blamed himself for that, saying "Dionne recorded it as a single and I really blew it. I wrote a bad arrangement and the tempo was too fast, and I really regret making it the way I did because it's a good song." [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "The Windows of the World"] For that album, Bacharach and David had written another track, "I Say a Little Prayer", which was not as explicitly political, but was intended by David to have an implicit anti-war message, much like other songs of the period like "Last Train to Clarksville". David had sons who were the right age to be drafted, and while it's never stated, "I Say a Little Prayer" was written from the perspective of a woman whose partner is away fighting in the war, but is still in her thoughts: [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "I Say a Little Prayer"] The recording of Dionne Warwick's version was marked by stress. Bacharach had a particular way of writing music to tell the musicians the kind of feel he wanted for the part -- he'd write nonsense words above the stave, and tell the musicians to play the parts as if they were singing those words. The trumpet player hired for the session, Ernie Royal, got into a row with Bacharach about this unorthodox way of communicating musical feeling, and the track ended up taking ten takes (as opposed to the normal three for a Bacharach session), with Royal being replaced half-way through the session. Bacharach was never happy with the track even after all the work it had taken, and he fought to keep it from being released at all, saying the track was taken at too fast a tempo. It eventually came out as an album track nearly eighteen months after it was recorded -- an eternity in 1960s musical timescales -- and DJs started playing it almost as soon as it came out. Scepter records rushed out a single, over Bacharach's objections, but as he later said "One thing I love about the record business is how wrong I was. Disc jockeys all across the country started playing the track, and the song went to number four on the charts and then became the biggest hit Hal and I had ever written for Dionne." [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "I Say a Little Prayer"] Oddly, the B-side for Warwick's single, "Theme From the Valley of the Dolls" did even better, reaching number two. Almost as soon as the song was released as a single, Franklin started playing around with the song backstage, and in April 1968, right around the time of Dr. King's death, she recorded a version. Much as Burt Bacharach had been against releasing Dionne Warwick's version, Jerry Wexler was against Aretha even recording the song, saying later “I advised Aretha not to record it. I opposed it for two reasons. First, to cover a song only twelve weeks after the original reached the top of the charts was not smart business. You revisit such a hit eight months to a year later. That's standard practice. But more than that, Bacharach's melody, though lovely, was peculiarly suited to a lithe instrument like Dionne Warwick's—a light voice without the dark corners or emotional depths that define Aretha. Also, Hal David's lyric was also somewhat girlish and lacked the gravitas that Aretha required. “Aretha usually listened to me in the studio, but not this time. She had written a vocal arrangement for the Sweet Inspirations that was undoubtedly strong. Cissy Houston, Dionne's cousin, told me that Aretha was on the right track—she was seeing this song in a new way and had come up with a new groove. Cissy was on Aretha's side. Tommy Dowd and Arif were on Aretha's side. So I had no choice but to cave." It's quite possible that Wexler's objections made Franklin more, rather than less, determined to record the song. She regarded Warwick as a hated rival, as she did almost every prominent female singer of her generation and younger ones, and would undoubtedly have taken the implication that there was something that Warwick was simply better at than her to heart. [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer"] Wexler realised as soon as he heard it in the studio that Franklin's version was great, and Bacharach agreed, telling Franklin's biographer David Ritz “As much as I like the original recording by Dionne, there's no doubt that Aretha's is a better record. She imbued the song with heavy soul and took it to a far deeper place. Hers is the definitive version.” -- which is surprising because Franklin's version simplifies some of Bacharach's more unusual chord voicings, something he often found extremely upsetting. Wexler still though thought there was no way the song would be a hit, and it's understandable that he thought that way. Not only had it only just been on the charts a few months earlier, but it was the kind of song that wouldn't normally be a hit at all, and certainly not in the kind of rhythmic soul music for which Franklin was known. Almost everything she ever recorded is in simple time signatures -- 4/4, waltz time, or 6/8 -- but this is a Bacharach song so it's staggeringly metrically irregular. Normally even with semi-complex things I'm usually good at figuring out how to break it down into bars, but here I actually had to purchase a copy of the sheet music in order to be sure I was right about what's going on. I'm going to count beats along with the record here so you can see what I mean. The verse has three bars of 4/4, one bar of 2/4, and three more bars of 4/4, all repeated: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer" with me counting bars over verse] While the chorus has a bar of 4/4, a bar of 3/4 but with a chord change half way through so it sounds like it's in two if you're paying attention to the harmonic changes, two bars of 4/4, another waltz-time bar sounding like it's in two, two bars of four, another bar of three sounding in two, a bar of four, then three more bars of four but the first of those is *written* as four but played as if it's in six-eight time (but you can keep the four/four pulse going if you're counting): [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer" with me counting bars over verse] I don't expect you to have necessarily followed that in great detail, but the point should be clear -- this was not some straightforward dance song. Incidentally, that bar played as if it's six/eight was something Aretha introduced to make the song even more irregular than how Bacharach wrote it. And on top of *that* of course the lyrics mixed the secular and the sacred, something that was still taboo in popular music at that time -- this is only a couple of years after Capitol records had been genuinely unsure about putting out the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows", and Franklin's gospel-inflected vocals made the religious connection even more obvious. But Franklin was insistent that the record go out as a single, and eventually it was released as the B-side to the far less impressive "The House That Jack Built". It became a double-sided hit, with the A-side making number two on the R&B chart and number seven on the Hot One Hundred, while "I Say a Little Prayer" made number three on the R&B chart and number ten overall. In the UK, "I Say a Little Prayer" made number four and became her biggest ever solo UK hit. It's now one of her most-remembered songs, while the A-side is largely forgotten: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer"] For much of the

On this episode of INTO THE GROOVES I discuss my love for all things Madonna. Join me as I travel back in time to when I discovered the Queen of Pop and find out what persuaded me to start collecting Madonna vinyl in the first place. Listen as I speak about my favourite Madonna items and the ones that I am still on the look out for. (0:00) Intro (1:38) Justifying My Love(16:44) Like A Virgin: Collecting for the very first time(23:52) True Blue, Baby I Love You(28:07) Music Makes The People Come Together(30:06) Desperately Seeking Vinyl(32: 30) I'll Remember(35:46) Don't Tell Me (To Stop)(39:25) OutroLike, Subscribe, Comment and feel free to follow me on Instragram at https://www.instagram.com/adrian163vinylARTWORK by Payton White https://www.instagram.com/_p.a.y.t.o.n_/MUSIC by saavane from Pixabay

This week, we raise our glasses to a fan-favourite issue, Excalibur #91, “Baby I Love You,” in which our merry mutant misfits take a night off from saving the world to take a tipple, dance on tables, and threaten to kill each other in the bathroom. We also toast everyone's favourite were-girl with a rough past and a heart of gold with the help of our gracious guest, writer, research, and Rahne Sinclair X-pert, Rebecca Gault! Plus the joys of decompression issues and what's the new identity of this team, anyway?

De nuevo hoy en Ya No Puedo Más un programa especial con una temática muy determinada. Una selección musical centrada en las canciones más adecuadas para los últimos momentos del día, canciones que nos dan las buenas noches y nos hablan del momento de irnos a la dormir. Hoy los sueños son los protagonistas de nuestro programa. De esta manera escuchamos piezas como Good Night My Love de The Shangri-Las, o Let's Go To Bed de The Cure en la versión de Ivy, o I Sleep Alone de Richard Hawley. También pinchamos a Saint Etienne y su Goodnight, o a Ellie Greenwich cantando un mix de dos de sus mejores composiciones, Goodnight Baby y Baby I Love You. Otros que están presentes son Dylan Mondegreen, The Magnetic Fields o Lee Hazlewood.

Playlist : Ronettes > Baby I Love You 1963 / Housemartins > Happy Hour 1986 / Queen/David Bowie > Under… The post Le Musée des Oubliés-10-12-2022 first appeared on Radio Campus Angers.

Photo:   Trade ad for Aretha Franklin's single, "Baby I Love You". The Queen of Soul lavished her vast talent on music worldwide. 6/8 The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by  Adrian Wooldridge  Hardcover – June 3, 2021  

Happy Birthday, Andy Kim! Andy is from Montreal, where he began singing at parties and school functions as a kid. When he was 14, he traveled to New York, where he met producer Jeff Barry. They produced a dozen chartmakers including "Baby I Love You", Andy's first million-seller. In 1969, Andy had a #1 record, but not under his own name. He was a member of The Archies, and that monster hit was "Sugar, Sugar". Andy continued recording throughout the early 70's and once again had a Number One hit with 1974's "Rock Me Gently". The song sold three million copies and it was Andy's second gold record. A couple of years later he "rebranded" himself as Baron Longfellow and continued to record, but the big hits were behind him. When I interviewed Andy in 1990, we talked about meeting Jeff Barry, his influence on Andy's music, and how Andy thought his songs stood up in a new era. Andy Kim is truly a Canadian legend! In 2017 performing rights organization SOCAN honoured Andy with their Cultural Impact Award. In recognition of his 50-year career and sales of over 30 million records, Canada's Walk Of Fame inducted him in 2018. Andy is also member of the Songwriters' Hall of Fame and the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. He continues to perform, and he's hosting The 17th Annual Andy Kim Christmas Special on Wednesday (12/8) at Toronto's Massey Hall. All proceeds support @camhfoundation Gifts of Light. You can help people experiencing mental illness on their journey to recovery at give.camh.ca. Visit Andy and see what he's up to these days at andykimmusic.com

The Rockin' Eddy Oldies Radio Show featuring Ricky Nelson - "Believe What You Say", The Diamonds - "Litle Darlin", Freddy Cannon - "Abigail Beecher", Jerry Butler - "For Your Precious Love", Johnny Otis Show - "Willie And The Hand Jive", (Twin Spin) Chris Montez - "Let's Dance" (A-side) / with Kathy Young - "You're The One" (B-side), The Jarmels - "Keep Your Mind On Me", Johnny Mathis - "What Will My Mary Say", Jackie Dallas - "Lorriane", Fred Hughes - "Oo-we-Baby I Love You", The Duprees - "Take Me As I Am", Charlie & Ray - "I Love You Madly", The Channels - "The Closer You Are", Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers - "Goody Goody", James & Bobby Purify - "Wish You Didn't Have To Go", Kokomo - "Asia Minor", Elvis Presley - "Guitar Man", Marion Montgomery - "That's Life", The Browns - "The Old Lamplighter", Memphis Slim - "Blue & Lonesome".

Sintonía: "Don´t Stop Dancing (To The Music), Part 2" - The Bar-Kays "Don´t Stop Dancing (To The Music), Part 1", "If This World Were Mine", "In The Hole", "Funky Thang", "Jiving ´Round", "Grab This Thing", "Street Walker", "Humpin´" y "Hey Jude" (The Beatles), extraídas del álbum "Gotta Groove" (Fantasy,1969) "A Piece Of Your Peace", "Six O´Clock News Report", "Montego Bay" y "Baby I Love You", extraídas del álbum "Black Rock" (Fantasy, 1971). Todas las canciones compuestas e interpretadas por The Bar-Kays, excepto donde se diga lo contrario Escuchar audio

  Episode 110 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Be My Baby”, and at the career of the Ronettes and Ronnie Spector.  Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.   Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—- Erratum I say Ray Peterson’s version of “Tell Laura I Love Her” was an American number one. It wasn’t — it only made number seven.   Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. A lot of resources were used for this episode. Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara Miniskirts and Madness, or My Life as a Fabulous Ronette by Ronnie Spector and Vince Waldron is Ronnie’s autobiography and was the main source. Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era by Ken Emerson is a good overview of the Brill Building scene, and provided me with the information on Barry and Greenwich. I’ve referred to two biographies of Spector in this episode, Phil Spector: Out of His Head by Richard Williams and He’s a Rebel by Mark Ribkowsky. And information on the Wrecking Crew largely comes from The Wrecking Crew by Kent Hartman. There are many compilations available with some of the hits Spector produced, but I recommend getting Back to Mono, a four-CD overview of his career containing all the major singles put out by Philles. If you want something just covering Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes, The Very Best of Ronnie Spector  covers all the Ronettes hits and the best of her solo career. And the AFM contract listing the musicians on “Be My Baby” can be found here.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today we’re going to take a look at the record that, more than anything, ensured Phil Spector’s place in popular music history — a record that changed the lives of several people who heard it for the better, and changed the life of its singer for the worse, and one which has the most imitated drum intro in the world. We’re going to look at “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes: [Excerpt: The Ronettes, “Be My Baby”] Before I start this one, two things need saying. The first is that this episode, by necessity, deals with spousal abuse. As always, I will try to discuss the issue with sensitivity, and touch on it as briefly as possible, but if you worry that it might upset you, please either skip this episode, or read the transcript to see if you’ll be OK listening to it. I imagine that very few people will be upset by anything I say here, but it’s always a possibility. And secondly, I’d like to apologise for this episode being so late. I had a major disruption in my personal life over Christmas — one of those really bad life events that only happens once or twice in most people’s lifetimes — and that made it impossible for me to get any work done at all for the last couple of weeks. I’m now able to work again, and this should not be anything that affects the podcast for the rest of the year. Anyway, enough about that, let’s get on with the story. The story of the Ronettes begins when Ronnie Bennett, a mixed-race girl from Harlem, became obsessed with the sound of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers: [Excerpt: Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, “Why Do Fools Fall In Love?”] Ronnie became the Teenagers’ biggest fan, and even managed to arrange a meeting between herself and Lymon when they were both thirteen, but had her illusions torn away when he turned up drunk and made a pass at her. But that didn’t stop her from trying her best to imitate Lymon’s vocals, and forming a vocal group with several friends and relatives. That group had a male lead singer, but when they made their first appearance on one of the Harlem Apollo’s talent shows, the lead singer got stage fright and couldn’t start singing when he got on stage. Ronnie stepped forward and took over the lead vocal, and the group went down well enough even with the Apollo’s notoriously hostile audience that a smaller group of them decided to start performing regularly together. The group took the name Ronnie and the Relatives, and consisted of Ronnie, her sister Estelle, and their cousin Nedra Talley. They originally only performed at private parties, bar mitzvahs and the like, but they soon reached the attention of Stu Phillips at Colpix Records, a label owned by the film studio Columbia Pictures. The first single by Ronnie and the Relatives was not a success — “I Want a Boy” came out in August 1961 and didn’t chart: [Excerpt: Ronnie and the Relatives, “I Want a Boy”] And nor did their second, “I’m Gonna Quit While I’m Ahead”: [Excerpt: Ronnie and the Relatives, “I’m Gonna Quit While I’m Ahead”] Those records did apparently sell to at least one person, though, as when Ronnie met President Clinton in 1997, he asked her to sign a record, and specifically got her to sign an album of those early recordings for Colpix. While the girls were not having any commercial success, they did manage to accidentally get themselves a regular gig at the most important nightclub in New York. They went to the Peppermint Lounge, just as the Twist craze was at its height, and as they were underage they dressed up especially well in order to make themselves look more grown up so they could get in. Their ruse worked better than they expected. As they were all dressed the same, the club’s manager assumed they were the dancers he’d booked, who hadn’t shown up. He came out and told them to get on stage and start dancing, and so of course they did what he said, and started dancing to the Twist sounds of Joey Dee and the Starliters: [Excerpt: Joey Dee and the Starliters, “The Peppermint Twist”] The girls’ dancing went down well, and then the band started playing “What’d I Say?”, a favourite song of Ronnie’s and one the group did in their own act, and Ronnie danced over to David Brigati, who was singing lead on the song, and started dancing close to him. He handed her the mic as a joke, and she took over the song. They got a regular spot at the Peppermint Lounge, dancing behind the Starliters for their whole show and joining them on vocals for a few numbers every night. Inspired by the Bobbettes and the Marvelettes, Ronnie and Estelle’s mother suggested changing the group’s name. She suggested “the Rondettes”, and they dropped the “d”, becoming the Ronettes. The singles they released on ColPix under the new name did no better than the others, but they were such an important part of the Peppermint Lounge that when the Lounge’s owners opened a second venue in Florida, the girls went down there with the Starliters and were part of the show.  That trip to Florida gave them two very different experiences. The first was that they got to see segregation firsthand for the first time, and they didn’t like it — especially when they, as light-skinned mixed-race women, were read as tanned white women and served in restaurants which then refused to serve their darker-skinned mothers. But the second was far more positive. They met Murray the K, who since Alan Freed had been driven out of his job had become the most popular DJ in New York. Murray was down in Florida for a holiday, and was impressed enough by the girls’ dancing that he told them if they were ever in New York and wanted a spot on one of his regular shows at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre they should let him know. They replied that they lived in New York and went to those shows all the time — of course they wanted to perform on his shows. They became regular performers at the Brooklyn Fox, where they danced between the other, bigger, acts, sang backing vocals, did a song or two themselves, and took part in comedy sketches with Murray. It was at these shows, as well, that they developed the look they would become famous with — huge hair piled up on top of their heads, tons of mascara, and tight skirts slit to show their legs. It was a style inspired by street fashion rather than by what the other girl groups were wearing, and it made them incredibly popular with the Fox audience. But the Ronettes, even under their new name, and even with the backing of New York’s most prominent DJ, were still not selling any records. They knew they were good, and the reaction to their stage performances proved as much, so they decided that the problem must be with Colpix. And so in 1963 they made a New Year’s resolution — they were going to get Phil Spector to produce them.  By this time, Spector was becoming very well known in the music industry as a hit maker. We already saw in the recent episode on the Crystals how he was making hits for that group and the Blossoms, but he was also making hits with studio groups like Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, who he took into the top ten with a remake of the old Disney song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”: [Excerpt: Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”] and as well as the records he was putting out on Philles, he was also working as a freelance producer for people like Connie Francis, producing her top ten hit “Second-Hand Love”: [Excerpt: Connie Francis, “Second-Hand Love”] So the Ronettes were convinced that he could make them into the stars they knew they had the potential to be. The group had no idea how to get in touch with Spector, so they tried the direct route — Estelle called directory enquiries, got the number for Philles Records, and called and asked to be put through to Spector. She was as astonished as anyone when he agreed to talk to her — and it turned out that he’d seen the group regularly at the Brooklyn Fox and was interested in working with them.  At their audition for Spector, the group first performed a close-harmony version of “When the Red Red Robin Goes Bob-Bob-Bobbin’ Along”, which they’d been taught by their singing teacher. Spector told them that he wanted to hear what they did when they were singing for themselves, not for a teacher, and so Ronnie launched into “Why Do Fools Fall In Love?”  It only took her getting to the second line of the song before Spector yelled at her to stop — “THAT is the voice I’ve been looking for!” The Ronettes’ first recordings for Spector weren’t actually issued as by the Ronettes at all. To start with, he had them record a version of a song by the writing team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, “Why Don’t They Let Us Fall In Love?”, but didn’t release it at the time. It was later released as by “Veronica”, the name under which he released solo records by Ronnie: [Excerpt: Veronica, “Why Don’t They Let Us Fall In Love?”] But at the time, when Ronnie asked him when the record was coming out, Spector answered “Never”. He explained to her that it was a good record, but it wasn’t a number one, and he was still working on their first number one record. Their next few recordings were covers of then-current dance hits, like “The Twist”: [Excerpt, “The Crystals”, “The Twist”] And “The Wah-Watusi”, one of the few times that one of the other Ronettes took the lead rather than Ronnie, as Nedra sang lead: [Excerpt, “The Crystals”, “The Wah-Watusi”] But these, and two other tracks, were released as album tracks on a Crystals album, credited to the Crystals rather than the Ronettes. The song that eventually became the group’s first hit, “Be My Baby”, was mostly written by one of the many husband-and-wife songwriting teams that had developed at the Brill Building, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Barry had started out as a performer who occasionally wrote, putting out records like “It’s Called Rock and Roll”: [Excerpt: Jeff Barry, “It’s Called Rock and Roll”] But while his performing career had gone nowhere, he’d started to have some success as a songwriter, writing “Teenage Sonata” for Sam Cooke: [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, “Teenage Sonata”] And “Tell Laura I Love Her”, which was recorded by several people, but the biggest hit version was the American number one by Ray Peterson: [Excerpt: Ray Peterson, “Tell Laura I Love Her”] Ellie Greenwich had also started as a performer, recording “Silly Isn’t It?” under the name Ellie Gaye: [Excerpt: Ellie Gaye, “Silly, Isn’t It?”] She’d become one of the most important demo singers in New York, and had also started writing songs. She’d first collaborated with Doc Pomus, cowriting songs like “This is It”, which had been a flop single for Jay and the Americans: [Excerpt: Jay and the Americans, “This is It”] She’d then been taken on by Trio Music, Leiber and Stoller’s company, where she had largely collaborated with another writer named Tony Powers. Trio had first refusal on anything the two of them wrote, and if Leiber and Stoller didn’t like it, they could take the song elsewhere. Greenwich and Powers had their biggest successes with songs that Leiber and Stoller rejected, which they sold to Aaron Schroeder. And they’d started up a collaboration with Phil Spector — although Spector and Greenwich’s first meeting had not exactly gone smoothly. He’d gone into her office to hear her play a song that she thought would be suitable for the Paris Sisters, but had kept wandering out of the office, and had kept looking at himself in a mirror and primping himself rather than listen to her song. Eventually she said to him  “Listen to me, you little prick. Did you come to look at yourself or to hear my songs?”, and she didn’t make that sale. But later on, Spector became interested in a song she’d sold to Schroeder, and made an appointment to meet her and talk about her writing some stuff for him — that second meeting, which Spector didn’t realise was with someone he’d already made a bad impression on, Spector turned up four hours late.  But despite that, Greenwich and Powers wrote several songs for Spector, who was also given songwriting credit, and which became big hits in versions he produced — “(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry”, a single by Darlene Love: [Excerpt: Darlene Love, “(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry”] And “Why Do Lovers Break Each Others’ Hearts?”, released as by Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, but with Love once again on lead vocals: [Excerpt: Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, “Why Do Lovers Break Each Others’ Hearts?”] I say that Spector was also given songwriting credit on those records, because there is some debate about how much he contributed to the songs he’s credited on. Some of his co-writers have said that he would often only change a word or a phrase, and get himself cut in on an already-completed song, while others have said that he contributed a reasonable amount to the songwriting, though he was never the primary writer — for example Barry Mann has said that Spector came up with the middle section for “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”. I tend towards the belief that Spector’s contribution to the writing on those songs he’s co-credited on was minimal — in his whole career, the number of songs he wrote on his own seems to be in the single figures, while those other writers wrote dozens of hit records without any contribution from Spector — and so when I talk about records he produced I’ll tend to use phrasing like “a Goffin and King song co-credited to Phil Spector” rather than “a song by Goffin, King, and Spector”, but I don’t want that to give the impression that I’m certain Spector made no contribution.  But while Greenwich and Powers were a mildly successful team, their partnership ended when Greenwich met Jeff Barry at a family Thanksgiving dinner — Greenwich’s uncle was Barry’s cousin. As Greenwich later put it, when they started talking together about music and realised how much they had in common, “I went ‘ooh’, he went ‘mmmhh’, and his wife went ‘I don’t think I like this'”. Soon their previous partnerships, both romantic and musical, were over, and Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich became the third of the great Brill Building husband-and-wife songwriting teams.  Where Goffin and King had a sophisticated edge to their writing, with a hint of sexual subversion and the mingling of pain and pleasure, and Mann and Weill tried to incorporate social comment into their songs, Barry and Greenwich were happy to be silly — they were writing songs like “Hanky Panky”, “Da Doo Ron Ron”,  and “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy”: [Excerpt: Ellie Greenwich “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy (demo)”] This worked extremely well for them, to the extent that after they broke up a few years later, Barry would continue this formula with songs such as “Sugar Sugar”, “Jingle Jangle” and “Bang Shang A Lang”. Barry and Greenwich’s style was to jam in as many hooks as possible, maybe put in a joke or two, keep the lyrics simple, and get out in two minutes. Very few of their songs were masterpieces of songwriting, but they *were* absolutely perfect templates for masterpieces of production. It sounds like I’m damning them with faint praise, but I’m really not. There is a huge skill involved in what they were doing — if you’re writing some heartwrenching masterpiece about the human condition, people will forgive the odd lapse in craft, but if you’re writing “My baby does the hanky panky”, there’s no margin for error, and you’re not going to get forgiven if you mess it up.  Barry and Greenwich were good enough at this that they became the go-to writers for Spector for the next couple of years. He would record songs by most of the Brill Building teams, but when you think of the classic records Spector produced, they’re far more likely than not to be Barry and Greenwich songs — of the twenty-seven Philles singles released after Barry and Greenwich started writing together, fourteen are credited to Barry/Greenwich/Spector, and other than the joke release “Let’s Dance the Screw”, which we talked about back in the episode on the Crystals, there’s a run of eleven singles released on the label between late 1962 and early 1964 which are credited either as Greenwich/Powers/Spector or Barry/Greenwich/Spector. And so it was naturally to Barry and Greenwich that Spector turned to write the first big hit for the Ronettes — and he let Ronnie hear the writing session. By this time, Spector had become romantically involved with Ronnie, and he invited her into his apartment to sit in the next room and listen to them working on the song — usually they got together in hotels rather than at Spector’s home. While she was there, she found several pairs of women’s shoes — Spector hadn’t told her he was married, and claimed to her when she asked that they belonged to his sister. This should probably have been a sign of things to come. Assuming that Spector did contribute to the writing, I think it’s easy to tell what he brought to “Be My Baby”. If you listen to that Connie Francis record I excerpted earlier, on which Spector is also a credited co-writer, the melody line for the line “that you don’t feel the same” leading into the chorus: [Excerpt: Connie Francis, “Second-Hand Love”] is identical to the melody line leading into the chorus of “Be My Baby”: [Excerpt: The Ronettes, “Be My Baby”] So that transition between the verse and the chorus is likely his work. After rehearsing Ronnie for several weeks in New York, Spector flew her out to LA to make the record in Gold Star Studios, where she spent three days recording the lead vocals. The backing vocals weren’t provided by the other Ronettes, but rather by the Blossoms, with a few extra singers — notably Spector’s assistant Sonny Bono, and his new girlfriend Cher — but what really made the track was not the vocals — although the song was perfect for Ronnie — but Hal Blaine’s drum intro: [Excerpt: The Ronettes, “Be My Baby”] That intro was utterly simple — Blaine was always a minimalist player, someone who would play for the song rather than play fussy fills — but that simple part, combined with the powerful sound that the engineer Larry Levine got, was enough to make it one of the most memorable intros in rock music history. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys talks to this day about how he had to pull over to the side of the road when he first heard it on his car radio, and he would listen to the record incessantly for hours at a time. Incidentally, since I’m talking about the musicians, a lot of sources credit Carol Kaye for playing the bass on this track, so I’m going to say something once, here, which should be taken as read whenever I’m talking about records made in LA in the sixties — Carol Kaye is not only an unreliable source about what records she played on, she is an utterly dishonest one. For those who don’t know, Ms. Kaye was one of the great bass players of the sixties, and also one of the better session guitarists. She played on hundreds of records in the sixties, including many, many, classics from the Beach Boys, Spector, Frank Zappa, and others, and she was the only woman getting regular session work in LA on a rock instrument — there may have been session orchestral musicians who were women, but when it comes to guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, sax, and so on, she was the only one. For that, she deserves a huge amount of credit. Unfortunately, she has never been happy only being credited for the records she actually played on, and insists she played on many, many, more. Some of this can be reasonably put down to lapses in memory more than fifty years later — if you’re playing two or three sessions a day, and you play on a bunch of Beach Boys records, then it’s easy enough to misremember having played on “Surfin’ USA” when maybe you played on a similar-sounding record, and there are things like her claiming to have played on “Good Vibrations”, where there were multiple sessions for that track, and it happened that the takes eventually used weren’t the ones where she was playing bass, but she had no way of knowing that. That’s completely forgivable. But Ms. Kaye also claims, with no evidence whatsoever on her side and a great deal of evidence against her, to have been responsible for playing almost the entire recorded works of James Jamerson, Motown’s main bass player, claiming tapes were secretly shipped from Detroit to LA — something that has been denied by every single person working at Motown, and which can be easily disproved just by listening to the tapes. She claims to have played the bass on “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees — a track recorded in New York, by New York musicians. And whenever anyone points out the falsehoods, rather than saying “I may have made a mistake” she hurls abuse at them, and in some cases libels them on her website. So, Carol Kaye did not play on this record, and we know that because we have the AFM session sheets, which show that the bass players on the track were Ray Pohlman and Jimmy Bond. I’ll link a PDF of that sheet in the show notes. So in future, when I mention someone other than Carol Kaye playing on a song, and Wikipedia or somewhere says she played on it, bear this in mind. Two people who did play on the record were Bill Pitman and Tommy Tedesco, and this is why the B-side, an instrumental, is named “Tedesco and Pitman”. Spector was enough of a control freak that he didn’t want DJs ever to play the wrong side of his singles, so he stuck instrumental jam sessions by the studio musicians — with the songwriting credited to him rather than to them — on the B-sides. I don’t know about you, but I actually quite like “Tedesco and Pitman”, but then I’ve always had a soft spot for the vibraphone: [Excerpt: “The Ronettes” (The Wrecking Crew), Tedesco and Pitman”] “Be My Baby” was a massive hit — it went to number one on the Cashbox chart, though only number two on the Billboard chart, and sold millions of copies. The group were invited on to Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars tour, but Spector wanted Ronnie to be in California to record the follow-up, so the girls’ cousin Elaine filled in for her for the first couple of weeks of the tour, while Ronnie recorded another Barry, Greenwich and Spector song, “Baby I Love You”: [Excerpt: The Ronettes, “Baby I Love You”] Ronnie didn’t realise it at the time, but Spector was trying to isolate her from the other group members, and from her family. But at first this seemed to her like a sensible way of solving the problem, and she rejoined the tour after the record was made. Soon after this, the group travelled to the UK for a brief tour in early 1964, during which they became friendly with the Beatles — Ronnie had a brief chaste flirtation with John Lennon, and Estelle something a little more with George Harrison. They also got to know their support act on the tour, the Rolling Stones — at least once Ronnie had had a row with Andrew Loog Oldham, as Spector had sent a telegram forbidding the Rolling Stones from spending time with the Ronettes. Once Ronnie pointed out that they were there and Spector wasn’t, the two groups became very friendly — and more than friendly, if Keith Richards’ autobiography is to be believed. On their return to the US, they continued having hits through 1964 — nothing was as big as “Be My Baby”, but they had three more top forty hits that year, with two mediocre records, “The Best Part of Breaking Up” and “Do I Love You?”, co-written by the team of Pete Andreoli and Vini Poncia, and then a return to form with the magnificent “Walking in the Rain”, written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill: [Excerpt: The Ronettes Featuring Veronica, “Walking in the Rain”] But Spector was becoming more and more erratic in his personal life, and more and more controlling. I won’t go into too many details here, because we’re going to see a lot more of Phil Spector over the next year or so, but he recorded many great records with the Ronettes which he refused to release, claiming they weren’t quite right — Ronnie has later realised that he was probably trying to sabotage their career so he could have her all to himself, though at the time she didn’t know that. Neither of the two singles they did release in 1965 made the top fifty, and the one single they released in 1966, a return to songs by Barry and Greenwich, only made number one hundred, for one week: [Excerpt: The Ronettes, “I Can Hear Music”] Also in 1966, the Ronettes were invited by the Beatles to be their support act on their last ever tour, but once again Spector insisted that Ronnie couldn’t go, because she needed to be in the studio, so Elaine substituted for her again, much to the Beatles’ disappointment. Nothing from the studio sessions during that tour was released. The group broke up in 1967, and the next year Ronnie married Phil Spector, who became ever more controlling and abusive. I won’t go into details of the way he treated her, which you can read all about in her autobiography, but suffice to say that I was completely unsurprised when he murdered a woman in 2003. You’ll probably get some idea of his behaviours when I talk about him in future episodes, but what Ronnie suffered in the years they were together was something no-one should have to go through. By the time she managed to leave him, in June 1972, she had only released one track in years, a song that George Harrison had written for her called “Try Some, Buy Some”, which Spector had recorded with her at Harrison’s insistence, during a period when Spector was working with several of the ex-Beatles and trying to rebuild his own career on the back of them: [Excerpt: Ronnie Spector, “Try Some, Buy Some”] Neither Ronnie nor Spector were particularly keen on the track, and it was a commercial flop — although John Lennon later said that the track had inspired his “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”. Ronnie eventually escaped from Spector’s abuse — leaving the house barefoot, as Spector had stolen her shoes so she couldn’t leave — and started to build a new life for herself, though she would struggle with alcoholism for many years. She got nothing in their divorce settlement, as Spector threatened to hire a hit man to kill her if she tried to get anything from him, and she made a living by touring the nostalgia circuit with various new lineups of Ronettes — the others having given up on their music careers — and while she never had another hit, she did have a recording career. Her solo career got its proper start because of a chance meeting in New York. Her old friend John Lennon saw her on the street and called her over for a chat, and introduced her to the friend he was with, Jimmy Iovine, who was producing an album for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes. Bruce Springsteen had written a song for that band, and Iovine thought it might work well as a duet with Ronnie, and he invited her to the studio that day, and she cut the song with them: [Excerpt: Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes, “You Mean So Much To Me”] That song became one of the most popular songs on the album, and so when the Asbury Dukes toured supporting Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, they brought Ronnie along with them to sing on that song and do a couple of her own hits. That led to the E-Street Band themselves backing Ronnie on a single — a version of Billy Joel’s “Say Goodbye to Hollywood”, a song that Joel had written with her in mind: [Excerpt: Ronnie Spector and the E-Street Band, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood”] However, that was a flop, and so were all her later attempts to have comebacks, though she worked with some great musicians over the years. But she was able to continue having a career as a performer, even if she never returned to stardom, and she never made much money from her hits. She did, though, sing on one more top-ten hit, singing backing vocals on Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight”: [Excerpt: Eddie Money, “Take Me Home Tonight”] Phil Spector continued to earn money from his ex-wife for a long time after their divorce. By 1998, when the Ronettes finally sued Spector for unpaid royalties, they had earned, between them, a total of $14,482.30 in royalties from all their hit records — the amount that came from a single 1964 royalty payment. In court, Spector argued that he didn’t owe them any more, and indeed that *they* still owed *him* money, because the cost of recording their singles meant that they had never actually earned more money than they cost. Eventually, after a series of appeals, the group members each got about half a million dollars in 2002 — obviously a great deal of money, but a small fraction of what they actually earned. Spector, who was on the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, prevented the Ronettes from being inducted out of spite towards his ex until he was imprisoned, at which point they were finally recognised, in 2007.  Ronnie continues to perform, and seems to have a happy life. Estelle, sadly, did not — she suffered from anorexia and schizophrenia, spent a period of time homeless, and died in 2009. Nedra became a born-again Christian shortly after the group split up, and recorded a couple of unsuccessful albums of Christian music in the seventies, before going off to work in real estate. In September last year, it was announced that a film is going to be made of Ronnie Spector’s life story.  It’s nice to know that there’ll be something out there telling her story with her as the protagonist, rather than as a background character in the story of her abusive husband.

This week we feature the amazingly talented Hala Taha. Hala is the host of one of the top podcasts in the world, Young and Profiting, where each week she interviews some of the brightest minds in the world which has included Seth Godin, Mark Metry, and Ryan Serhant ―turning their wisdom into actionable advice you can use in your everyday life no matter your age, profession or industry. If you love self-improvement and want to become the best version of yourself her Young and Profiting podcast is one you definitely need to download. Hala on this episode brings us her Top 5 Smooth that includes Michael Jackson, Anderson .Paak, Peach Tree Rascals, Pharrell, and Beyonce. We also learn about Hala's life as a super smooth singer before Young and Profiting where she recorded under the name Hala Berry. We end the show with a special smooth surprise with one of Hala's songs “Baby I Love You” produced by the talented producer Harry Fraud.

The top drawer has been opened and it is overflowing with prime cuts and quality beats. This week stands out for so many reasons, don't miss this opportunity to hear the best. FACEBOOK: facebook.com/ontargetpodcast INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/modmarty TWITTER: twitter.com/modmarty ----------------------------------------------- The Playlist Is: "I Ain't Gonna Cry No More" Timi Yuro - Liberty "Push Push" Austin Taylor - Reo "I'm Gonna Try" Jimmy Clanton - Reo "Never Let You Go" Rufus and Caral - Stax "Baby I Love You" The Ronettes - Philles "Twistin' The Night Away" Sam Cooke - RCA-Victor "Fire Ball" Mercy - Columbia "Who Dat?" The Jury - Quality "Along Came Pride" Pink Plumm - TCP "You'll Soon Be Gone" The Precisions - Stone "Hey Operator" The Kittens - Chess "Now That Ive Found You Baby" The Mirettes - Mirwood "Runnin' Around" Tony Amaro & The Chariots - Loma "Boogaloo (Soul) Party" The Brothers Two - Crimson "Something About You" The Four Tops - Motown "High" Petula Clark - Vogue "Paint It Black" The Rolling Stones - Decca "No Good Without You" The Birds - Decca "You Went Back On What You Said" Huriah Boynton - Lanor "You're My Destination" Edwin Starr - Tamla-Motown "Stoned Love" The Supremes - Tamla-Motown "Coming Home" Southwind Symphony - Glolite

Andy Kim is a dreamer.  At the age of 12, Andy had a vision for what he would become.  It is still the child within Andy that leads him along today.Having scraped together 40 bucks, and much against the better wishes of his parents, Andy boarded a bus from Montreal to New York City.  Andy was only in New York City for a couple of days, but he accomplished his goal.He just walked into the Brill building, into the offices of Leiber and Stoller, and asked to speak to Jeff Barry.  He was given 5 minutes.  Jeff liked what he heard, and Andy's musical career got its start.Eventually, Jeff signed Andy to his Steed record label and he produced and co-wrote Andy's first top 20 hit, “How'd We Ever Get This Way?”, which sold 800,000 copies.Andy had a number of other top 20 hits at that time, including the top 5 Baby I Love You, which earned Andy his first gold record selling more than 1.5 million copies.That same year, he co-wrote “Sugar, Sugar” for fictional popsters The Archies. The song was No. 1 for four weeks and became Billboard's Record of the Year and the biggest-selling record of the year. Ike and Tina Turner covered the song, so did Wilson Pickett. And so did Bob Marley. All of this, in the year of Woodstock.In 1970, the very first JUNO Award ever given out was to Andy for Male Vocalist of the Year. In 1974, Andy wrote a new song called “Rock Me Gently” and absolutely no one wanted to produce it.  Andy loved the song, and he wouldn't take no for an answer.  He formed his own record company, called !CE, and produced the record on his own.  When it was released, “Rock Me Gently” went straight to #1 on the Billboard charts and it remained on the charts for a staggering 4 months.  This second #1 Billboard song added to Andy's international success. Suddenly, again, he was a star. He met Elvis. He hung out with Phil Spector. John Lennon handed him his gold record.In 2004, Andy's collaboration with Ed Robertson of The Barenaked Ladies' “I Forgot To Mention” gave him another Top 10, and Andy was voted by Canadian Music Week as the Best Solo Indie Artist of the Year.2015 saw It's Decided, a brand-new record produced by Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene on the Arts & Crafts label, home to artists such as Feist, Chilly Gonzales, The Stills, and Stars. The fans of those bands took notice. It was highly praised and talked about in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Uncut Magazine. David Letterman was flushed with gratitude and fandom when Andy sang on his show.A true Canadian son, Andy has recently been awarded the country's top industry honours including the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame and a star on Canada's Walk Of Fame. Andy is a member of Songwriters Hall of Fame, was inducted into Billboard's Hit Parade Hall of Fame, and in 2017, For the 2nd time in their 70-year history, SOCAN honoured Andy with their Cultural Impact Award. Over his epic career, Andy has sold over 30 million records, and has over half a billion streams on Spotify and YouTube.And for now, Andy just keeps writing and performing his songs, because that's all he's ever dreamed of doing.

Muse : Feeling Good La reprise l'original David Bowie : Across The Universe The Beatles : Across The Universe Jonathan Wilson : Korean Tea (nouveauté) Steely Dan : FM Toto : Waiting For Your Love Hiss Golden Messenger : My Wing (nouveauté) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers : Here Comes My Girl (alternative version 1979) Michael Malarkey : Graveracer Fleetwood Mac : Gypsy Jeff Buckley : Hallelujah Tamino : Habibi (nouveauté) Queen : Crazy Little Thing Called Love La reprise l'original Gun : Superstition Stevie Wonder : Superstition Starcrawler : Bet My Brains (nouveauté) T Rex : Hot Love Ride : Kill Switch (nouveauté) AC/DC : It's A Long Way To The Top Russ Ballard : Kickin' The Can (nouveauté) Robin Trower : Ghosts The Hillbilly Moon Explosion : Baby I Love You (nouveauté) Rival Sons : Feral Roots David Sylvian : Let The Happiness In Marilyn Manson : The End (nouveauté) Greta Van Fleet - Highway Tune

Andy Kim sang a number of number 1 hits including The Archies "Sugar Sugar", and solo efforts such as Rock Me Gently and Baby I Love You. The Canadian legend joins Barry and Michelle on The Spin to share some amazing stories on his career .

This is Episode #212 Starting off with crazy, good time, screamin' R&B and running through a stack of gold that'll make you smile, make you cry and get you off your seat and onto the dance floor or your money back. Get into it. Please Like the Facebook page here: facebook.com/ontargetpodcast ------------------------------------------------- The Playlist Is: "Carl's Dance Party" Carl "Little Rev" Lattimore - Capitol "Bo Diddley" Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks - Roulette "Hot Pastrami W/Mashed Potatoes" Little Sammy Swinger - Essar "Up In The Streets of Harlem" The Drifters - Atlantic "On A Saturday Night" Eddie Floyd - Stax "She's Got It" Dean Christie - Mercury "Gloria" King-Beezz - Quality "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" The Gettysbyrg Address - Franklin "Searching For Love" The Kingsmen - Reo "Baby I Love You" The Spurrlows - Yas "Trying to Make a Fool of Me" The Delfonics - Philly Groove "So Frustrated" Five Miles High - Chess "Honey Man" Billy Bishop - TCF "Look At Granny Run Run" Howard Tate - Verve "No Doubt About It" The Shirelles - Scepter "Hey Little Rosie" The Demolyrs - United World Records "Ain't Gonna Move" Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs - MGM "Make Me Stay A Little Bit Longer" The Status Quo - Pye "Bam Bam" The Maytals with Byron Lee & The Dragonaires - BMN "So Mad In Love" The Maytals with Byron Lee & The Dragonaires - BMN "Hobo" Wes Dakus - Capitol

01 - FES☆TIVE “ゆらゆらゆらり恋心” from ゆらゆらゆらり恋心 Type-A [BUY] 02 - Ruthless Inhumanity “Condemned To Suffer” from Demo 2017 [FREE] 03 - INFESTED MALIGNANCY “Untouchables” from Demo [BUY] 04 - midori hirano “Secret Aria On The Piano” from And I Am Here [FREE] 05 - 丘を越えて “Star Burst” from Granular Life [BUY] 06 - ねじれたスーパーグラフィックス “エンディング・マダム・キング・グランド・ゾール” from 魔法の王メイド王グランドゾロ [FREE] 07 - fa-mi “Flower” from Oriental [FREE] 08 - Renge “the bottom of the sea” from a girl who manipulates the weather [BUY] 09 - Miyake Haruka “merry go round” from EMERGE [BUY] 10 - BABY I LOVE YOU “Theory of everything” from ELEMENT [BUY] Notes: Guest Giggysan joins us to talk about Yojimbo and Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki. -Tyler Abstract.

Peter phones in to chat to Jof about his brand new single Baby I Love You

September and the Cousins are so time warped they can't recall what Thursday of the month they are in! Koosen reports on hɛhɛwšin's Reconciliation WalkThe Counsins discuss First Contact - the TV Series: the who's, the why's and the what nows. Cautious celebration of the supreme court judgement regarding the pipeline - and Art as Revolution, Radio as Rebellion.  Links to things we talk about: http://taxumajehjeh.ca Ayajuthum hɛhɛwšin: the way forward The Story from Hear workshop Hollyhock Dana Bass Solomon Scholarship  First Contact APTN   Music in this episode: The Jerry Cans - Namulimaaqsimavunga  Hildegard Westerkamp - Gently Penetrating  Baby I Love You - Ahousaht First Nation Compared To What - Della Reece   

Cuando Iván Noble escucha nuevos temas que por un motivo o por varios valen la pena, los comparte por Nacional Rock con los seguidores de Cuánto cuesta este capricho. En este caso, lanzamientos 2018 de dos songwriters e intérpretes estadounidenses. John Rouse presentó Businessman, adelanto del álbum en honor a los ‘80, Love in the Modern Age, programado para abril. Mucho amor también propala Ryan Adams, quien aprovechó el Día de San Valentín para difundir su single Baby I Love You envuelto en rosas de color rosa.

Mike Ross brings his Dobro to the boat and talks and plays live. There is a lot of conversation, however rather than edit great clumps out, if you want, you can skip to the music at Don’t Worry Baby Just Call 1 - 6:40 Don’t Worry Baby Just Call 2 - 19:19 Ran Through Here - 39:44 Baby I Love You - 52:45 http://www.mikerossmusic.co.uk/

Episode #135 is up- This week Matt sits down with Candace Devine, singer, songwriter, mommy, and…horse lady. Candace talks her roots, her inspirations, her Grammy nomination, and touring, and also her upcoming June 3, 2017 Chino Valley Equestrian Park Benefit at the Elks Theater in Prescott, AZ. Tickets & Info available HERE. This week's show was recorded on the patio at PepperJacks Burgers in Chino Valley- great folks & great burgers. We are pleased to announce Our New Partnership with BarkBox- Delivering 4 to 6 natural treats and super fun toys curated around a surprise theme each month. Use our LINK or go to getbarkbox.com/milehigh and get a FREE MONTH of treats! The Mile High Show is brought to you by Amazon- use the Mile High Show link to do all of your on line shopping & also support the show, and Audible.com – use the code MILEHIGH  at check out for your FREE audio download & FREE 30-day subscription- Code MILEHIGH for FREE STUFF! Intro music is Candace singing “Baby I Love You “ off of her CD Believe  which you can get by using The Mile High Show Amazon Link, outro music is David and Devine performing “ It's Alright”

JUSTIN BEAVER confirma en Septiembre de 2015 porque es la superestrella de su generación. A las dos semanas de lanzar su sencillo What Do You Mean pulveriza las listas en los cinco continentes. Según Top 40 charts, ACharts, Official Charts y Letsinglt JUSTIN BEAVER llega directamente al número uno en Suráfrica, suiza, Portugal, noruega, india, Suecia, Nueva Zelanda, Holanda, Hungría, Grecia, Francia, Dinamarca, España, Italia y 10 países más. Con 70 millones de visitas en YouTube WHAT DO YOU MEAN es el top de Global Hits.Según los 40 principales Colombia NOCHE DE BODAS del cantautor colombiano SALO esta entre las 15 canciones más transmitidas en Septiembre de 2015.AUDIEN Y LADY ANTEBELLUM tienen bailando a medio mundo con SOMETHING BETTER top 2 en los Dance Club según A charts.Paul Wurdig es conocido como SIDO y sus canciones y videos son provocativos, punzantes y directos contra las incongruencias del sistema, la lucha de clases y los prejuicios raciales. Su más reciente sencillo ASTRONAUT con la colaboración de Andreas Bourani es # 1 en Alemania.BAJO EL MISMO SOL DE ALVARO SOLER según las estadísticas de mundo latino de Top 40 charts es en Septiembre de 2015 el más alto debut en los principales países hispano-parlantes entrando directamente al top 5.WILDEST DREAMS DE TAYLOR SWIFT según Letsinglt entra al top 100 de estados unidos en Noviembre de 2014 pero no duro sino una semana. Para Septiembre de 2015 regresa con fuerza y se posiciona como top 30 en Inglaterra, Francia y Bélgica, top 10 en Nueva Zelanda, Canadá y Estados Unidos y # 3 en Australia.El DJ Estadounidense GEORGIE PORGIE regresa con BABY I LOVE YOU una canción que en el verano de 2015 se convierte en un himno imponiendo una nueva marca en el Deep House. Según Top 40 charts BABY I LOVE YOU es # 3 del genero dance-trance a nivel mundial.THE CLAXONS teloneros de Maroon5 en México regresan a las listas de su país con HASTA QUE VUELVAS A VERME, top 15 en las 40 principales México.El cantante de SOUNDGARDEN CHRISS CORNELL lanza HIGHER TRUST su cuarto álbum de estudio con un sonido más íntimo, percusión electrónica, banjo y guitarras. Su sencillo NEARLY FORGOT BROKEN HEART surge con mucha fuerza y es top 5 a nivel mundial en el recuento rock de Top 40 charts.HENRIQUE Y JULIANO se unen con VICTOR Y LEO en 10 MINUTOS y es en una de las tres canciones más transmitidas en la radio y la tv de Brasil según Top 40 charts. Tiene 20 millones de visualizaciones en YouTube.El colombiano MALUMA llega a las listas de varios países de América Latina con BORRO CASSETE. Según A charts y Letsinglt MALUMA es top 10 en el mercado Latino de Estados Unidos.El DJ Francés TEZ CADEY protagoniza un nuevo ejemplo de como en el mundo globalizado de hoy una canción puede pegar en el territorio menos pensado. Su tema SEVE grabado en 2014 fue # 1 en MONGOLIA hace unos meses y ahora es también # 1 CHINA. Ya tiene 10 millones de visitas en YouTube.

好久没和你一起听新歌啦《男神音乐时间》精选一大波最近出了新歌的小鲜肉高颜值高靓声正在俘虏你的耳朵小心怀孕……本期节目录制期间在QQ群中同步互动直播，所以……加群吧！！！ 重要的事说三遍【男神调频QQ群338607006】【男神调频QQ群338607006】【男神调频QQ群338607006】《男神音乐时间》节目主题提前在QQ群论坛和百度贴吧“男神调频”进行公布，欢迎大家前去留言跟帖，向我们推荐你中意的主题和歌曲！！！【本期歌单】1、轻轻/严爵 Peace2、预告/蒋卓嘉3、Baby I Love You/宁桓宇4、女孩/韦礼安5、Love More/毕书尽6、蜉蝣/华晨宇7、剩下的盛夏/TFboys8、贴身/SpeXial

Carl Dawkins born in, Jamaica,  Dawkins grew up in a musical environment, with his father playing drums in a big band orchestra that entertained tourists on the island's north coast. The young singer spent his formative years in the company of Jamaica's aspiring musicians. He practised harmonies with his colleagues and eventually secured an audition with J.J. Johnson with whom he recorded his successful debut, ‘Baby I Love You'. 1971, Dawkins, now known as Ras Carl Dawkins, began recording with Lee Perry alongside Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. With them he released the moderately successful ‘Picture On The Wall' and ‘True Love'. The songs credited to Carl Dawkins And The Wailers were released through Trojan Records in the UK and subsequently appeared on the superbly packaged Complete UK Upsetter Singles series. While with Perry he also recorded cover versions of soul songs such as ‘Cloud Nine' and ‘Hard To Handle Leo Graham began his recording career in the mid-sixties as a member of the group The Overtakers. Leo's vocals are distinctive, high yet thin, but totally unique and The Overtakers had a great harmony together. The band released a number of fine singles including "Girl You Ruff" and the rude-boy warning "Beware”. Although Leo had performed lead vocals for a number of the bands hits he started to become more of a harmony singer on others and so left to form a new group,The Bleechers, in late 1968.Taking the name from late-night Kingston ravers who would stay out to the early hours seeking a good time, a practice known as 'Bleeching' in Jamaica,The Bleechers was made up of Leo Graham alongside Wesley Martin and Sammy (Formerly of The Mellotones).They began recording a handful of tunes with Joe Gibbs before moving on to work with the legendary Lee "Scratch" Perry.

Carl Dawkins born in, Jamaica,  Dawkins grew up in a musical environment, with his father playing drums in a big band orchestra that entertained tourists on the island's north coast. The young singer spent his formative years in the company of Jamaica's aspiring musicians. He practised harmonies with his colleagues and eventually secured an audition with J.J. Johnson with whom he recorded his successful debut, ‘Baby I Love You'. 1971, Dawkins, now known as Ras Carl Dawkins, began recording with Lee Perry alongside Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. With them he released the moderately successful ‘Picture On The Wall' and ‘True Love'. The songs credited to Carl Dawkins And The Wailers were released through Trojan Records in the UK and subsequently appeared on the superbly packaged Complete UK Upsetter Singles series. While with Perry he also recorded cover versions of soul songs such as ‘Cloud Nine' and ‘Hard To Handle

Nancy Sinatra, Summer Wine (feat Lee Hazlewood)Twin Shadow, Five SecondsCOOLRUNNINGS, ChorusDIIV, DousedNo Gold, HollarpBeach House, WildLower Dens, Lion In Winter Pt 2Previous Tenants, Previous LivesJason Anderson, July 4, 2004The High Drops, Part of the BrigadeDIANA, Born AgainThe Ramones, Baby I Love You