Podcasts about every beat

Britain's Railway Children were a band stuck between movements. Too late for the post-punk explosion of the early 80s and done just before Britpop conquered the world, they released a handful of albums and songs that deserved more attention. "Every Beat of the Heart" did crackthe UK top 40 and singles like "A Pleasure" and "Brighter" did well on the indie charts, but it wasn't enough and the band called it quits in the early 90s after three albums. Frontman Gary Newby joins us this week to explain how it all went down including their tours of the states, going from Factory Records to Virgin, and releasing more music on the band's name. These guys are ripe for rediscovery. Enjoy!  www.railwaychildren.co.uk  www.patreon.com/thehustlepod

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a two-episode look at the song “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”. This week we take a short look at the song’s writers, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, and the first released version by Gladys Knight and the Pips. In two weeks time we’ll take a longer look at the sixties career of the song’s most famous performer, Marvin Gaye. This episode is quite a light one. That one… won’t be. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode, on “Bend Me Shape Me” by Amen Corner. 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 Mixcloud will be up with the next episode. For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I've used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown. To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy's own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown's thirty-year history. Motown: The Golden Years is another Motown encyclopaedia. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 693 tracks released on Motown singles. For information on Marvin Gaye, and his relationship with Norman Whitfield, I relied on Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz. I’ve also used information on Whitfield in  Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The Troubled Lives and Enduring Soul of the Temptations by Mark Ribowsky, I’ve also referred to interviews with Whitfield and Strong archived at rocksbackpages.com , notably “The Norman Whitfield interview”, John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 1 February 1977 For information about Gladys Knight, I’ve used her autobiography. The best collection of Gladys Knight and the Pips’ music is this 3-CD set, but the best way to hear Motown hits is in the context of other Motown hits. This five-CD box set contains the first five in the Motown Chartbusters series of British compilations. The Pips’ version of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” is on disc 2, while Marvin Gaye’s is on disc 3, which is famously generally considered one of the best single-disc various artists compilations ever. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, a brief note — this episode contains some brief mentions of miscarriage and drug abuse. The history of modern music would be immeasurably different had it not been for one car breakdown. Norman Whitfield spent the first fifteen years of his life in New York, never leaving the city, until his grandmother died. She’d lived in LA, and that was where the funeral was held, and so the Whitfield family got into a car and drove right across the whole continent — two thousand five hundred miles — to attend the old lady’s funeral. And then after the funeral, they turned round and started to drive home again. But they only got as far as Detroit when the car, understandably, gave up the ghost.  Luckily, like many Black families, they had family in Detroit, and Norman’s aunt was not only willing to put the family up for a while, but her husband was able to give Norman’s father a job in his drug store while he saved up enough money to pay for the car to be fixed. But as it happened, the family liked Detroit, and they never did get around to driving back home to New York. Young Norman in particular took to the city’s nightlife, and soon as well as going to school he was working an evening job at a petrol station — but that was only to supplement the money he made as a pool hustler. Young Norman Whitfield was never going to be the kind of person who took a day job, and so along with his pool he started hanging out with musicians — in particular with Popcorn and the Mohawks, a band led by Popcorn Wylie. [Excerpt: Popcorn and the Mohawks, “Shimmy Gully”] Popcorn and the Mohawks were a band of serious jazz musicians, many of whom, including Wylie himself, went on to be members of the Funk Brothers, the team of session players that played on Motown’s hits — though Wylie would depart Motown fairly early after a falling out with Berry Gordy. They were some of the best musicians in Detroit at the time, and Whitfield would tag along with the group and play tambourine, and sometimes other hand percussion instruments. He wasn’t a serious musician at that point, just hanging out with a bunch of people who were, who were a year or two older than him. But he was learning — one thing that everyone says about Norman Whitfield in his youth is that he was someone who would stand on the periphery of every situation, not getting involved, but soaking in everything that the people around him were doing, and learning from them. And soon, he was playing percussion on sessions. At first, this wasn’t for Motown, but everything in the Detroit music scene connected back to the Gordy family in one way or another. In this case, the label was Thelma Records, which was formed by Berry Gordy’s ex-mother-in-law and named after Gordy’s first wife, who he had recently divorced. Of all the great Motown songwriters and producers, Whitfield’s life is the least-documented, to the extent that the chronology of his early career is very vague and contradictory, and Thelma was such a small label there even seems to be some dispute about when it existed — different sources give different dates, and while Whitfield always said he worked for Thelma records, he might have actually been employed by another label owned by the same people, Ge Ge, which might have operated earlier — but by most accounts Whitfield quickly progressed from session tambourine player to songwriter. According to an article on Whitfield from 1977, the first record of one of his songs was “Alone” by Tommy Storm on Thelma Records, but that record seems not to exist — however, some people on a soul message board, discussing this a few years ago, found an interview with a member of a group called The Fabulous Peps which also featured Storm, saying that their record on Ge Ge Records, “This Love I Have For You”, is a rewrite of that song by Don Davis, Thelma’s head of A&R, though the credit on the label for that is just to Davis and Ron Abner, another member of the group: [Excerpt: The Fabulous Peps, “This Love I Have For You”] So that might, or might not, be the first Norman Whitfield song ever to be released. The other song often credited as Whitfield’s first released song is “Answer Me” by Richard Street and the Distants — Street was another member of the Fabulous Peps, but we’ve encountered him and the Distants before when talking about the Temptations — the Distants were the group that Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin, and Al Bryant had been in before forming the Temptations — and indeed Street would much later rejoin his old bandmates in the Temptations, when Whitfield was producing for them. Unlike the Fabulous Peps track, this one was clearly credited to N. Whitfield, so whatever happened with the Storm track, this is almost certainly Whitfield’s first official credit as a songwriter: [Excerpt: Richard Street and the Distants, “Answer Me”] He was soon writing songs for a lot of small labels — most of which appear to have been recorded by the Thelma team and then licensed out — like “I’ve Gotten Over You” by the Sonnettes: [Excerpt: The Sonnettes, “I’ve Gotten Over You”] That was on KO Records, distributed by Scepter, and was a minor local hit — enough to finally bring Whitfield to the attention of Berry Gordy. According to many sources, Whitfield had been hanging around Hitsville for months trying to get a job with the label, but as he told the story in 1977 “Berry Gordy had sent Mickey Stevenson over to see me about signing with the company as an exclusive in-house writer and producer. The first act I was assigned to was Marvin Gaye and he had just started to become popular.” That’s not quite how the story went. According to everyone else, he was constantly hanging around Hitsville, getting himself into sessions and just watching them, and pestering people to let him get involved. Rather than being employed as a writer and producer, he was actually given a job in Motown’s quality control department for fifteen dollars a week, listening to potential records and seeing which ones he thought were hits, and rating them before they went to the regular department meetings for feedback from the truly important people. But he was also allowed to write songs. His first songwriting credit on a Motown record wasn’t Marvin Gaye, as Whitfield would later tell the story, but was in fact for the far less prestigious Mickey Woods — possibly the single least-known artist of Motown’s early years. Woods was a white teenager, the first white male solo artist signed to Motown, who released two novelty teen-pop singles. Whitfield’s first Motown song was the B-side to Woods’ second single, a knock-off of Sam Cooke’s “Cupid” called “They Call Me Cupid”, co-written with Berry Gordy and Brian Holland: [Excerpt: Mickey Woods, “They Call Me Cupid”] Unsurprisingly that didn’t set the world on fire, and Whitfield didn’t get another Motown label credit for thirteen months (though some of his songs for Thelma may have come out in this period). When he did, it was as co-writer with Mickey Stevenson — and, for the first time, sole producer — of the first single for a new singer, Kim Weston: [Excerpt: Kim Weston, “It Should Have Been Me”] As it turned out, that wasn’t a hit, but the flip-side, “Love Me All The Way”, co-written by Stevenson (who was also Weston’s husband) and Barney Ales, did become a minor hit, making the R&B top thirty. After that, Whitfield was on his way. It was only a month later that he wrote his first song for the Temptations, a B-side, “The Further You Look, The Less You See”: [Excerpt: The Temptations, “The Further You Look, The Less You See”] That was co-written with Smokey Robinson, and as we heard in the episode on “My Girl”, both Robinson and Whitfield vied with each other for the job of Temptations writer and producer. As we also heard in that episode, Robinson got the majority of the group’s singles for the next couple of years, but Whitfield would eventually take over from him. Whitfield’s work with the Temptations is probably his most important work as a writer and producer, and the Temptations story is intertwined deeply with this one, but for the most part I’m going to save discussion of Whitfield’s work with the group until we get to 1972, so bear with me if I seem to skim over that — and if I repeat myself in a couple of years when we get there. Whitfield’s first major success, though, was also the first top ten hit for Marvin Gaye, “Pride and Joy”: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Pride and Joy”] “Pride and Joy” had actually been written and recorded before the Kim Weston and Temptations tracks, and was intended as album filler — it was written during a session by Whitfield, Gaye, and Mickey Stevenson who was also the producer of the track, and recorded in the same session as it was written, with Martha and the Vandellas on backing vocals. The intended hit from the session, “Hitch-Hike”, we covered in the previous episode on Gaye, but that was successful enough that an album, That Stubborn Kinda Fellow, was released, with “Pride and Joy” on it. A few months later Gaye recut his lead vocal, over the same backing track, and the record was released as a single, reaching number ten on the pop charts and number two R&B: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Pride and Joy”] Whitfield had other successes as well, often as B-sides. “The Girl’s Alright With Me”, the B-side to Smokey Robinson’s hit for the Temptations “I’ll Be In Trouble”, went to number forty on the R&B chart in its own right: [Excerpt: The Temptations, “The Girl’s Alright With Me”] That was co-written with Eddie Holland, and Holland and Whitfield had a minor songwriting partnership at this time, with Holland writing lyrics and Whitfield the music. Eddie Holland even released a Holland and Whitfield collaboration himself during his brief attempt at a singing career — “I Couldn’t Cry if I Wanted To” was a song they wrote for the Temptations, who recorded it but then left it on the shelf for four years, so Holland put out his own version, again as a B-side: [Excerpt: Eddie Holland, “I Couldn’t Cry if I Wanted To”] Whitfield was very much a B-side kind of songwriter and producer at this point — but this could be to his advantage. In January 1963, around the same time as all these other tracks, he cut a filler track with the “no-hit Supremes”, “He Means the World to Me”, which was left on the shelf until they needed a B-side eighteen months later and pulled it out and released it: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “He Means the World to Me”] But the track that that was a B-side to was “Where Did Our Love Go?”, and at the time you could make a lot of money from writing the B-side to a hit that big. Indeed, at first, Whitfield made more money from “Where Did Our Love Go?” than Holland, Dozier, or Holland, because he got a hundred percent of the songwriters’ share for his side of the record, while they had to split their share three ways. Slowly Whitfield moved from being a B-side writer to being an A-side writer. With Eddie Holland he was given a chance at a Temptations A-side for the first time, with “Girl, (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)”: [Excerpt: The Temptations, “Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)”] He also wrote for Jimmy Ruffin, but in 1964 it was with girl groups that Whitfield was doing his best work. With Mickey Stevenson he wrote “Needle in a Haystack” for the Velvettes: [Excerpt: The Velvettes, “Needle in a Haystack”] He wrote their classic followup “He Was Really Sayin' Somethin’” with Stevenson and Eddie Holland, and with Holland he also wrote “Too Many Fish in the Sea” for the Marvelettes: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Too Many Fish In The Sea”] By late 1964, Whitfield wasn’t quite in the first rank of Motown songwriter-producers with Holland-Dozier-Holland and Smokey Robinson, but he was in the upper part of the second tier with Mickey Stevenson and Clarence Paul. And by early 1966, as we saw in the episode on “My Girl”, he had achieved what he’d wanted for four years, and become the Temptations’ primary writer and producer. As I said, we’re going to look at Whitfield’s time working with the Temptations later, but in 1966 and 67 they were the act he was most associated with, and in particular, he collaborated with Eddie Holland on three top ten hits for the group in 1966. But as we discussed in the episode on “I Can’t Help Myself”, Holland’s collaborations with Whitfield eventually caused problems for Holland with his other collaborators, when he won the BMI award for writing the most hit songs, depriving his brother and Lamont Dozier of their share of the award because his outside collaborations put him ahead of them. While Whitfield *could* write songs by himself, and had in the past, he was at his best as a collaborator — as well as his writing partnership with Eddie Holland he’d written with Mickey Stevenson, Marvin Gaye, and Janie Bradford. And so when Holland told him he was no longer able to work together, Whitfield started looking for someone else who could write lyrics for him, and he soon found someone: [Excerpt: Barrett Strong, “Money”] Barrett Strong had, of course, been the very first Motown act to have a major national hit, with “Money”, but as we discussed in the episode on that song he had been unable to have a follow-up hit, and had actually gone back to working on an assembly line for a while. But when you’ve had a hit as big as “Money”, working on an assembly line loses what little lustre it has, and Strong soon took himself off to New York and started hanging around the Brill Building, where he hooked up with Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, the writers of such hits as “Save the Last Dance for Me”, “Viva Las Vegas”, “Sweets for My Sweet”, and “A Teenager in Love”.  Pomus and Shuman, according to Strong, signed him to a management contract, and they got him signed to Atlantic’s subsidiary Atco, where he recorded one single, “Seven Sins”, written and produced by the team: [Excerpt: Barrett Strong, “Seven Sins”] That was a flop, and Strong was dropped by the label. He bounced around a few cities before ending up in Chicago, where he signed to VeeJay Records and put out one more single as a performer, “Make Up Your Mind”, which also went nowhere: [Excerpt: Barrett Strong, “Make Up Your Mind”] Strong had co-written that, and as his performing career was now definitively over, he decided to move into songwriting as his main job. He co-wrote “Stay in My Corner” for the Dells, which was a top thirty R&B hit for them on VeeJay in 1965 and in a remade version in 1968 became a number one R&B hit and top ten pop hit for them: [Excerpt: The Dells, “Stay in My Corner”] And on his own he wrote another top thirty R&B hit, “This Heart of Mine”, for the Artistics: [Excerpt: The Artistics, “This Heart of Mine”] He wrote several other songs that had some minor success in 1965 and 66, before moving back to Detroit and hooking up again with his old label, this time coming to them as a songwriter with a track record rather than a one-hit wonder singer. As Strong put it “They were doing my style of music then, they were doing something a little different when I left, but they were doing the more soulful, R&B-style stuff, so I thought I had a place there. So I had an idea I thought I could take back and see if they could do something with it.” That idea was the first song he wrote under his new contract, and it was co-written with Norman Whitfield. It’s difficult to know how Whitfield and Strong started writing together, or much about their writing partnership, even though it was one of the most successful songwriting teams of the era, because neither man was interviewed in any great depth, and there’s almost no long-form writing on either of them. What does seem to have been the case is that both men had been aware of each other in the late fifties, when Strong was a budding R&B star and Whitfield merely a teenager hanging round watching the cool kids. The two may even have written together before — in an example of how the chronology for both Whitfield and Strong seems to make no sense, Whitfield had cowritten a song with Marvin Gaye, “Wherever I Lay My Hat, That’s My Home”, in 1962 — when Strong was supposedly away from Motown — and it had been included as an album track on the That Stubborn Kinda Fellow album: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Wherever I Lay My Hat, That’s My Home”] The writing on that was originally credited just to Whitfield and Gaye on the labels, but it is now credited to Whitfield, Gaye, and Strong, including with BMI. Similarly Gaye’s 1965 album track “Me and My Lonely Room” — recorded in 1963 but held back – was initially credited to Whitfield alone but is now credited to Whitfield and Strong, in a strange inverse of the way “Money” initially had Strong’s credit but it was later removed. But whether this was an administrative decision made later, or whether Strong had been moonlighting for Motown uncredited in 1962 and collaborated with Whitfield, they hadn’t been a formal writing team in the way Whitfield and Holland had been, and both later seemed to date their collaboration proper as starting in 1966 when Strong returned to Motown — and understandably. The two songs they’d written earlier – if indeed they had – had been album filler, but between 1967 when the first of their new collaborations came out and 1972 when they split up, they wrote twenty-three top forty hits together. Theirs seems to have been a purely business relationship — in the few interviews with Strong he talks about Whitfield as someone he was friendly with, but Whitfield’s comments on Strong seem always to be the kind of very careful comments one would make about someone for whom one has a great deal of professional respect, a great deal of personal dislike, but absolutely no wish to air the dirty laundry behind that dislike, or to burn bridges that don’t need burning. Either way, Whitfield was in need of a songwriting partner when Barrett Strong walked into a Motown rehearsal room, and recognised that Strong’s talents were complementary to his. So he told Strong, straight out, “I’ve had quite a few hit records already. If you write with me, I can guarantee you you’ll make at least a hundred thousand dollars a year” — though he went on to emphasise that that wasn’t a guarantee-guarantee, and would depend on Strong putting the work in. Strong agreed, and the first idea he brought in for his new team earned both of them more than that hundred thousand dollars by itself. Strong had been struck by the common phrase “I heard it through the grapevine”, and started singing that line over some Ray Charles style gospel chords. Norman Whitfield knew a hook when he heard one, and quickly started to build a full song around Strong’s line. Initially, by at least some accounts, they wanted to place the song with the Isley Brothers, who had just signed to Motown and had a hit with the Holland-Dozier-Holland song “This Old Heart of Mine”: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You)”] For whatever reason, the Isley Brothers didn’t record the song, or if they did no copy of the recording has ever surfaced, though it does seem perfectly suited to their gospel-inflected style. The Isleys did, though, record another early Whitfield and Strong song, “That’s the Way Love Is”, which came out in 1967 as a flop single, but would later be covered more successfully by Marvin Gaye: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, “That’s the Way Love Is”] Instead, the song was first recorded by the Miracles. And here the story becomes somewhat murky. We have a recording by the Miracles, released on an album two years later, but some have suggested that that version isn’t the same recording they made in 1966 when Whitfield and Strong wrote the song originally: [Excerpt: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”] It certainly sounds to my ears like that is probably the version of the song the group recorded in 66 — it sounds, frankly, like a demo for the later, more famous version. All the main elements are there — notably the main Ray Charles style hook played simultaneously on Hammond organ and electric piano, and the almost skanking rhythm guitar stabs — but Smokey Robinson’s vocal isn’t *quite* passionate enough, the tempo is slightly off, and the drums don’t have the same cavernous rack tom sound that they have in the more famous version. If you weren’t familiar with the eventual hit, it would sound like a classic Motown track, but as it is it’s missing something… [Excerpt: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”] According to at least some sources, that was presented to the quality control team — the team in which Whitfield had started his career, as a potential single, but they dismissed it. It wasn’t a hit, and Berry Gordy said it was one of the worst songs he’d ever heard. But Whitfield knew the song was a hit, and so he went back into the studio and cut a new backing track: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine (backing track only)”] (Incidentally, no official release of the instrumental backing track for “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” exists, and I had to put that one together myself by taking the isolated parts someone had uploaded to youtube and synching them back together in editing software, so if there are some microsecond-level discrepancies between the instruments there, that’s on me, not on the Funk Brothers.) That track was originally intended for the Temptations, with whom Whitfield was making a series of hits at the time, but they never recorded it at the time. Whitfield did produce a version for them as an album track a couple of years later though, so we have an idea how they might have taken the song vocally — though by then David Ruffin had been replaced in the group by Dennis Edwards: [Excerpt: The Temptations, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”] But instead of giving the song to the Temptations, Whitfield kept it back for Marvin Gaye, the singer with whom he’d had his first big breakthrough hit and for whom his two previous collaborations with Strong – if collaborations they were – had been written. Gaye and Whitfield didn’t get on very well — indeed, it seems that Whitfield didn’t get on very well with *anyone* — and Gaye would later complain about the occasions when Whitfield produced his records, saying “Norman and I came within a fraction of an inch of fighting. He thought I was a prick because I wasn't about to be intimidated by him. We clashed. He made me sing in keys much higher than I was used to. He had me reaching for notes that caused my throat veins to bulge.” But Gaye sang the song fantastically, and Whitfield was absolutely certain they had a sure-fire hit: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”] But once again the quality control department refused to release the track. Indeed, it was Berry Gordy personally who decided, against the wishes of most of the department by all accounts, that instead of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” Gaye’s next single should be a Holland-Dozier-Holland track, “Your Unchanging Love”, a soundalike rewrite of their earlier hit for him, “How Sweet It Is”. “Your Unchanging Love” made the top thirty, but was hardly a massive success. Gordy has later claimed that he always liked “Grapevine” but just thought it was a bit too experimental for Gaye’s image at the time, but reports from others who were there say that what Gordy actually said was “it sucks”. So “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” was left on the shelf, and the first fruit of the new Whitfield/Strong team to actually get released was “Gonna Give Her All the Love I’ve Got”, written for Jimmy Ruffin, the brother of Temptations lead singer David, who had had one big hit, “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” and one medium one, “I’ve Passed This Way Before”, in 1966. Released in 1967, “Gonna Give Her All the Love I’ve Got” became Ruffin’s third and final hit, making number 29: [Excerpt: Jimmy Ruffin, “Gonna Give Her All the Love I’ve Got”] But Whitfield was still certain that “Grapevine” could be a hit. And then in 1967, a few months after he’d shelved Gaye’s version, came the record that changed everything in soul: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, “Respect”] Whitfield was astounded by that record, but also became determined he was going to “out-funk Aretha”, and “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” was going to be the way to do it. And he knew someone who thought she could do just that. Gladys Knight never got on well with Aretha Franklin. According to Knight’s autobiography this was one-sided on Franklin’s part, and Knight was always friendly to Franklin, but it’s also notable that she says the same about several other of the great sixties female soul singers (though not all of them by any means), and there seems to be a general pattern among those singers that they felt threatened by each other and that their own position in the industry was precarious, in a way the male singers usually didn’t. But Knight claimed she always *wished* she got on well with Franklin, because the two had such similar lives. They’d both started out singing gospel as child performers before moving on to the chitlin circuit at an early age, though Knight started her singing career even younger than Franklin did. Knight was only four when she started performing solos in church, and by the age of eight she had won the two thousand dollar top prize on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour by singing Brahms’ “Lullaby” and the Nat “King” Cole hit “Too Young”: [Excerpt: Nat “King” Cole, “Too Young”] That success inspired her, and she soon formed a vocal group with her brother Bubba, sister Brenda and their cousins William and Eleanor Guest. They named themselves the Pips in honour of a cousin whose nickname that was, and started performing at talent contests in Atlanta Chitlin’ Circuit venues. They soon got a regular gig at one of them, the Peacock, despite them all being pre-teens at the time. The Pips also started touring, and came to the attention of Maurice King, the musical director of the Flame nightclub in Detroit, who became a vocal coach for the group. King got the group signed to Brunswick records, where they released their first single, a song King had written called “Whistle My Love”: [Excerpt: The Pips, “Whistle My Love”] According to Knight that came out in 1955, when she was eleven, but most other sources have it coming out in 1958. The group’s first two singles flopped, and Brenda and Eleanor quit the group, being replaced by another cousin, Edward Patten, and an unrelated singer Langston George, leaving Knight as the only girl in the quintet. While the group weren’t successful on records, they were getting a reputation live and toured on package tours with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and others. Knight also did some solo performances with a jazz band led by her music teacher, and started dating that band’s sax player, Jimmy Newman. The group’s next recording was much more successful. They went into a makeshift studio owned by a local club owner, Fats Hunter, and recorded what they thought was a demo, a version of the Johnny Otis song “Every Beat of My Heart”: [Excerpt: The Pips, “Every Beat of My Heart (HunTom version)”] The first they knew that Hunter had released that on his own small label was when they heard it on the radio. The record was picked up by VeeJay records, and it ended up going to number one on the R&B charts and number six on the pop charts, but they never saw any royalties from it. It brought them to the attention of another small label, Fury Records, which got them to rerecord the song, and that version *also* made the R&B top twenty and got as high as number forty-five on the pop charts: [Excerpt: Gladys Knight and the Pips, “Every Beat of My Heart (Fury version)”] However, just because they had a contract with Fury didn’t mean they actually got any more money, and Knight has talked about the label’s ownership being involved with gangsters. That was the first recording to be released as by “Gladys Knight and the Pips”, rather than just The Pips, and they would release a few more singles on Fury, including a second top twenty pop hit, the Don Covay song “Letter Full of Tears”: [Excerpt: Gladys Knight and the Pips, “Letter Full of Tears”] But Knight had got married to Newman, who was by now the group’s musical director, after she fell pregnant when she was sixteen and he was twenty. However, that first pregnancy tragically ended in miscarriage, and when she became pregnant again she decided to get off the road to reduce the risk. She spent a couple of years at home, having two children, while the other Pips – minus George who left soon after – continued without her to little success. But her marriage was starting to deteriorate under pressure of Newman’s drug use — they wouldn’t officially divorce until 1972, but they were already feeling the pressure, and would split up sooner rather than later — and Knight  returned to the stage, initially as a solo artist or duetting with Jerry Butler, but soon rejoining the Pips, who by this time were based in New York and working with the choreographer Cholly Atkins to improve their stagecraft. For the next few years the Pips drifted from label to label, scoring one more top forty hit in 1964 with Van McCoy’s “Giving Up”, but generally just getting by like so many other acts on the circuit. Eventually the group ended up moving to Detroit, and hooking up with Motown, where mentors like Cholly Atkins and Maurice King were already working. At first they thought they were taking a step up, but they soon found that they were a lower tier Motown act, considered on a par with the Spinners or the Contours rather than the big acts, and according to Knight they got pulled off an early Motown package tour because Diana Ross, with whom like Franklin Knight had something of a rivalry, thought they were too good on stage and were in danger of overshadowing her. Knight says in her autobiography that they “formed a little club of our own with some of the other malcontents” with Martha Reeves, Marvin Gaye, and someone she refers to as “Ivory Joe Hunter” but I presume she means Ivy Jo Hunter (one of the big problems when dealing with R&B musicians of this era is the number of people with similar names. Ivy Jo Hunter, Joe Hunter, and Ivory Joe Hunter were all R&B musicians for whom keyboard was their primary instrument, and both Ivy Jo and just plain Joe worked for Motown at different points, but Ivory Joe never did) Norman Whitfield was also part of that group of “malcontents”, and he was also the producer of the Pips’ first few singles for Motown, and so when he was looking for someone to outdo Aretha, someone with something to prove, he turned to them. He gave the group the demo tape, and they worked out a vocal arrangement for a radically different version of the song, one inspired by “Respect”: [Excerpt: Gladys Knight and the Pips, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”] The third time was the charm, and quality control finally agreed to release “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” as a single. Gladys Knight always claimed it had no promotion, but Norman Whitfield’s persistence had paid off — the single went to number two on the pop charts (kept off the top by “Daydream Believer”), number one on the R&B charts, and became Motown’s biggest-selling single *ever* up until that point. It also got Knight a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female — though the Grammy committee, at least, didn’t think she’d out-Aretha’d Aretha, as “Respect” won the award. And that, sadly, sort of summed up Gladys Knight and the Pips at Motown — they remained not quite the winners in everything. There’s no shame in being at number two behind a classic single like “Daydream Believer”, and certainly no shame in losing the Grammy to Aretha Franklin at her best, but until they left Motown in 1972 and started their run of hits on Buddah records, Gladys Knight and the Pips would always be in other people’s shadow. That even extended to “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” when, as we’ll hear in part two of this story, Norman Whitfield’s persistence paid off, Marvin Gaye’s version got released as a single, and *that* became the biggest-selling single on Motown ever, outselling the Pips version and making it forever his song, not theirs. And as a final coda to the story of Gladys Knight and the Pips at Motown, while they were touring off the back of “Grapevine’s” success, the Pips ran into someone they vaguely knew from his time as a musician in the fifties, who was promoting a group he was managing made up of his sons. Knight thought they had something, and got in touch with Motown several times trying to get them to sign the group, but she was ignored. After a few attempts, though, Bobby Taylor of another second-tier Motown group, the Vancouvers, also saw them and got in touch with Motown, and this time they got signed. But that story wasn’t good enough for Motown, and so neither Taylor nor Knight got the credit for discovering the group. Instead when Joe Jackson’s sons’ band made their first album, it was titled Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5. But that, of course, is a story for another time…

Sergio Michilli is known to thousands in the Tri-State area as DJ Serg. Born and raised in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx, he learned to mix records at a young age. Serg received his degree in engineering and producing at the Institute of Audio Research, and in the past few years his career as a DJ has brought him to an expert level of producing and remixing. He's had a #1 Hit on the Billboard music charts with the song “L'italiano” in 2002, and appeared numerous times on Fox 5 Good Day New York with Rosanna Scotto and Mike Woods! On RED, we talked about DJ Serg's start in the industry, his biggest hits, and more!

In this new episode, I sit down with the multi-talented DJ Bliss, a renowned DF, entrepreneur who's shaping the future of music and technology.Known for his electrifying performances and entrepreneurial endeavors, DJ Bliss, opens up about the ever-evolving landscape of the music industry and how he navigates the challenges presented by AI and technology.DJ Bliss reveals a significant shift in focus. Balancing multiple ventures, including a coffee shop, a barbershop, and a talent agency.He also discussed the importance of redirecting energy towards his true passion — music. Beyond the turntables, DJ Bliss is a multifaceted talent, recognized for his dynamic persona on-screen as part of the Netflix Series, "Dubai Bling."Join us as we uncover the beats, the rhythms, and the soul of DJ Bliss's remarkable journey, unveiling the passion and dedication that propels him forward, inspiring music enthusiasts worldwide.Learn more about DJ Bliss via Instagram.If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this new episode, I sit down with the multi-talented DJ Bliss, a renowned DF, entrepreneur who's shaping the future of music and technology.Known for his electrifying performances and entrepreneurial endeavors, DJ Bliss, opens up about the ever-evolving landscape of the music industry and how he navigates the challenges presented by AI and technology.DJ Bliss reveals a significant shift in focus. Balancing multiple ventures, including a coffee shop, a barbershop, and a talent agency.He also discussed the importance of redirecting energy towards his true passion — music. Beyond the turntables, DJ Bliss is a multifaceted talent, recognized for his dynamic persona on-screen as part of the Netflix Series, "Dubai Bling."Join us as we uncover the beats, the rhythms, and the soul of DJ Bliss's remarkable journey, unveiling the passion and dedication that propels him forward, inspiring music enthusiasts worldwide.Learn more about DJ Bliss via Instagram.If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ENAURME!!! Jackie Wilson est l'inspirateur du jeu de scène de Michael Jackson, James Brown et Elvis Presley..... Alors... ça vous intéresse? Et les débuts de la Motown? Jackie Wilson, Reet Petite The Royals, Every Beat of My Heart Sonny Wilson, Danny Boy Billy Ward and the Dominoes, You Can't Keep a Good Man Down Billy Ward and the Dominoes, Rags to Riches Elvis parle de Jackie Wilson Malcolm Vaughan,  St. Therese of the Roses Mario Lanza - The Loveliest Night of the Year Hazel Scott, Hazel Scott's Boogie Woogie The Mills Brothers, Paper Doll The Ink Spots, We Three The Four Tops, Kiss Me Baby Ray Charles, Kissa Me Baby The Moonglows, See Saw The Flamingos, A Kiss From Your Lips Louis Jordan, Reet, Petite, and Gone Jackie Wilson, Reet Petite Jackie Wilson, To Be Loved Jackie Wilson, Lonely Teardrops The Voice Masters, Hope and Pray Jackie Wilson, Higher and Higher

Gary Newby in conversation with David Eastaugh Factory Records recorded their debut single "A Gentle Sound" in 1986. This was followed by their first album, Reunion Wilderness in 1987. They left Factory shortly afterwards and were signed to Virgin Records. 1988 saw the release of their second album, Recurrence, on Virgin Records, and support tours with R.E.M. in Europe (Work Tour) and The Sugarcubes in the US. A national chart hit eluded them with singles "In the Meantime", "Somewhere South" and "Over and Over". In 1990, they released Native Place, an album that saw the band take a more pop oriented direction, with keyboard textures coming more to the fore than previously. "Every Beat of the Heart" became a top 40 hit in the UK with a peak at No. 24.

We take our heart for granted, expecting it to beat continuously and carry out its job of pumping blood without fail. However, age and many medical conditions can cause damage to the heart muscle, leading to a condition called heart failure. On World Heart Day, we learn about the signs and symptoms of heart failure, and what we can do to treat and manage the condition.Image credit: Shutterstock

We take our heart for granted, expecting it to beat continuously and carry out its job of pumping blood without fail. However, age and many medical conditions can cause damage to the heart muscle, leading to a condition called heart failure. On World Heart Day, we learn about the signs and symptoms of heart failure, and what we can do to treat and manage the condition.Image credit: Shutterstock

There are lots of insights in this week's episode of the podcast.We look at the emotional connection between the hero and victim, ensuring there is conflict at every level of the story, and how better to lock in to the narrative device.Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6ja3HN4uKuS0J4x6pvWBUwkZUiE5uJov5jM3Gj-Yvw/edit?usp=sharingTo see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-278—Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.comThis is Episode 278 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast

In our second episode, Nik and David discuss the song 'Nothing/Something' by Pat Barret and Dante Bowe. The song is pulled directly from Scripture, and is a challenge for us to do all things through love (1 Corinthians 13). They also discuss the implications it has for us when we sing it together in a congregational setting. 'Every Beat A Prayer' is a production of The Highway Community Our hosts are Nik Bartunek and David Haley Our engineers are Nik Bartunek and Kyle Wong Episodes edited and produced by Nik Bartunek and Kyle Wong Our theme music is by Ketsa. Please support their music at the link below: ketsamusic.com/about

Going over a couple tough losses yesterday, and looking at tonight's NHL, NBA, and MLB slates. Quick hit on golf strategy for the Zurich Classic.

In our first episode, David and Nik discuss the megalithic worship song 'Way Maker' and about how it was written by someone you may not know of. But that is a beautiful thing! They also discuss what the song means in this season of life and how it can be a response to the harshness of life. 'Every Beat A Prayer' is a production of The Highway Community Our hosts are Nik Bartunek and David Haley Our engineers are Nik Bartunek and Kyle Wong Episodes edited and produced by Nik Bartunek and Kyle Wong Our theme music is by Ketsa. Please support their music at the link below: https://ketsamusic.com/about

Women of Impact is something forever close to my purpose and passion.Take time today to listen in on my heart sister-from-another-mister's story.She is beyond inspiring...she is my heart hero.https://tinyurl.com/sheenawoiTitling Tesshttps://tesskossow.com/titling-tess/

A beautiful poem which was performed at the poetry slam we hosted at ICNA symposium 2021. The theme of the event was 'In God We Trust'. You can find Warda on Instagram @sincerelywarda_ Sign up here to our monthly newsletter ‘Dear Muslim Creative' PLUS get your free gift a *MUST* for all Muslim Writers: ‘The FIVE Commandments Every Muslim Writer Should know': https://6ed80840.sibforms.com/serve/MUIEABGBfLBxlCltZrHObyQkpNteo4TETthcqnsjIvaQlXL251NUq85eoj3fAzEJlpEFcIzzJfiafxKUI0OtaLXhUUL8Ss-eyDjRzp-k9NTqLRYIek6pvwzudw4Qq-Ja5Gox2sP_EH2yjqj-vZMHppi2Ixp7cbHlp30KICjsLFczm74-pe9l0l7zuvULROYYYCGqwg4jKVlpqlNs As a nonprofit, your support goes a long way in these podcasts and projects. Any amount would be appreciated: link is here: https://paypal.me/Thestrangerspoets?locale.x=en_US --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thelitmuslim/message

** PLEASE SUBSCRIBE ** Brought to you by FUNKNSTUFF.NET and hosted by Scott "DR GX" Goldfine — musicologist and author of “Everything Is on THE ONE: The First Guide of Funk” ― “TRUTH IN RHYTHM” is the interview show that gets DEEP into the pocket with contemporary music's foremost masters of the groove. Become a TRUTH IN RHYTHM Member through YouTube or at https://www.patreon.com/truthinrhythm. Featured in TIR Episode 204: Darryl Gibbs, saxophonist, composer and producer best known for his contributions to R&B/funk/dance band Crown Heights Affair.  Founded in 1967, the band went on to release nine studio albums from 1974-1983, with a half-dozen reaching the R&B Top 50. The group's six Top 40 R&B singles included “Dreaming a Dream,” “Every Beat of My Heart,” “Foxy Lady,” “Dancin'” and “Dance Lady Dance.”  Other acts Gibbs played with include Made in U.S.A., the Strikers and Zinga. RECORDED MAY 2021 LEGAL NOTICE: All video and audio content is protected by copyright. Any use of this material is strictly prohibited without expressed consent from original content producer and owner Scott Goldfine, dba FUNKNSTUFF. For inquiries, email info@funknstuff.net. TRUTH IN RHYTHM is a registered U.S. Trademark (Serial #88540281). Get your copy of "Everything Is on the One: The First Guide of Funk" today! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1541256603/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1541256603&linkCode=as2&tag=funknstuff-20&linkId=b6c7558ddc7f8fc9fe440c5d9f3c400

The Co- hosts has the conversation with another contributing author from " A Widows Resilience ", Barbra Gentry- Pugh. Our listeners can purchase her books on https://barbragentrypugh.com/books/.

*Disclaimer: the first 27 minutes are in poor, but audible quality, so forgive us! Besides that, thanks for tuning in! We are on round 3 on our month long series dedicated to the females we admire, in our celebration of Women's History Month. Speaking of admiring women, we have our guest Vanessa Torres once again joining (along with Manny on zoom) in on our discussion on female solo artist that dominate the music world and their influence on us. This week we got Arrow Lodge Brewing's Mic Drop Horchata Milkshake IPA and (on Manny's end) Cervecería Minerva's Minerva Stout. Hope you all enjoy the episode all the way through as we speak fondly on our favorite artist that inspire us and hope to see you on the next one concluding this awesome series! Cheers! To the Craft! Our Anchor page: https://anchor.fm/golden-craft-cast Our Twitch Stream (every Saturday at 6pm pst): https://www.twitch.tv/goldencraftcast

My dear friends, Trust In Jesus (with every Beat of your Heart). This is our podcast song today. By the way, with every Beat is not a mistake. The reason behind the beat is, a beating heart, every Beat is our Heavenly Father's Love for us. Here's the story behind this song.

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  Episode sixty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Reet Petite” by Jackie Wilson, and features talent contests with too much talent, the prehistory of Motown, a song banned by the BBC, and a possible Mafia hit. 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 “Get a Job” by the Silhouettes. —-more—-  Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.   I used three main books to put together the narrative for this one. Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent history of the various companies that became Motown. To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy’s own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. And Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops by Tony Douglas is the closest thing out there to a definitive biography. There are dozens of compilations of Wilson’s fifties material, as it’s in the public domain, but for around the same price as those you can get this three-CD set which also has his later hits on, so that’s probably the place to start when investigating Wilson’s music. 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 have a look at one of the most important people in the history of popular music, and someone we’ll be seeing a lot more of as the series goes on. There are very few people in the world who can be said to have created an entire genre of music, and even fewer who were primarily record company owners rather than musicians, but Berry Gordy Jr was one of them. Gordy didn’t start out, though, as a record executive. When he first got into the music industry, it was as a songwriter, and today we’re going to look at his early songwriting career. But we’re also going to look at a performer who was massively important in his own right, and who was one of the most exciting performers ever to take to the stage — someone who inspired Elvis, Michael Jackson, and James Brown, and who provides one of the key links between fifties R&B and sixties soul: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Reet Petite”] I’m afraid that this episode is another case where I have to point you to the disclaimer I did in the early weeks of the show. Jackie Wilson was an admirable musician, but he was in no way an admirable human being, particularly in his treatment of women – he’s been credibly accused of at least one sexual assault, and he fathered many children by many different women, who he abandoned, and was known for having a violent temper. As always, this podcast is not about his reprehensible acts, but about the music, but again, it should not be taken as an endorsement of him as a person when I talk about his artistic talent. Wilson started out as a boxer in his teens, but he quickly decided to move into singing instead. He would regularly perform at talent contests around Detroit, and he was part of a loose association of musicians and singers including Wilson’s cousin Levi Stubbs, the Royals, who would later become Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, and the blues singer Little Willie John. They would all perform on the same talent shows and would agree among themselves who was going to win beforehand – Wilson would tell Stubbs “you win this week, I’ll win next week”. On one occasion, Johnny Otis happened to be in the audience, when the Royals, Little Willie John, and Wilson were all on the same bill, and on that particular show Wilson came third. Otis was working as a talent scout for King Records at the time, and tried to get all three acts signed to the label, but for reasons that remain unclear, King decided they only wanted to sign the Royals (though they would sign Little Willie John a couple of years later). As a result, a song that Otis had written for Wilson was recorded instead by the Royals: [The Royals, “Every Beat of My Heart”] Wilson kept performing at the amateur nights for a couple of years, until at the age of seventeen he was signed to Dee Gee Records, a small label co-owned by the jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie. There he cut two singles, under the name Sonny Wilson. Wilson’s favourite song to sing in talent contests was “Danny Boy”, which would remain in his setlists until late in his life, and he would use that song as a way to show off his vocal virtuosity, ornamenting it to the point that the melody would become almost unrecognisable, and so that was, of course, one of the two singles: [Excerpt: Sonny Wilson, “Danny Boy”] Neither single was particularly successful, but Wilson continued performing in nightclubs around Detroit and built up something of a local following. But in 1953 he got a big break, when he auditioned for Billy Ward and his Dominoes. We’ve talked about the Dominoes before, back in the episode on “Money Honey”, but as a bit of a recap, they were the biggest black vocal group of the early fifties, and they were led by Billy Ward, a vocal coach who was not their lead singer. The lead singer in the early fifties was Clyde McPhatter, but McPhatter was getting restless. There are several different stories about how Wilson came to be picked for Ward’s group, but one that sticks out in my mind is one that Ward used to tell, which is that one reason Wilson was picked for the group is that his mother begged Ward, saying that she was scared for the life of her son, as he was getting into trouble on the streets. Certainly, she had every reason to be worried for him – Wilson had recently been stabbed in the chest by a sex worker. But Ward noted that Wilson was a diamond in the rough, and could have a great deal of success with the right amount of polishing. He decided to get Wilson into the group as a replacement for McPhatter, though McPhatter and Wilson were in the group together for a while, as McPhatter served out his notice with the group. Over the next few weeks, Wilson studied what McPhatter was doing, until he was able to take McPhatter’s place. Ward taught him breath control, and became something of a father figure, giving him some discipline for the first time in his life. McPhatter’s were very big shoes to fill, but Wilson soon won the audiences over, both with his vocals and his dancing. While Wilson was not regarded as a good dancer by most of the people who knew him – he couldn’t dance with a partner at all – he had a unique way of moving all his own, which he had learned in the boxing ring, where he’d learned to slide, sidestep, and duck away from other fighters, and to come at them from unexpected angles. He soon became one of the most riveting performers on stage, jumping up, throwing his mic in the air, doing mid-air splits, and completely dominating the stage. As well as teaching him to perform, Ward made one other major change. Up to this point, Wilson had always been known either as Jack or as Sonny. Ward thought that being called Sonny smacked of Uncle Tommery, and decided that from this point on, Wilson’s stage name was going to be Jackie. Wilson was not happy with this at first, but later decided that Ward had been right – though he was still always “Jack” or “Sonny” to those who knew him. Wilson’s first recording with the group as lead singer came just after he turned nineteen, when he went into the studio with them to cut “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” for King Records — the same label that had turned him down when Johnny Otis had put him forward: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down”] Four months later, they went back into the studio to cut eleven songs in a single day — a mammoth session which really allowed Wilson to show off his vocal versatility. From that session, their version of “Rags to Riches”, which had been a massive hit for Tony Bennett earlier in the year, went to number two on the R&B chart, though it didn’t dent the pop chart: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, “Rags to Riches”] But after this, the Dominoes started to have less success in the charts — their records weren’t selling as well as they had been when Clyde McPhatter was the group’s lead singer, and in 1954 they had no hits at all. But in some ways that didn’t really matter — the group weren’t just looking to have success as recording artists, but as live performers, and they got a two-year residency in Las Vegas, supporting Louis Prima and Keely Smith. The group were getting five thousand dollars a week — a massive amount of money in those days — though most of that went to Ward, and Wilson was on a salary of only ninety dollars a week. It was while he was performing in Las Vegas that Wilson first came to the notice of someone who would later become a good friend — Elvis Presley. In 1956 Elvis made his own first trip to perform in Vegas, although he was far, far less successful there than he would be thirteen years later. While he was there, he watched with amazement as Jackie Wilson performed Elvis’ own hit “Don’t Be Cruel” much better than Elvis did himself — and in the famous Million Dollar Quartet tapes, you can hear Elvis raving about Wilson to Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis: [Excerpt: Elvis talking about Jackie Wilson] It’s quite funny listening to those recordings, as the others keep trying to drag Elvis on to other topics of conversation, and Elvis keeps insisting on telling them just how good this singer with Billy Ward and the Dominoes, whose name he hadn’t caught, was. But Vegas wasn’t a good fit for Wilson. He chafed at the discipline of the Dominoes, and at staying in one place all the time. After a couple of years of disappointing record sales, the Dominoes switched labels to Decca, and for the first time Jackie Wilson hit the pop charts as a lead singer, when “St. Therese of the Roses” made number thirteen on the pop charts and number twenty-seven on the hot one hundred: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, “St. Therese of the Roses”] Incidentally, over in the UK, where American chart records were often covered for the domestic market by British acts, that was recorded by Malcolm Vaughan, a pop tenor who wanted to be England’s answer to Dean Martin: [Excerpt: Malcolm Vaughan, “St. Therese of the Roses”] That version actually became a massive hit over here, reaching number three, after being banned by the BBC. Yes, you heard that right. That song was banned, because it was “contrary both to Roman Catholic doctrine and to Protestant sentiment”. The ban caused enough controversy that the record sold half a million copies. Vaughan would later go on to have a minor hit with a cover version of another Jackie Wilson record, “To Be Loved”. In 1957, Jackie decided to leave Billy Ward and the Dominoes. It had become apparent that Ward had no bigger ambitions than to keep playing Las Vegas forever, and keep making vast amounts of money without having to travel or work especially hard. Jackie Wilson wanted something more, and he went back to Detroit. At first he was going to join a vocal group that had been performing for a few years, the Four Aims, which featured his cousin Levi Stubbs and another distant relative, Lawrence Payton. Unfortunately, they found that Jackie’s voice didn’t blend well with the group — he sounded, according to Wilson’s first wife Freda, too similar to Stubbs, though I don’t hear that much of a vocal resemblance myself. Either way, the attempt to work together quickly fizzled out, and the Four Tops, as they became, had to find their own success without Jackie Wilson in the group. Around this time, Wilson also became obsessed with the singer Mario Lanza. Lanza was an Italian-American pop singer who sang in a pseudo-operatic style, rather than in the more casual crooning style of contemporaries like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, and Wilson was a huge fan of Lanza’s 1951 film The Great Caruso, in which he played the opera singer Enrico Caruso: [Excerpt: Mario Lanza, “The Loveliest Night of the Year”] Wilson studied Lanza’s performances, and he tried to emulate Lanza’s diction and projection. But at the same time, he was, at heart, an R&B performer, and he also knew that as a black singer in Detroit in the early fifties, R&B was what he needed to do to make money. And making money was what Wilson needed to do more than anything else, and so he got an audition at the Flame Bar, which was owned and run by a local mobster, Al Green. Green was a big name in the local music business — he managed Johnnie Ray, one of the biggest names in white pop music at the time, and also LaVern Baker, who had had a string of R&B hits. Wilson got the audition through his friend Roquel Davis, who went by the name Billy Davis, who was Lawrence Payton’s cousin and had performed with him in an early lineup of the Four Aims. Davis had also written songs for the Four Aims, but more importantly for this purpose, his girlfriend, Gwen Gordy, worked with her sister Anna at the Flame Bar. Through these connections, Wilson got himself a regular spot at the Flame — and he also got to meet Gwen and Anna’s little brother Berry. Berry Gordy Jr was someone who would go on to be one of the most important people in the history of twentieth century music — someone without whom none of the rest of this story would happen. He was as important to the music of the sixties as Sam Phillips was to the fifties, if not more important. Gordy was born, the seventh of eight children, to a poor family in Detroit. As a child, he was taught some of the rudiments of the piano by an uncle, who tried to get him to learn to play in the proper manner — learning scales and arpeggios, and how to read music. But young Berry was easily bored, and soon figured out that if you play the first three notes of an arpeggio together, you can get a simple triad chord. A diversion here, just for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about — an arpeggio is a musical term that literally means “like a harp”, and it’s used for a type of scale where you pick out the individual notes of a chord. You know the sound, even if you don’t know the term. So when you arpeggiate a C major chord, you play the notes C, E, and G, sometimes in multiple octaves: [Demonstrates on guitar] When you play those notes together, that’s a C major chord: [Demonstrates on guitar] Once young Berry Gordy Jr figured out how to play the chords C, F, and G, he was able to start playing boogie-woogie piano by ear. His favourite boogie record was “Hazel Scott’s Boogie Woogie”: [Excerpt: Hazel Scott, “Hazel Scott’s Boogie Woogie”] From an early age, he also became a fan of a particular type of vocal group performance, especially when the singers were singing touching songs about loneliness. He loved “Paper Doll” by the Mills Brothers: [Excerpt: The Mills Brothers, “Paper Doll”] and “We Three” by the Ink Spots: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, “We Three”] But in his early years, Gordy was unsure whether he wanted to become a musician, or if instead he wanted to become a boxer like his hero Joe Louis — and in this way his career was paralleling that of Jackie Wilson, though he didn’t know Wilson at the time. He actually had a reasonable amount of success as a boxer, up until a point in 1950 where he saw two posters next to each other. One of them, on top, was advertising a battle of the bands between Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington, while the other was advertising a fight. He noticed two things about the posters. The first was that the bandleaders could work every night and make money, while he knew that boxers would go weeks or months between fights. And the second was that the bandleaders “were about fifty and looked twenty-three”, while the boxers “were about twenty-three and looked fifty”. He knew what he was going to do, and it wasn’t boxing. His attempts at a music career were soon put on the back-burner when he was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After he got out of the military, he had a variety of short-term jobs, but he was regarded by his family more or less as a bum — he never held down a steady job and he was a dreamer who saw himself as becoming a successful songwriter and a millionaire, but had never quite managed to make anything of his dreams. That was, at least, until he met Billy Davis, who at the time was a struggling songwriter like him, but one who had had slightly more success. Davis had managed to persuade Chess Records to sign up the Four Tops, as they were now called, and release a single with Davis credited as the songwriter: [Excerpt: The Four Tops, “Kiss Me Baby”] I say Davis was credited as the songwriter, because that song bears more than a little resemblance to the Ray Charles song from a few years earlier, “Kissa Me Baby”: [Excerpt: Ray Charles, “Kissa Me Baby”] But Chess hadn’t really been interested in the Four Tops themselves — they’d instead been interested in Billy Davis as a songwriter, and they quickly used songs he’d written for the Four Tops, and cut them instead with the Moonglows: [Excerpt: The Moonglows, “See Saw”] and the Flamingos: [Excerpt: The Flamingos, “A Kiss From Your Lips”] Neither of those had been a big hit, but the result was that Billy Davis was, in Gordy’s eyes at least, someone with a track record and connections. The two men hit it off musically as well as personally, and they decided that they’d start to collaborate on songs, along with Gordy’s sister Gwen, who was dating Davis. Anything any of them wrote on their own would also get credited to them as a group, and they’d pool whatever they got. And they were going to write songs for Jackie Wilson. Davis tried to get Wilson signed to Chess Records, but they weren’t interested in Wilson’s sound — they wanted a harder blues sound, rather than Wilson’s more soulful sound. But then Al Green took on Wilson’s management, and managed to persuade Bob Thiele at Decca Records, who had just signed Buddy Holly and the Crickets, to sign Wilson — not so much for Wilson’s own talent, though Thiele was impressed by him, but because Green promised that he could also sign LaVern Baker when her contract with Atlantic expired. As it turned out, though, Thiele would never get to sign Baker, as the day before Wilson’s contract was meant to be signed, Al Green died suddenly. More by chutzpah than anything else, Nat Tarnopol, an office boy who had been employed by Green, managed to take over Wilson’s management, just by saying that he was in charge now. He got the contracts signed, and got Wilson signed to Brunswick, the Decca subsidiary that put out rock and roll records. Over the next few years Tarnopol would manage to get himself made a co-owner of Brunswick, by using the leverage he got as Wilson’s manager. The first record Wilson put out as a solo artist was a song that Billy Davis had originally come up with when he was sixteen, inspired by a Louis Jordan song titled “Reet, Petite, and Gone”: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, “Reet, Petite, and Gone”] Davis and the Gordys reworked his original idea into a new song called “Reet Petite”, which became Wilson’s first solo single since leaving the Dominoes. When Wilson took the song to Dick Jacobs, the arranger assigned to the session, Jacobs was impressed with the song, but became worried — he sat down with Wilson to work out what key to record the song in, and Wilson kept telling him to take it higher, and higher, and higher. Wilson couldn’t demonstrate what he meant during the preparations for the session, as he had laryngitis, but he kept insisting that he should sing it a full octave higher than Jacobs initially suggested. Jacobs went to Bob Thiele, and Thiele said it didn’t really matter, they’d only signed Wilson in order to get LaVern Baker, and just to do what he wanted. Jacobs hired some of the best session players in New York, including Panama Francis on drums and Sam “the Man” Taylor on saxophone, reasoning that if he had the best players around then the record wouldn’t end up too bad, whatever the singer sounded like. I’ll now quote some of Jacobs’ description of the session itself: “I got him behind the microphone and said a silent prayer that this aerial key he’d picked to sing in would be okay, and that this guy was a reasonable approximation of a singer. “Jackie Wilson opened his mouth and out poured what sounded like honey on moonbeams, and it was like the whole room shifted on some weird axis. The musicians, these meat and potatoes pros, stared at each other slack-jawed and goggle-eyed in disbelief; it was as if the purpose of their musical training and woodshedding and lickspitting had been to guide them into this big studio in the Pythian Temple to experience these pure shivering moments of magic. Bob Thiele and I looked at each other and just started laughing, half out of relief and half out of wonder. I never thought crow could taste so sweet.” [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Reet Petite”] The record wasn’t a massive hit in the US — it only went to number sixty-two on the pop charts — but it was a much bigger hit in the UK, reaching number six, and over here it became a much-loved classic, so much so that it went to number one for four weeks when it was reissued in 1986. At one show, where he was Dinah Washington’s support act, he rolled his “r” on the title of the song, like he did on the record, and his two front dentures went flying off. He never sang the song live again. “Reet Petite” was the start of a run of songs that Davis and the Gordys wrote for Wilson, most of them big hits and several of them classics. Most notably, there was Wilson’s second solo single, “To Be Loved”. That song was written by Berry Gordy and Davis, after Gordy found out his wife was divorcing him. Gordy went round to his sister Gwen’s house, where Davis also was, and started playing the piano, after Gwen reassured him that even though his wife had left him, he still had the love of his children and his siblings. The result was a gorgeous ballad that went to number seven on the R&B charts and number twenty-two on the pop charts: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “To Be Loved”] They also wrote what became Wilson’s biggest early it, “Lonely Teardrops”, which went to number one on the R&B charts: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Lonely Teardrops”] That had originally been written as a ballad, but was reworked into a more danceable song in the studio. Berry Gordy and Davis hated it when they first heard the finished record, but grew to appreciate it as it became a hit. However, from that point on, they started to take more interest in the production side of Wilson’s recordings, and they developed a routine where Davis and Gordy would rehearse Wilson, with Gordy on the piano, and they’d teach him the song and record a demo, which Jacobs would then use to write the arrangements — Dick Jacobs wasn’t the only arranger on Wilson’s early records, but they soon learned that he was the one who could best capture the sound they wanted. The three men would then supervise in the studio. (Gwen Gordy is also credited as a co-writer on several of the records, but her contributions tend to be played down by the others, and she doesn’t appear to have been involved in the production side. How much of that is her not contributing as much, and how much is just misogyny in how the story is told, is hard to say.) But eventually, they fell out with Nat Tarnopol, after they figured out that Tarnopol was putting songs to which he owned the copyright on the B-sides of all Wilson’s records, so he could get royalties from the sales. Gordy and Davis insisted that they should get to write the songs on both sides of the singles, so that they could get a fair share of the money — especially as they were effectively producing the sessions, without either a credit or royalties. Tarnopol disagreed — as far as he was concerned, Jackie Wilson could be a star with anyone writing his material, and he didn’t need these songwriters. Their days as Jackie Wilson’s hit factory were over. Davis and Gwen Gordy went off to found their own record label, along with Gwen and Berry’s sister Anna. Anna Records, as it was called, didn’t have the most propitious start, with its first single being a Davis and Gwen Gordy song “Hope and Pray”, performed by the Voice Masters: [Excerpt: The Voice Masters, “Hope and Pray”] But it would later put out some much more influential records. Berry, meanwhile, decided to groom another young artist for stardom — he saw a lot of possibilities in a young man called William Robinson, who everyone referred to as Smokey, and his group the Miracles. We’ll pick up on the Gordys and their business ventures in a few months’ time. Jackie Wilson continued having hits for several years, although his career dipped in the early sixties with the British Invasion. He then had a revival in 1967, when he recorded what would end up being his biggest hit, “Higher and Higher”: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Higher and Higher”] Wilson continued having occasional hits through to 1970, and remained a popular live artist for years afterwards, but then in 1975, in the middle of performing “Lonely Teardrops”, right after singing the line “my heart is crying”, he clutched his chest and collapsed. At first people thought it was part of the act, but he didn’t get back up. Cornell Gunter of the Coasters gave him mouth to mouth, and possibly saved his life, but some would question whether that was, in retrospect, a bad idea — Wilson was in a coma from which he would never fully recover. For the next eight and a half years, Wilson was institutionalised. There are some people who claim that he gained a little bit of awareness during that time, but by most accounts he was in a persistent vegetative state. At first, the music business rallied round and helped pay for his treatment — there are some reports that Jackie’s old friend Elvis Presley anonymously donated a lot of the money for his medical bills, though these obviously can’t be verified. The Detroit Spinners held a benefit concert for him, and donated $5000 of their own money. Al Green (the singer, not Wilson’s ex-manager) performed at the concert and gave ten thousand dollars, Stevie Wonder gave five thousand, Gladys Knight gave two thousand five hundred, Michael Jackson ten thousand, Richard Pryor twelve hundred. James Brown sent a one thousand dollar cheque, which bounced, but he coughed up the actual money when Jackie’s common-law wife said she was going to tell Jet magazine about the bouncing cheque. Nat Tarnopol and Brunswick Records, on the other hand, gave nothing. In fact, they did worse than nothing — they lied to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, claiming that Wilson hadn’t had any earnings from them in the year prior to his collapse, when he’d been in the studio and was owed regular union rates for recording sessions. If they’d told the truth, his medical bills would have been covered by the insurance, but they weren’t. There are many hypotheses as to why Wilson collapsed on stage that day, including that he used to drink salt water before going on stage to make himself sweat, and that this caused him to have a heart attack due to induced hypertension. But several people close to Wilson believed that his collapse was somehow caused by Nat Tarnopol having him poisoned. Wilson had been due to testify against Tarnopol in front of a grand jury ten days after his collapse, and Tarnopol was very involved with the Mafia — at one point he’d tried to have Carl Davis, who produced “Higher and Higher” killed, and it was only Davis’ friendship with another mobster with ties to Brunswick, Tommy Vastola, that saved him. Johnny Roberts, Wilson’s manager in the seventies and another mobster, actually faked his own death in the eighties and had a funeral, and then reappeared once Tarnopol himself died in 1987, while some of those close to Wilson think it’s no coincidence that Cornell Gunter, who had been there when Wilson collapsed and had always thought there was something strange about it, was murdered himself in 1990, in Las Vegas, by an unknown gunman — though if that murder did have anything to do with Wilson’s collapse, it can’t have been Tarnopol himself who ordered that murder, of course. Jackie Wilson finally died of pneumonia on January 21, 1984, after having been hospitalised since September 29, 1975. He was buried in an unmarked grave, but three years later funds were raised for a headstone, which reads “no more lonely teardrops”.

  Episode sixty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Reet Petite” by Jackie Wilson, and features talent contests with too much talent, the prehistory of Motown, a song banned by the BBC, and a possible Mafia hit. 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 “Get a Job” by the Silhouettes. —-more—-  Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.   I used three main books to put together the narrative for this one. Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent history of the various companies that became Motown. To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy’s own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. And Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops by Tony Douglas is the closest thing out there to a definitive biography. There are dozens of compilations of Wilson’s fifties material, as it’s in the public domain, but for around the same price as those you can get this three-CD set which also has his later hits on, so that’s probably the place to start when investigating Wilson’s music. 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 have a look at one of the most important people in the history of popular music, and someone we’ll be seeing a lot more of as the series goes on. There are very few people in the world who can be said to have created an entire genre of music, and even fewer who were primarily record company owners rather than musicians, but Berry Gordy Jr was one of them. Gordy didn’t start out, though, as a record executive. When he first got into the music industry, it was as a songwriter, and today we’re going to look at his early songwriting career. But we’re also going to look at a performer who was massively important in his own right, and who was one of the most exciting performers ever to take to the stage — someone who inspired Elvis, Michael Jackson, and James Brown, and who provides one of the key links between fifties R&B and sixties soul: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Reet Petite”] I’m afraid that this episode is another case where I have to point you to the disclaimer I did in the early weeks of the show. Jackie Wilson was an admirable musician, but he was in no way an admirable human being, particularly in his treatment of women – he’s been credibly accused of at least one sexual assault, and he fathered many children by many different women, who he abandoned, and was known for having a violent temper. As always, this podcast is not about his reprehensible acts, but about the music, but again, it should not be taken as an endorsement of him as a person when I talk about his artistic talent. Wilson started out as a boxer in his teens, but he quickly decided to move into singing instead. He would regularly perform at talent contests around Detroit, and he was part of a loose association of musicians and singers including Wilson’s cousin Levi Stubbs, the Royals, who would later become Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, and the blues singer Little Willie John. They would all perform on the same talent shows and would agree among themselves who was going to win beforehand – Wilson would tell Stubbs “you win this week, I’ll win next week”. On one occasion, Johnny Otis happened to be in the audience, when the Royals, Little Willie John, and Wilson were all on the same bill, and on that particular show Wilson came third. Otis was working as a talent scout for King Records at the time, and tried to get all three acts signed to the label, but for reasons that remain unclear, King decided they only wanted to sign the Royals (though they would sign Little Willie John a couple of years later). As a result, a song that Otis had written for Wilson was recorded instead by the Royals: [The Royals, “Every Beat of My Heart”] Wilson kept performing at the amateur nights for a couple of years, until at the age of seventeen he was signed to Dee Gee Records, a small label co-owned by the jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie. There he cut two singles, under the name Sonny Wilson. Wilson’s favourite song to sing in talent contests was “Danny Boy”, which would remain in his setlists until late in his life, and he would use that song as a way to show off his vocal virtuosity, ornamenting it to the point that the melody would become almost unrecognisable, and so that was, of course, one of the two singles: [Excerpt: Sonny Wilson, “Danny Boy”] Neither single was particularly successful, but Wilson continued performing in nightclubs around Detroit and built up something of a local following. But in 1953 he got a big break, when he auditioned for Billy Ward and his Dominoes. We’ve talked about the Dominoes before, back in the episode on “Money Honey”, but as a bit of a recap, they were the biggest black vocal group of the early fifties, and they were led by Billy Ward, a vocal coach who was not their lead singer. The lead singer in the early fifties was Clyde McPhatter, but McPhatter was getting restless. There are several different stories about how Wilson came to be picked for Ward’s group, but one that sticks out in my mind is one that Ward used to tell, which is that one reason Wilson was picked for the group is that his mother begged Ward, saying that she was scared for the life of her son, as he was getting into trouble on the streets. Certainly, she had every reason to be worried for him – Wilson had recently been stabbed in the chest by a sex worker. But Ward noted that Wilson was a diamond in the rough, and could have a great deal of success with the right amount of polishing. He decided to get Wilson into the group as a replacement for McPhatter, though McPhatter and Wilson were in the group together for a while, as McPhatter served out his notice with the group. Over the next few weeks, Wilson studied what McPhatter was doing, until he was able to take McPhatter’s place. Ward taught him breath control, and became something of a father figure, giving him some discipline for the first time in his life. McPhatter’s were very big shoes to fill, but Wilson soon won the audiences over, both with his vocals and his dancing. While Wilson was not regarded as a good dancer by most of the people who knew him – he couldn’t dance with a partner at all – he had a unique way of moving all his own, which he had learned in the boxing ring, where he’d learned to slide, sidestep, and duck away from other fighters, and to come at them from unexpected angles. He soon became one of the most riveting performers on stage, jumping up, throwing his mic in the air, doing mid-air splits, and completely dominating the stage. As well as teaching him to perform, Ward made one other major change. Up to this point, Wilson had always been known either as Jack or as Sonny. Ward thought that being called Sonny smacked of Uncle Tommery, and decided that from this point on, Wilson’s stage name was going to be Jackie. Wilson was not happy with this at first, but later decided that Ward had been right – though he was still always “Jack” or “Sonny” to those who knew him. Wilson’s first recording with the group as lead singer came just after he turned nineteen, when he went into the studio with them to cut “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” for King Records — the same label that had turned him down when Johnny Otis had put him forward: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down”] Four months later, they went back into the studio to cut eleven songs in a single day — a mammoth session which really allowed Wilson to show off his vocal versatility. From that session, their version of “Rags to Riches”, which had been a massive hit for Tony Bennett earlier in the year, went to number two on the R&B chart, though it didn’t dent the pop chart: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, “Rags to Riches”] But after this, the Dominoes started to have less success in the charts — their records weren’t selling as well as they had been when Clyde McPhatter was the group’s lead singer, and in 1954 they had no hits at all. But in some ways that didn’t really matter — the group weren’t just looking to have success as recording artists, but as live performers, and they got a two-year residency in Las Vegas, supporting Louis Prima and Keely Smith. The group were getting five thousand dollars a week — a massive amount of money in those days — though most of that went to Ward, and Wilson was on a salary of only ninety dollars a week. It was while he was performing in Las Vegas that Wilson first came to the notice of someone who would later become a good friend — Elvis Presley. In 1956 Elvis made his own first trip to perform in Vegas, although he was far, far less successful there than he would be thirteen years later. While he was there, he watched with amazement as Jackie Wilson performed Elvis’ own hit “Don’t Be Cruel” much better than Elvis did himself — and in the famous Million Dollar Quartet tapes, you can hear Elvis raving about Wilson to Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis: [Excerpt: Elvis talking about Jackie Wilson] It’s quite funny listening to those recordings, as the others keep trying to drag Elvis on to other topics of conversation, and Elvis keeps insisting on telling them just how good this singer with Billy Ward and the Dominoes, whose name he hadn’t caught, was. But Vegas wasn’t a good fit for Wilson. He chafed at the discipline of the Dominoes, and at staying in one place all the time. After a couple of years of disappointing record sales, the Dominoes switched labels to Decca, and for the first time Jackie Wilson hit the pop charts as a lead singer, when “St. Therese of the Roses” made number thirteen on the pop charts and number twenty-seven on the hot one hundred: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, “St. Therese of the Roses”] Incidentally, over in the UK, where American chart records were often covered for the domestic market by British acts, that was recorded by Malcolm Vaughan, a pop tenor who wanted to be England’s answer to Dean Martin: [Excerpt: Malcolm Vaughan, “St. Therese of the Roses”] That version actually became a massive hit over here, reaching number three, after being banned by the BBC. Yes, you heard that right. That song was banned, because it was “contrary both to Roman Catholic doctrine and to Protestant sentiment”. The ban caused enough controversy that the record sold half a million copies. Vaughan would later go on to have a minor hit with a cover version of another Jackie Wilson record, “To Be Loved”. In 1957, Jackie decided to leave Billy Ward and the Dominoes. It had become apparent that Ward had no bigger ambitions than to keep playing Las Vegas forever, and keep making vast amounts of money without having to travel or work especially hard. Jackie Wilson wanted something more, and he went back to Detroit. At first he was going to join a vocal group that had been performing for a few years, the Four Aims, which featured his cousin Levi Stubbs and another distant relative, Lawrence Payton. Unfortunately, they found that Jackie’s voice didn’t blend well with the group — he sounded, according to Wilson’s first wife Freda, too similar to Stubbs, though I don’t hear that much of a vocal resemblance myself. Either way, the attempt to work together quickly fizzled out, and the Four Tops, as they became, had to find their own success without Jackie Wilson in the group. Around this time, Wilson also became obsessed with the singer Mario Lanza. Lanza was an Italian-American pop singer who sang in a pseudo-operatic style, rather than in the more casual crooning style of contemporaries like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, and Wilson was a huge fan of Lanza’s 1951 film The Great Caruso, in which he played the opera singer Enrico Caruso: [Excerpt: Mario Lanza, “The Loveliest Night of the Year”] Wilson studied Lanza’s performances, and he tried to emulate Lanza’s diction and projection. But at the same time, he was, at heart, an R&B performer, and he also knew that as a black singer in Detroit in the early fifties, R&B was what he needed to do to make money. And making money was what Wilson needed to do more than anything else, and so he got an audition at the Flame Bar, which was owned and run by a local mobster, Al Green. Green was a big name in the local music business — he managed Johnnie Ray, one of the biggest names in white pop music at the time, and also LaVern Baker, who had had a string of R&B hits. Wilson got the audition through his friend Roquel Davis, who went by the name Billy Davis, who was Lawrence Payton’s cousin and had performed with him in an early lineup of the Four Aims. Davis had also written songs for the Four Aims, but more importantly for this purpose, his girlfriend, Gwen Gordy, worked with her sister Anna at the Flame Bar. Through these connections, Wilson got himself a regular spot at the Flame — and he also got to meet Gwen and Anna’s little brother Berry. Berry Gordy Jr was someone who would go on to be one of the most important people in the history of twentieth century music — someone without whom none of the rest of this story would happen. He was as important to the music of the sixties as Sam Phillips was to the fifties, if not more important. Gordy was born, the seventh of eight children, to a poor family in Detroit. As a child, he was taught some of the rudiments of the piano by an uncle, who tried to get him to learn to play in the proper manner — learning scales and arpeggios, and how to read music. But young Berry was easily bored, and soon figured out that if you play the first three notes of an arpeggio together, you can get a simple triad chord. A diversion here, just for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about — an arpeggio is a musical term that literally means “like a harp”, and it’s used for a type of scale where you pick out the individual notes of a chord. You know the sound, even if you don’t know the term. So when you arpeggiate a C major chord, you play the notes C, E, and G, sometimes in multiple octaves: [Demonstrates on guitar] When you play those notes together, that’s a C major chord: [Demonstrates on guitar] Once young Berry Gordy Jr figured out how to play the chords C, F, and G, he was able to start playing boogie-woogie piano by ear. His favourite boogie record was “Hazel Scott’s Boogie Woogie”: [Excerpt: Hazel Scott, “Hazel Scott’s Boogie Woogie”] From an early age, he also became a fan of a particular type of vocal group performance, especially when the singers were singing touching songs about loneliness. He loved “Paper Doll” by the Mills Brothers: [Excerpt: The Mills Brothers, “Paper Doll”] and “We Three” by the Ink Spots: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, “We Three”] But in his early years, Gordy was unsure whether he wanted to become a musician, or if instead he wanted to become a boxer like his hero Joe Louis — and in this way his career was paralleling that of Jackie Wilson, though he didn’t know Wilson at the time. He actually had a reasonable amount of success as a boxer, up until a point in 1950 where he saw two posters next to each other. One of them, on top, was advertising a battle of the bands between Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington, while the other was advertising a fight. He noticed two things about the posters. The first was that the bandleaders could work every night and make money, while he knew that boxers would go weeks or months between fights. And the second was that the bandleaders “were about fifty and looked twenty-three”, while the boxers “were about twenty-three and looked fifty”. He knew what he was going to do, and it wasn’t boxing. His attempts at a music career were soon put on the back-burner when he was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After he got out of the military, he had a variety of short-term jobs, but he was regarded by his family more or less as a bum — he never held down a steady job and he was a dreamer who saw himself as becoming a successful songwriter and a millionaire, but had never quite managed to make anything of his dreams. That was, at least, until he met Billy Davis, who at the time was a struggling songwriter like him, but one who had had slightly more success. Davis had managed to persuade Chess Records to sign up the Four Tops, as they were now called, and release a single with Davis credited as the songwriter: [Excerpt: The Four Tops, “Kiss Me Baby”] I say Davis was credited as the songwriter, because that song bears more than a little resemblance to the Ray Charles song from a few years earlier, “Kissa Me Baby”: [Excerpt: Ray Charles, “Kissa Me Baby”] But Chess hadn’t really been interested in the Four Tops themselves — they’d instead been interested in Billy Davis as a songwriter, and they quickly used songs he’d written for the Four Tops, and cut them instead with the Moonglows: [Excerpt: The Moonglows, “See Saw”] and the Flamingos: [Excerpt: The Flamingos, “A Kiss From Your Lips”] Neither of those had been a big hit, but the result was that Billy Davis was, in Gordy’s eyes at least, someone with a track record and connections. The two men hit it off musically as well as personally, and they decided that they’d start to collaborate on songs, along with Gordy’s sister Gwen, who was dating Davis. Anything any of them wrote on their own would also get credited to them as a group, and they’d pool whatever they got. And they were going to write songs for Jackie Wilson. Davis tried to get Wilson signed to Chess Records, but they weren’t interested in Wilson’s sound — they wanted a harder blues sound, rather than Wilson’s more soulful sound. But then Al Green took on Wilson’s management, and managed to persuade Bob Thiele at Decca Records, who had just signed Buddy Holly and the Crickets, to sign Wilson — not so much for Wilson’s own talent, though Thiele was impressed by him, but because Green promised that he could also sign LaVern Baker when her contract with Atlantic expired. As it turned out, though, Thiele would never get to sign Baker, as the day before Wilson’s contract was meant to be signed, Al Green died suddenly. More by chutzpah than anything else, Nat Tarnopol, an office boy who had been employed by Green, managed to take over Wilson’s management, just by saying that he was in charge now. He got the contracts signed, and got Wilson signed to Brunswick, the Decca subsidiary that put out rock and roll records. Over the next few years Tarnopol would manage to get himself made a co-owner of Brunswick, by using the leverage he got as Wilson’s manager. The first record Wilson put out as a solo artist was a song that Billy Davis had originally come up with when he was sixteen, inspired by a Louis Jordan song titled “Reet, Petite, and Gone”: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, “Reet, Petite, and Gone”] Davis and the Gordys reworked his original idea into a new song called “Reet Petite”, which became Wilson’s first solo single since leaving the Dominoes. When Wilson took the song to Dick Jacobs, the arranger assigned to the session, Jacobs was impressed with the song, but became worried — he sat down with Wilson to work out what key to record the song in, and Wilson kept telling him to take it higher, and higher, and higher. Wilson couldn’t demonstrate what he meant during the preparations for the session, as he had laryngitis, but he kept insisting that he should sing it a full octave higher than Jacobs initially suggested. Jacobs went to Bob Thiele, and Thiele said it didn’t really matter, they’d only signed Wilson in order to get LaVern Baker, and just to do what he wanted. Jacobs hired some of the best session players in New York, including Panama Francis on drums and Sam “the Man” Taylor on saxophone, reasoning that if he had the best players around then the record wouldn’t end up too bad, whatever the singer sounded like. I’ll now quote some of Jacobs’ description of the session itself: “I got him behind the microphone and said a silent prayer that this aerial key he’d picked to sing in would be okay, and that this guy was a reasonable approximation of a singer. “Jackie Wilson opened his mouth and out poured what sounded like honey on moonbeams, and it was like the whole room shifted on some weird axis. The musicians, these meat and potatoes pros, stared at each other slack-jawed and goggle-eyed in disbelief; it was as if the purpose of their musical training and woodshedding and lickspitting had been to guide them into this big studio in the Pythian Temple to experience these pure shivering moments of magic. Bob Thiele and I looked at each other and just started laughing, half out of relief and half out of wonder. I never thought crow could taste so sweet.” [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Reet Petite”] The record wasn’t a massive hit in the US — it only went to number sixty-two on the pop charts — but it was a much bigger hit in the UK, reaching number six, and over here it became a much-loved classic, so much so that it went to number one for four weeks when it was reissued in 1986. At one show, where he was Dinah Washington’s support act, he rolled his “r” on the title of the song, like he did on the record, and his two front dentures went flying off. He never sang the song live again. “Reet Petite” was the start of a run of songs that Davis and the Gordys wrote for Wilson, most of them big hits and several of them classics. Most notably, there was Wilson’s second solo single, “To Be Loved”. That song was written by Berry Gordy and Davis, after Gordy found out his wife was divorcing him. Gordy went round to his sister Gwen’s house, where Davis also was, and started playing the piano, after Gwen reassured him that even though his wife had left him, he still had the love of his children and his siblings. The result was a gorgeous ballad that went to number seven on the R&B charts and number twenty-two on the pop charts: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “To Be Loved”] They also wrote what became Wilson’s biggest early it, “Lonely Teardrops”, which went to number one on the R&B charts: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Lonely Teardrops”] That had originally been written as a ballad, but was reworked into a more danceable song in the studio. Berry Gordy and Davis hated it when they first heard the finished record, but grew to appreciate it as it became a hit. However, from that point on, they started to take more interest in the production side of Wilson’s recordings, and they developed a routine where Davis and Gordy would rehearse Wilson, with Gordy on the piano, and they’d teach him the song and record a demo, which Jacobs would then use to write the arrangements — Dick Jacobs wasn’t the only arranger on Wilson’s early records, but they soon learned that he was the one who could best capture the sound they wanted. The three men would then supervise in the studio. (Gwen Gordy is also credited as a co-writer on several of the records, but her contributions tend to be played down by the others, and she doesn’t appear to have been involved in the production side. How much of that is her not contributing as much, and how much is just misogyny in how the story is told, is hard to say.) But eventually, they fell out with Nat Tarnopol, after they figured out that Tarnopol was putting songs to which he owned the copyright on the B-sides of all Wilson’s records, so he could get royalties from the sales. Gordy and Davis insisted that they should get to write the songs on both sides of the singles, so that they could get a fair share of the money — especially as they were effectively producing the sessions, without either a credit or royalties. Tarnopol disagreed — as far as he was concerned, Jackie Wilson could be a star with anyone writing his material, and he didn’t need these songwriters. Their days as Jackie Wilson’s hit factory were over. Davis and Gwen Gordy went off to found their own record label, along with Gwen and Berry’s sister Anna. Anna Records, as it was called, didn’t have the most propitious start, with its first single being a Davis and Gwen Gordy song “Hope and Pray”, performed by the Voice Masters: [Excerpt: The Voice Masters, “Hope and Pray”] But it would later put out some much more influential records. Berry, meanwhile, decided to groom another young artist for stardom — he saw a lot of possibilities in a young man called William Robinson, who everyone referred to as Smokey, and his group the Miracles. We’ll pick up on the Gordys and their business ventures in a few months’ time. Jackie Wilson continued having hits for several years, although his career dipped in the early sixties with the British Invasion. He then had a revival in 1967, when he recorded what would end up being his biggest hit, “Higher and Higher”: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, “Higher and Higher”] Wilson continued having occasional hits through to 1970, and remained a popular live artist for years afterwards, but then in 1975, in the middle of performing “Lonely Teardrops”, right after singing the line “my heart is crying”, he clutched his chest and collapsed. At first people thought it was part of the act, but he didn’t get back up. Cornell Gunter of the Coasters gave him mouth to mouth, and possibly saved his life, but some would question whether that was, in retrospect, a bad idea — Wilson was in a coma from which he would never fully recover. For the next eight and a half years, Wilson was institutionalised. There are some people who claim that he gained a little bit of awareness during that time, but by most accounts he was in a persistent vegetative state. At first, the music business rallied round and helped pay for his treatment — there are some reports that Jackie’s old friend Elvis Presley anonymously donated a lot of the money for his medical bills, though these obviously can’t be verified. The Detroit Spinners held a benefit concert for him, and donated $5000 of their own money. Al Green (the singer, not Wilson’s ex-manager) performed at the concert and gave ten thousand dollars, Stevie Wonder gave five thousand, Gladys Knight gave two thousand five hundred, Michael Jackson ten thousand, Richard Pryor twelve hundred. James Brown sent a one thousand dollar cheque, which bounced, but he coughed up the actual money when Jackie’s common-law wife said she was going to tell Jet magazine about the bouncing cheque. Nat Tarnopol and Brunswick Records, on the other hand, gave nothing. In fact, they did worse than nothing — they lied to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, claiming that Wilson hadn’t had any earnings from them in the year prior to his collapse, when he’d been in the studio and was owed regular union rates for recording sessions. If they’d told the truth, his medical bills would have been covered by the insurance, but they weren’t. There are many hypotheses as to why Wilson collapsed on stage that day, including that he used to drink salt water before going on stage to make himself sweat, and that this caused him to have a heart attack due to induced hypertension. But several people close to Wilson believed that his collapse was somehow caused by Nat Tarnopol having him poisoned. Wilson had been due to testify against Tarnopol in front of a grand jury ten days after his collapse, and Tarnopol was very involved with the Mafia — at one point he’d tried to have Carl Davis, who produced “Higher and Higher” killed, and it was only Davis’ friendship with another mobster with ties to Brunswick, Tommy Vastola, that saved him. Johnny Roberts, Wilson’s manager in the seventies and another mobster, actually faked his own death in the eighties and had a funeral, and then reappeared once Tarnopol himself died in 1987, while some of those close to Wilson think it’s no coincidence that Cornell Gunter, who had been there when Wilson collapsed and had always thought there was something strange about it, was murdered himself in 1990, in Las Vegas, by an unknown gunman — though if that murder did have anything to do with Wilson’s collapse, it can’t have been Tarnopol himself who ordered that murder, of course. Jackie Wilson finally died of pneumonia on January 21, 1984, after having been hospitalised since September 29, 1975. He was buried in an unmarked grave, but three years later funds were raised for a headstone, which reads “no more lonely teardrops”.

  Episode sixty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Reet Petite" by Jackie Wilson, and features talent contests with too much talent, the prehistory of Motown, a song banned by the BBC, and a possible Mafia hit. 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 "Get a Job" by the Silhouettes. ----more----  Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.   I used three main books to put together the narrative for this one. Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent history of the various companies that became Motown. To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy's own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. And Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops by Tony Douglas is the closest thing out there to a definitive biography. There are dozens of compilations of Wilson's fifties material, as it's in the public domain, but for around the same price as those you can get this three-CD set which also has his later hits on, so that's probably the place to start when investigating Wilson's music. 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 have a look at one of the most important people in the history of popular music, and someone we'll be seeing a lot more of as the series goes on. There are very few people in the world who can be said to have created an entire genre of music, and even fewer who were primarily record company owners rather than musicians, but Berry Gordy Jr was one of them. Gordy didn't start out, though, as a record executive. When he first got into the music industry, it was as a songwriter, and today we're going to look at his early songwriting career. But we're also going to look at a performer who was massively important in his own right, and who was one of the most exciting performers ever to take to the stage -- someone who inspired Elvis, Michael Jackson, and James Brown, and who provides one of the key links between fifties R&B and sixties soul: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, "Reet Petite"] I'm afraid that this episode is another case where I have to point you to the disclaimer I did in the early weeks of the show. Jackie Wilson was an admirable musician, but he was in no way an admirable human being, particularly in his treatment of women – he's been credibly accused of at least one sexual assault, and he fathered many children by many different women, who he abandoned, and was known for having a violent temper. As always, this podcast is not about his reprehensible acts, but about the music, but again, it should not be taken as an endorsement of him as a person when I talk about his artistic talent. Wilson started out as a boxer in his teens, but he quickly decided to move into singing instead. He would regularly perform at talent contests around Detroit, and he was part of a loose association of musicians and singers including Wilson's cousin Levi Stubbs, the Royals, who would later become Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, and the blues singer Little Willie John. They would all perform on the same talent shows and would agree among themselves who was going to win beforehand – Wilson would tell Stubbs "you win this week, I'll win next week". On one occasion, Johnny Otis happened to be in the audience, when the Royals, Little Willie John, and Wilson were all on the same bill, and on that particular show Wilson came third. Otis was working as a talent scout for King Records at the time, and tried to get all three acts signed to the label, but for reasons that remain unclear, King decided they only wanted to sign the Royals (though they would sign Little Willie John a couple of years later). As a result, a song that Otis had written for Wilson was recorded instead by the Royals: [The Royals, "Every Beat of My Heart"] Wilson kept performing at the amateur nights for a couple of years, until at the age of seventeen he was signed to Dee Gee Records, a small label co-owned by the jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie. There he cut two singles, under the name Sonny Wilson. Wilson's favourite song to sing in talent contests was "Danny Boy", which would remain in his setlists until late in his life, and he would use that song as a way to show off his vocal virtuosity, ornamenting it to the point that the melody would become almost unrecognisable, and so that was, of course, one of the two singles: [Excerpt: Sonny Wilson, "Danny Boy"] Neither single was particularly successful, but Wilson continued performing in nightclubs around Detroit and built up something of a local following. But in 1953 he got a big break, when he auditioned for Billy Ward and his Dominoes. We've talked about the Dominoes before, back in the episode on "Money Honey", but as a bit of a recap, they were the biggest black vocal group of the early fifties, and they were led by Billy Ward, a vocal coach who was not their lead singer. The lead singer in the early fifties was Clyde McPhatter, but McPhatter was getting restless. There are several different stories about how Wilson came to be picked for Ward's group, but one that sticks out in my mind is one that Ward used to tell, which is that one reason Wilson was picked for the group is that his mother begged Ward, saying that she was scared for the life of her son, as he was getting into trouble on the streets. Certainly, she had every reason to be worried for him – Wilson had recently been stabbed in the chest by a sex worker. But Ward noted that Wilson was a diamond in the rough, and could have a great deal of success with the right amount of polishing. He decided to get Wilson into the group as a replacement for McPhatter, though McPhatter and Wilson were in the group together for a while, as McPhatter served out his notice with the group. Over the next few weeks, Wilson studied what McPhatter was doing, until he was able to take McPhatter's place. Ward taught him breath control, and became something of a father figure, giving him some discipline for the first time in his life. McPhatter's were very big shoes to fill, but Wilson soon won the audiences over, both with his vocals and his dancing. While Wilson was not regarded as a good dancer by most of the people who knew him – he couldn't dance with a partner at all – he had a unique way of moving all his own, which he had learned in the boxing ring, where he'd learned to slide, sidestep, and duck away from other fighters, and to come at them from unexpected angles. He soon became one of the most riveting performers on stage, jumping up, throwing his mic in the air, doing mid-air splits, and completely dominating the stage. As well as teaching him to perform, Ward made one other major change. Up to this point, Wilson had always been known either as Jack or as Sonny. Ward thought that being called Sonny smacked of Uncle Tommery, and decided that from this point on, Wilson's stage name was going to be Jackie. Wilson was not happy with this at first, but later decided that Ward had been right – though he was still always "Jack" or "Sonny" to those who knew him. Wilson's first recording with the group as lead singer came just after he turned nineteen, when he went into the studio with them to cut "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down" for King Records -- the same label that had turned him down when Johnny Otis had put him forward: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down"] Four months later, they went back into the studio to cut eleven songs in a single day -- a mammoth session which really allowed Wilson to show off his vocal versatility. From that session, their version of "Rags to Riches", which had been a massive hit for Tony Bennett earlier in the year, went to number two on the R&B chart, though it didn't dent the pop chart: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, "Rags to Riches"] But after this, the Dominoes started to have less success in the charts -- their records weren't selling as well as they had been when Clyde McPhatter was the group's lead singer, and in 1954 they had no hits at all. But in some ways that didn't really matter -- the group weren't just looking to have success as recording artists, but as live performers, and they got a two-year residency in Las Vegas, supporting Louis Prima and Keely Smith. The group were getting five thousand dollars a week -- a massive amount of money in those days -- though most of that went to Ward, and Wilson was on a salary of only ninety dollars a week. It was while he was performing in Las Vegas that Wilson first came to the notice of someone who would later become a good friend -- Elvis Presley. In 1956 Elvis made his own first trip to perform in Vegas, although he was far, far less successful there than he would be thirteen years later. While he was there, he watched with amazement as Jackie Wilson performed Elvis' own hit "Don't Be Cruel" much better than Elvis did himself -- and in the famous Million Dollar Quartet tapes, you can hear Elvis raving about Wilson to Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis: [Excerpt: Elvis talking about Jackie Wilson] It's quite funny listening to those recordings, as the others keep trying to drag Elvis on to other topics of conversation, and Elvis keeps insisting on telling them just how good this singer with Billy Ward and the Dominoes, whose name he hadn't caught, was. But Vegas wasn't a good fit for Wilson. He chafed at the discipline of the Dominoes, and at staying in one place all the time. After a couple of years of disappointing record sales, the Dominoes switched labels to Decca, and for the first time Jackie Wilson hit the pop charts as a lead singer, when "St. Therese of the Roses" made number thirteen on the pop charts and number twenty-seven on the hot one hundred: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, "St. Therese of the Roses"] Incidentally, over in the UK, where American chart records were often covered for the domestic market by British acts, that was recorded by Malcolm Vaughan, a pop tenor who wanted to be England's answer to Dean Martin: [Excerpt: Malcolm Vaughan, "St. Therese of the Roses"] That version actually became a massive hit over here, reaching number three, after being banned by the BBC. Yes, you heard that right. That song was banned, because it was "contrary both to Roman Catholic doctrine and to Protestant sentiment". The ban caused enough controversy that the record sold half a million copies. Vaughan would later go on to have a minor hit with a cover version of another Jackie Wilson record, "To Be Loved". In 1957, Jackie decided to leave Billy Ward and the Dominoes. It had become apparent that Ward had no bigger ambitions than to keep playing Las Vegas forever, and keep making vast amounts of money without having to travel or work especially hard. Jackie Wilson wanted something more, and he went back to Detroit. At first he was going to join a vocal group that had been performing for a few years, the Four Aims, which featured his cousin Levi Stubbs and another distant relative, Lawrence Payton. Unfortunately, they found that Jackie's voice didn't blend well with the group -- he sounded, according to Wilson's first wife Freda, too similar to Stubbs, though I don't hear that much of a vocal resemblance myself. Either way, the attempt to work together quickly fizzled out, and the Four Tops, as they became, had to find their own success without Jackie Wilson in the group. Around this time, Wilson also became obsessed with the singer Mario Lanza. Lanza was an Italian-American pop singer who sang in a pseudo-operatic style, rather than in the more casual crooning style of contemporaries like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, and Wilson was a huge fan of Lanza's 1951 film The Great Caruso, in which he played the opera singer Enrico Caruso: [Excerpt: Mario Lanza, "The Loveliest Night of the Year"] Wilson studied Lanza's performances, and he tried to emulate Lanza's diction and projection. But at the same time, he was, at heart, an R&B performer, and he also knew that as a black singer in Detroit in the early fifties, R&B was what he needed to do to make money. And making money was what Wilson needed to do more than anything else, and so he got an audition at the Flame Bar, which was owned and run by a local mobster, Al Green. Green was a big name in the local music business -- he managed Johnnie Ray, one of the biggest names in white pop music at the time, and also LaVern Baker, who had had a string of R&B hits. Wilson got the audition through his friend Roquel Davis, who went by the name Billy Davis, who was Lawrence Payton's cousin and had performed with him in an early lineup of the Four Aims. Davis had also written songs for the Four Aims, but more importantly for this purpose, his girlfriend, Gwen Gordy, worked with her sister Anna at the Flame Bar. Through these connections, Wilson got himself a regular spot at the Flame -- and he also got to meet Gwen and Anna's little brother Berry. Berry Gordy Jr was someone who would go on to be one of the most important people in the history of twentieth century music -- someone without whom none of the rest of this story would happen. He was as important to the music of the sixties as Sam Phillips was to the fifties, if not more important. Gordy was born, the seventh of eight children, to a poor family in Detroit. As a child, he was taught some of the rudiments of the piano by an uncle, who tried to get him to learn to play in the proper manner -- learning scales and arpeggios, and how to read music. But young Berry was easily bored, and soon figured out that if you play the first three notes of an arpeggio together, you can get a simple triad chord. A diversion here, just for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about -- an arpeggio is a musical term that literally means "like a harp", and it's used for a type of scale where you pick out the individual notes of a chord. You know the sound, even if you don't know the term. So when you arpeggiate a C major chord, you play the notes C, E, and G, sometimes in multiple octaves: [Demonstrates on guitar] When you play those notes together, that's a C major chord: [Demonstrates on guitar] Once young Berry Gordy Jr figured out how to play the chords C, F, and G, he was able to start playing boogie-woogie piano by ear. His favourite boogie record was "Hazel Scott's Boogie Woogie": [Excerpt: Hazel Scott, "Hazel Scott's Boogie Woogie"] From an early age, he also became a fan of a particular type of vocal group performance, especially when the singers were singing touching songs about loneliness. He loved "Paper Doll" by the Mills Brothers: [Excerpt: The Mills Brothers, "Paper Doll"] and "We Three" by the Ink Spots: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, "We Three"] But in his early years, Gordy was unsure whether he wanted to become a musician, or if instead he wanted to become a boxer like his hero Joe Louis -- and in this way his career was paralleling that of Jackie Wilson, though he didn't know Wilson at the time. He actually had a reasonable amount of success as a boxer, up until a point in 1950 where he saw two posters next to each other. One of them, on top, was advertising a battle of the bands between Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington, while the other was advertising a fight. He noticed two things about the posters. The first was that the bandleaders could work every night and make money, while he knew that boxers would go weeks or months between fights. And the second was that the bandleaders "were about fifty and looked twenty-three", while the boxers "were about twenty-three and looked fifty". He knew what he was going to do, and it wasn't boxing. His attempts at a music career were soon put on the back-burner when he was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After he got out of the military, he had a variety of short-term jobs, but he was regarded by his family more or less as a bum -- he never held down a steady job and he was a dreamer who saw himself as becoming a successful songwriter and a millionaire, but had never quite managed to make anything of his dreams. That was, at least, until he met Billy Davis, who at the time was a struggling songwriter like him, but one who had had slightly more success. Davis had managed to persuade Chess Records to sign up the Four Tops, as they were now called, and release a single with Davis credited as the songwriter: [Excerpt: The Four Tops, "Kiss Me Baby"] I say Davis was credited as the songwriter, because that song bears more than a little resemblance to the Ray Charles song from a few years earlier, "Kissa Me Baby": [Excerpt: Ray Charles, "Kissa Me Baby"] But Chess hadn't really been interested in the Four Tops themselves -- they'd instead been interested in Billy Davis as a songwriter, and they quickly used songs he'd written for the Four Tops, and cut them instead with the Moonglows: [Excerpt: The Moonglows, "See Saw"] and the Flamingos: [Excerpt: The Flamingos, "A Kiss From Your Lips"] Neither of those had been a big hit, but the result was that Billy Davis was, in Gordy's eyes at least, someone with a track record and connections. The two men hit it off musically as well as personally, and they decided that they'd start to collaborate on songs, along with Gordy's sister Gwen, who was dating Davis. Anything any of them wrote on their own would also get credited to them as a group, and they'd pool whatever they got. And they were going to write songs for Jackie Wilson. Davis tried to get Wilson signed to Chess Records, but they weren't interested in Wilson's sound -- they wanted a harder blues sound, rather than Wilson's more soulful sound. But then Al Green took on Wilson's management, and managed to persuade Bob Thiele at Decca Records, who had just signed Buddy Holly and the Crickets, to sign Wilson -- not so much for Wilson's own talent, though Thiele was impressed by him, but because Green promised that he could also sign LaVern Baker when her contract with Atlantic expired. As it turned out, though, Thiele would never get to sign Baker, as the day before Wilson's contract was meant to be signed, Al Green died suddenly. More by chutzpah than anything else, Nat Tarnopol, an office boy who had been employed by Green, managed to take over Wilson's management, just by saying that he was in charge now. He got the contracts signed, and got Wilson signed to Brunswick, the Decca subsidiary that put out rock and roll records. Over the next few years Tarnopol would manage to get himself made a co-owner of Brunswick, by using the leverage he got as Wilson's manager. The first record Wilson put out as a solo artist was a song that Billy Davis had originally come up with when he was sixteen, inspired by a Louis Jordan song titled "Reet, Petite, and Gone": [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, "Reet, Petite, and Gone"] Davis and the Gordys reworked his original idea into a new song called "Reet Petite", which became Wilson's first solo single since leaving the Dominoes. When Wilson took the song to Dick Jacobs, the arranger assigned to the session, Jacobs was impressed with the song, but became worried -- he sat down with Wilson to work out what key to record the song in, and Wilson kept telling him to take it higher, and higher, and higher. Wilson couldn't demonstrate what he meant during the preparations for the session, as he had laryngitis, but he kept insisting that he should sing it a full octave higher than Jacobs initially suggested. Jacobs went to Bob Thiele, and Thiele said it didn't really matter, they'd only signed Wilson in order to get LaVern Baker, and just to do what he wanted. Jacobs hired some of the best session players in New York, including Panama Francis on drums and Sam "the Man" Taylor on saxophone, reasoning that if he had the best players around then the record wouldn't end up too bad, whatever the singer sounded like. I'll now quote some of Jacobs' description of the session itself: "I got him behind the microphone and said a silent prayer that this aerial key he'd picked to sing in would be okay, and that this guy was a reasonable approximation of a singer. "Jackie Wilson opened his mouth and out poured what sounded like honey on moonbeams, and it was like the whole room shifted on some weird axis. The musicians, these meat and potatoes pros, stared at each other slack-jawed and goggle-eyed in disbelief; it was as if the purpose of their musical training and woodshedding and lickspitting had been to guide them into this big studio in the Pythian Temple to experience these pure shivering moments of magic. Bob Thiele and I looked at each other and just started laughing, half out of relief and half out of wonder. I never thought crow could taste so sweet." [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, "Reet Petite"] The record wasn't a massive hit in the US -- it only went to number sixty-two on the pop charts -- but it was a much bigger hit in the UK, reaching number six, and over here it became a much-loved classic, so much so that it went to number one for four weeks when it was reissued in 1986. At one show, where he was Dinah Washington's support act, he rolled his "r" on the title of the song, like he did on the record, and his two front dentures went flying off. He never sang the song live again. "Reet Petite" was the start of a run of songs that Davis and the Gordys wrote for Wilson, most of them big hits and several of them classics. Most notably, there was Wilson's second solo single, "To Be Loved". That song was written by Berry Gordy and Davis, after Gordy found out his wife was divorcing him. Gordy went round to his sister Gwen's house, where Davis also was, and started playing the piano, after Gwen reassured him that even though his wife had left him, he still had the love of his children and his siblings. The result was a gorgeous ballad that went to number seven on the R&B charts and number twenty-two on the pop charts: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, "To Be Loved"] They also wrote what became Wilson's biggest early it, "Lonely Teardrops", which went to number one on the R&B charts: [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, "Lonely Teardrops"] That had originally been written as a ballad, but was reworked into a more danceable song in the studio. Berry Gordy and Davis hated it when they first heard the finished record, but grew to appreciate it as it became a hit. However, from that point on, they started to take more interest in the production side of Wilson's recordings, and they developed a routine where Davis and Gordy would rehearse Wilson, with Gordy on the piano, and they'd teach him the song and record a demo, which Jacobs would then use to write the arrangements -- Dick Jacobs wasn't the only arranger on Wilson's early records, but they soon learned that he was the one who could best capture the sound they wanted. The three men would then supervise in the studio. (Gwen Gordy is also credited as a co-writer on several of the records, but her contributions tend to be played down by the others, and she doesn't appear to have been involved in the production side. How much of that is her not contributing as much, and how much is just misogyny in how the story is told, is hard to say.) But eventually, they fell out with Nat Tarnopol, after they figured out that Tarnopol was putting songs to which he owned the copyright on the B-sides of all Wilson's records, so he could get royalties from the sales. Gordy and Davis insisted that they should get to write the songs on both sides of the singles, so that they could get a fair share of the money -- especially as they were effectively producing the sessions, without either a credit or royalties. Tarnopol disagreed -- as far as he was concerned, Jackie Wilson could be a star with anyone writing his material, and he didn't need these songwriters. Their days as Jackie Wilson's hit factory were over. Davis and Gwen Gordy went off to found their own record label, along with Gwen and Berry's sister Anna. Anna Records, as it was called, didn't have the most propitious start, with its first single being a Davis and Gwen Gordy song "Hope and Pray", performed by the Voice Masters: [Excerpt: The Voice Masters, "Hope and Pray"] But it would later put out some much more influential records. Berry, meanwhile, decided to groom another young artist for stardom -- he saw a lot of possibilities in a young man called William Robinson, who everyone referred to as Smokey, and his group the Miracles. We'll pick up on the Gordys and their business ventures in a few months' time. Jackie Wilson continued having hits for several years, although his career dipped in the early sixties with the British Invasion. He then had a revival in 1967, when he recorded what would end up being his biggest hit, "Higher and Higher": [Excerpt: Jackie Wilson, "Higher and Higher"] Wilson continued having occasional hits through to 1970, and remained a popular live artist for years afterwards, but then in 1975, in the middle of performing "Lonely Teardrops", right after singing the line "my heart is crying", he clutched his chest and collapsed. At first people thought it was part of the act, but he didn't get back up. Cornell Gunter of the Coasters gave him mouth to mouth, and possibly saved his life, but some would question whether that was, in retrospect, a bad idea -- Wilson was in a coma from which he would never fully recover. For the next eight and a half years, Wilson was institutionalised. There are some people who claim that he gained a little bit of awareness during that time, but by most accounts he was in a persistent vegetative state. At first, the music business rallied round and helped pay for his treatment -- there are some reports that Jackie's old friend Elvis Presley anonymously donated a lot of the money for his medical bills, though these obviously can't be verified. The Detroit Spinners held a benefit concert for him, and donated $5000 of their own money. Al Green (the singer, not Wilson's ex-manager) performed at the concert and gave ten thousand dollars, Stevie Wonder gave five thousand, Gladys Knight gave two thousand five hundred, Michael Jackson ten thousand, Richard Pryor twelve hundred. James Brown sent a one thousand dollar cheque, which bounced, but he coughed up the actual money when Jackie's common-law wife said she was going to tell Jet magazine about the bouncing cheque. Nat Tarnopol and Brunswick Records, on the other hand, gave nothing. In fact, they did worse than nothing -- they lied to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, claiming that Wilson hadn't had any earnings from them in the year prior to his collapse, when he'd been in the studio and was owed regular union rates for recording sessions. If they'd told the truth, his medical bills would have been covered by the insurance, but they weren't. There are many hypotheses as to why Wilson collapsed on stage that day, including that he used to drink salt water before going on stage to make himself sweat, and that this caused him to have a heart attack due to induced hypertension. But several people close to Wilson believed that his collapse was somehow caused by Nat Tarnopol having him poisoned. Wilson had been due to testify against Tarnopol in front of a grand jury ten days after his collapse, and Tarnopol was very involved with the Mafia -- at one point he'd tried to have Carl Davis, who produced "Higher and Higher" killed, and it was only Davis' friendship with another mobster with ties to Brunswick, Tommy Vastola, that saved him. Johnny Roberts, Wilson's manager in the seventies and another mobster, actually faked his own death in the eighties and had a funeral, and then reappeared once Tarnopol himself died in 1987, while some of those close to Wilson think it's no coincidence that Cornell Gunter, who had been there when Wilson collapsed and had always thought there was something strange about it, was murdered himself in 1990, in Las Vegas, by an unknown gunman -- though if that murder did have anything to do with Wilson's collapse, it can't have been Tarnopol himself who ordered that murder, of course. Jackie Wilson finally died of pneumonia on January 21, 1984, after having been hospitalised since September 29, 1975. He was buried in an unmarked grave, but three years later funds were raised for a headstone, which reads "no more lonely teardrops".

The Railway Children with Gary Newby in conversation with David Eastaugh Factory Records recorded their debut single "A Gentle Sound" in 1986, followed by their first album, Reunion Wilderness in 1987, which topped the UK Indie Chart. They left Factory shortly afterwards and were signed to Virgin Records. 1988 saw the release of their second album, Recurrence, on Virgin Records, and support tours with R.E.M. in Europe (Work Tour) and The Sugarcubes in the US. A national chart hit eluded them with singles "In the Meantime", "Somewhere South" and "Over and Over". In 1990, they released Native Place, an album that saw the band take a more pop oriented direction, with keyboard textures coming more to the fore than previously. "Every Beat of the Heart" became a Top 40 hit in the UK with a peak at No. 24, and the song became a No. 1 hit on the newly founded Modern Rock Tracks chart in the U.S. The band parted with Virgin Records in 1992, and broke up soon after. Keegan later had a spell in the Wigan-based folk rock band The Tansads, The Crash Band, and The Ultras, while Hull and Bateman left music for good. Newby continued solo, and has since released several albums as The Railway Children: Dream Arcade (1997, Ether Records), Gentle Sound (2002, Ether Records) and two collections of rare recordings: Rarities #1 in 2007 and Rarities #2 in 2010; the latter available only by download from his official site (listed below). Newby spent several years in Japan from 2002 onwards, writing/arranging music and lyrics for several major Japanese artists, including Anna Tsuchiya, Every Little Thing, V6, Detroit Metal City, Sailor Moon and Yoshikuni Douchin. In 2016, the original line up of Newby, Keegan, Hull and Bateman began rehearsing together and went on to play several times, including the NYC Popfest, the Shiiine On Weekender and concerts in Manchester, Berlin and London.

It’s time for the exciting conclusion to Matt’s review of every hand he played during a recent session. Highlights include a “crazy train” hand against a guy who looks like Ozzy Osbourne. Enjoy!

With apologies to Gus Hansen for the parody title. Something new this week as Matt goes over EVERY hand he played in a recent session in a “lightning round” style. It turned out to be a bit too long for one episode, so we’ve decided to split it into two. Enjoy Part 1 and please […]

Josh takes a stand in Pittsburgh. Ken avoids murdering someone. Everyone learns to love with every beat of their heart. Spend your Afternoons with Josh Macuga and Ken Napzok - it's a silly look at a serious world! We're on Cameo! Follow! Ken Napzok - Order his new book We Love Star Wars: The Great Moments That Built A Galaxy, Far Far Away Josh Macuga --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-afternoons-with-josh--ken/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-afternoons-with-josh--ken/support

with Barbra Gentry'Pugh

Will interviews James from Kill Rock Stars, and they discuss four songs that hit #1 on the Modern Rock charts in September 1990. Songs under discussion include "Stop" by Jane's Addiction, "Every Beat of the Heart" by The Railway Children, "Suicide Blonde" by INXS, and "Never Enough" by The Cure. This episode has been updated to include the original album version of "Every Beat of the Heart", since we Will and James mistakenly listened to an acoustic version during the original recording of the episode.

Worship songs: Every Beat, Raise A Hallelujah, Build My Life, How Deep The Father’s Love For Us Sermon Notes: "But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips." ~ Colossians 3:8 Anger Facts: Symbolized by the color red and the Only one letter away from “danger" Is most often rooted in fear and the pain of loss Alleviated by acceptance, meekness and forgiveness Can be a constructive and motivating virtue, i.e. “Righteous Indignation” Connection Group Questions: If you could have any superpower what would it be, and why? Is anyone willing to admit to a moment when you went "full Hulk" on someone or a situation? Read Ephesians 4:25-32.  Some people bottle-up, others blow-up. Have you ever made yourself sick with anger? Did you ever blow up and NOT regret it? Does the devil have a foothold in your life due to anger? Can you think of a time when you had righteous anger and it motivated you to do something great for God? What will you do to get rid of all anger, malice, bitterness or rage? (Eph. 4:31, Col. 3:8). Do you need to accept something that can't be changed or forgive someone/thing to move past the poison of anger?

    Welcome to episode twenty-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at “The Wallflower” by Etta James. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Also, remember I’m halfway through the Kickstarter for the first book based on this series. —-more—-   Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. I used a few books for this podcast, most of which I’ve mentioned before: Honkers & Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues by Arnold Shaw, one of the most important books on early 50s rhythm and blues Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and David Ritz. Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story by George Lipsitz. This collection of Etta James’ early work has all the songs by her I excerpted here *except* “The Wallflower”.  “The Wallflower”, though, can be found on this excellent and cheap 3-CD collection of Johnny Otis material, which also includes two other songs we’ve already covered, three more we will be covering, and a number which have been excerpted in this and other episodes.    Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, a quick content warning — there’s some mention of child abuse here. Nothing explicit, and not much, but it could cause some people to be upset, so I thought I’d mention it. If you’re worried, there is, like always a full transcript of the episode at 500songs.com so you can read it as text if that might be less upsetting. We’ve talked a little about answer songs before, when we were talking about “Hound Dog” and “Bear Cat”, but we didn’t really go into detail there. But answer songs were a regular thing in the 1950s, and responsible for some of the most well-known songs of the period. In the blues, for example, Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” is an answer song to Bo Diddley’s “I’m A Man”, partly mocking Diddley for being younger than Waters. But “I’m A Man” was, in itself, a response to Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man”. And, the “Bear Cat” debacle aside, this was an understood thing. It was no different to the old blues tradition of the floating lyric — you’d do an answer song to a big hit, and hopefully get a little bit of money off its coattails, but because everyone did it, nobody complained about it being done to them. Especially since the answer songs never did better than the original. “Bear Cat” might have gone to number three, but “Hound Dog” went to number one, so where was the harm? But there was one case where an answer song became so big that it started the career of a blues legend, had a film named after it, and was parodied across the Atlantic. The story starts, just like so many of these stories do, with Johnny Otis. In 1953, Otis discovered a Detroit band called the Royals, who had recently changed their name from the Four Falcons to avoid confusion with another Detroit band, the Falcons — this kind of confusion of names was common at the time, given the way every vocal group in the country seemed to be naming themselves after birds. Shortly after Otis discovered them, their lead singer was drafted, and Sonny Woods, one of the band’s members, suggested that as a replacement they should consider Hank Ballard, a friend of his who worked on the same Ford assembly line as him. Ballard didn’t become the lead singer straight away — Charles Sutton moved to the lead vocal role at first, while Ballard took over Sutton’s old backing vocal parts — but he slowly became more important to the band’s sound. Ballard was an interesting singer in many ways — particularly in his influences. While most R&B singers of this time wanted to be Clyde McPhatter or Wynonie Harris, Ballard was a massive fan of Gene Autry, the country and western singer who was hugely influential on Bill Haley and Les Paul. Despite this, though, his vocals didn’t sound like anyone else’s before him. You can find singers later on who sounded like Ballard — most notably both Jackie Wilson and Chubby Checker started out as Hank Ballard soundalikes — but nobody before him who sounded like that. Once Ballard was one of the Mindighters, they had that thing that every band needed to stand out — a truly distinctive sound of their own. Otis became the band’s manager, and got them signed to King Records, one of the most important labels in the history of very early rock and roll. Their first few singles were all doo-wop ballads, many of them written by Otis, and they featured Sutton on lead. They were pleasant enough, but nothing special, as you can hear… [excerpt The Royals “Every Beat of My Heart”] That’s a song Johnny Otis wrote for them, and it later became a million seller for Gladys Knight and the Pips, but there’s nothing about that track that really stands out — it could be any of a dozen or so vocal groups of the time. But that started to change when Hank Ballard became the new lead singer on the majority of their records. Around that time, the band also changed its name to The Midnighters, as once again they discovered that another band had a similar-sounding name. And it was as the Midnighters that they went on to have their greatest success, starting with “Get It” [excerpt of The Midnighters, “Get It”] “Get It” was the first of a string of hits for the band, but it’s the band’s second hit that we’re most interested in here. Hank Ballard had been a fan of Billy Ward and his Dominoes, and their hit “Sixty Minute Man”, which had been considered a relatively filthy song for the time period. “Get It” had been mildly risque for the period, but Ballard wanted to write something closer to “Sixty Minute Man”, and so he came up with a song that he initially titled “Sock It To Me, Mary”. Ralph Bass, the producer, thought the song was a little too strong for radio play, and so the group reworked it in the studio, with the new title being taken partially from the name of the engineer’s wife, Annie. The song they eventually recorded was called “Work With Me Annie” [excerpt of The Midnighters, “Work With Me Annie”] That’s certainly suggestive, but it wouldn’t set too many people on the warpath in 2019. In 1954, though, that kind of thing was considered borderline pornographic. “Give me all my meat?” That’s… well, no-one seemed sure quite what it was, but it was obviously filthy and should be banned. So of course it went to number one in the R&B chart. Getting banned on the radio has always been a guaranteed way to have a hit. And it helped that the song was ridiculously catchy, the kind of thing that you keep humming for weeks The Midnighters followed up with a song that was even more direct — “Sexy Ways” [excerpt of The Midnighters, “Sexy Ways”] That, too, went right up the charts. But “Work With Me Annie” had been such a success that the band recorded two direct followups — “Annie Had A Baby” and “Annie’s Aunt Fanny”. And they weren’t the only ones to record answer songs to their record. There were dozens of them — even a few years later, in 1958, Buddy Holly would be singing about how “Annie’s been working on the midnight shift”. But we want to talk about one in particular, here. One sung from the perspective of “Annie” herself. Jamesetta Hawkins did not have the easiest of lives, growing up. She went through a variety of foster homes, and was abused by too many of them. But she started singing from a very early age, and had formal musical training. Sadly, that training was by another abuser, who used to punch her in the chest if she wasn’t singing from the diaphragm. But she still credited that training with the powerful voice she developed later. Jamesetta was another discovery of Johnny Otis. When she was introduced to Otis, at first he didn’t want a new girl singer, but she impressed him so much that he agreed to sign her — so long as she got her parents’ permission, because she was only sixteen. There was one problem with that. She didn’t know her father, and her mother was in jail. So she faked a phone call — “calling her mother” while keeping a finger on the phone’s button to ensure there was no actual call. She later provided him with a forged letter. Meanwhile, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Otis’ former colleagues, were working on their own records with the Robins. The Robins had been through a few lineup changes, recorded for half a dozen small labels, and several of them had, on multiple occasions, had run-ins with the law. But they’d ended up recording for Spark Records, the label Leiber and Stoller had formed with their friend Lester Sill. Their first record to become really, really big, was “Riot in Cell Block Number Nine”. Like many Leiber and Stoller songs, this combined a comedy narrative — this time about a riot in a jail, a storyline not all that different from their later song “Jailhouse Rock” — with a standard blues melody. [Excerpt “Riot in Cell Block Number Nine” by the Robins] That is, incidentally, probably the first record to incorporate the influence of the famous stop-time riff which Willie Dixon had come up with for Muddy Waters. You’ve undoubtedly heard it before if you’ve heard any blues music at all, most famously in Waters’ “Mannish Boy” [Excerpt, Muddy Waters, “Mannish Boy”] But it had first been used (as far as I can tell – remembering that there is never a true “first”) in Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man”, which first hit the R&B charts in March 1954: [Excerpt, Muddy Waters, “Hoochie Coochie Man”] The Robins’ record came out in May 1954. So it’s likely that Leiber and Stoller heard “Hoochie Coochie Man” and immediately wrote “Riot”. However, they had a problem — Bobby Nunn, the Robins’ bass singer, simply couldn’t get the kind of menacing tones that the song needed — he was great for joking with Little Esther and things of that nature, but he just couldn’t do that scary growl. Or at least, that’s the story as Leiber and Stoller always told it. Other members of the Robins later claimed that Nunn had refused to sing the lead, finding the lyrics offensive. Terrell Leonard said “We didn’t understand our heritage. These two white songwriters knew our culture better than we did. Bobby wouldn’t do it.” But they knew someone who would. Richard Berry was a singer with a doo-wop group called The Flairs, who recorded for Modern and RPM records. In particular, they’d recorded a single called “She Wants to Rock”, which had been produced by Leiber and Stoller: [excerpt: The Flairs, “She Wants to Rock”] That song was written by Berry, but you can hear a very clear stylistic connection with Leiber and Stoller’s work. They were obviously sympathetic, musically, and clearly Leiber and Stoller remembered him and liked his voice, and they got him to sing the part that Nunn would otherwise have sung. “Riot in Cell Block #9” became a massive hit, though Berry never saw much money from it. This would end up being something of a pattern for Richard Berry’s life, sadly. Berry was one of the most important people in early rock and roll, but his work either went uncredited or unpaid, or sometimes both. But one thing that “Riot in Cell Block #9” did was cement Berry’s reputation within the industry as someone who would be able to turn in a good vocal, at short notice, on someone else’s record. And so, when it came time for Jamesetta Hawkins to record the new answer song for “Work With Me Annie”, and they needed someone to be Henry, who Annie was engaging in dialogue, Johnny Otis called in Berry as well. Otis always liked to have a bit of saucy, sassy, back-and-forth between a male and female singer, and that seemed particularly appropriate for this song. The record Otis, Hawkins, and Berry came up with was a fairly direct copy of “Work With Me Annie”, but even more blatant about its sexuality. [excerpt Etta James: “The Wallflower (Roll With Me Henry)”] The record was called “The Wallflower”, but everyone knew it as “Roll With Me Henry”. The song was credited to Jamesetta, under the new name Johnny Otis had given her, a simple reversal of her forename. Etta James was on her way to becoming a star. The song as recorded is credited to Hank Ballard, Etta James, and Johnny Otis as writers, but Richard Berry always claimed he should have had a credit as well, claiming that his vocal responses were largely improvised. This is entirely plausible — Berry was a great songwriter himself, who wrote several classic songs, and they sound like the kind of thing that one could come up with off the cuff. It’s also certainly the case that there were more than a few records released around this time that didn’t go to great lengths to credit the songwriters accurately, especially for contributions made in the studio during the recording session. “The Wallflower” went to number one on the R&B charts, but it didn’t become the biggest hit version of that song, because once again we’re looking at a white person copying a black person’s record and making all the money off it. And Georgia Gibbs’ version is one of those ones which we can’t possibly justify as being a creative response. It’s closer to the Crew Cuts than to Elvis Presley — it’s a note-for-note soundalike cover, but one which manages to staggeringly miss the point, not least because Gibbs changes the lyrics from “Roll With Me Henry” to the much less interesting “Dance With Me Henry”. [excerpt Georgia Gibbs “Dance With Me Henry”] On the other hand, it did have two advantages for the radio stations — the first was that Gibbs was white, and the second was that it was less sexually explicit than Etta James’ version — “The Wallflower” may not sound particularly explicit to our ears, but anything that even vaguely hinted at sexuality, especially women’s sexuality, and most especially *black* women’s sexuality, was completely out of the question for early-fifties radio. This wasn’t the only time that Georgia Gibbs ripped off a black woman’s record — her cover version of LaVern Baker’s “Tweedle Dee” also outsold Baker’s original, and was similarly insipid compared to its inspiration. But at least in this case Etta James got some of the songwriting royalties, unlike Lavern Baker, who didn’t write her record. And again, this is something we’ve talked about a bit and we will no doubt talk about more — it’s people like Georgia Gibbs who created the impression that all white rock and roll stars of the fifties merely ripped off black musicians, because there were so many who did, and who did it so badly. Some of the records we’ll be talking about as important in this series are by white people covering black musicians, but the ones that are actually worth discussing were artists who put their own spin on the music and made it their own. You might argue about whether Elvis Presley or Arthur Crudup recorded the better version of “That’s All Right, Mama”, or whether Jerry Lee Lewis improved on Big Maybelle’s original “Whole Lotta Shakin'” but it’s an argument you can have, with points that can be made on both sides. Those records aren’t just white people cashing in on black musicians’ talent, they’re part of an ongoing conversation between different musicians — a conversation which, yes, has a racial power dynamic which should not be overlooked and needs to be addressed, but not an example of an individual white person deliberately using racism to gain success which should rightfully be a black person’s. You can’t say that for this Georgia Gibbs record. It was an identical arrangement, the vocal isn’t an interpretation as much as just existing, and the lyrics have been watered down to remove anything that might cause offence. No-one — at least no-one who isn’t so prudish as to actually take offence at the phrase “roll with me” — listening to the two records could have any doubt as to which was by an important artist and which was by someone whose only claim to success was that she was white and the people she was imitating weren’t. Etta James later rerecorded the track with those lyrics herself. [excerpt: Etta James “Dance With Me Henry”] If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, I suppose. After all, “Dance With Me Henry” was an absolutely massive, huge hit. It was so popular that it spawned answer songs of its own. Indeed, even the Midnighters themselves recorded an answer to the answer – Gibbs’ version, not Etta James’ – when they recorded “Henry’s Got Flat Feet, Can’t Dance No More” [excerpt “Henry’s Got Flat Feet”, The Midnighters] And “Dance With Me Henry” got into the popular culture in a big way. The song was so popular that Abbott and Costello’s last film was named after it, in a hope of catching some of its popularity. And it inspired other comedy as well. And here, again, we’re going to move briefly over to the UK. Rock and roll hadn’t properly hit Britain yet, though as it turns out it was just about to. But American hit records did get heard over here, and “Dance With Me Henry” was popular enough to come to the notice of the Goons. The Goon Show was the most influential radio show of the 1950s, and probably of all time. The comedy trio of Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe are namechecked as an influence by every great British creative artist of the 1960s and 70s, pretty much without exception. Not just comedians — though there wouldn’t be a Monty Python, for example, without the Goons — but musicians, poets, painters. To understand British culture in the fifties and sixties, you need to understand the Goons. And they made records at times – – and one of the people who worked with them on their records was a young producer named George Martin. George Martin had a taste for sonic experimentation that went well with the Goons’ love of sound effects and silly voices, and in 1955 they went into the studio to record what became a legendary single — Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers performing “Unchained Melody”, which had been one of the biggest hits of the year in a less comedic version. [excerpt “Unchained Melody” by the Goons] That track became legendary because it didn’t see a legal release for more than thirty years. The publishers of “Unchained Melody” wouldn’t allow them to release such a desecration of such a serious, important, work of art, and it and its B-side weren’t released until the late 1980s, although the record was widely discussed. It became something of a holy grail for fans of British comedy, and was only finally released at all because George Martin’s old friend, and Goon fan, Paul McCartney ended up buying the publishing rights to “Unchained Melody”. And because that single was left unreleased for more than thirty years, so was its B-side. That B-side was… well… this… [excerpt, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan “Dance With Me Henry”] Whether that’s a more or less respectful cover version than Georgia Gibbs’, I’ll let you decide… Of course, in the context of a British music scene that was currently going through the skiffle craze, that version of “Dance With Me Henry” would have seemed almost normal. Back in the US, Richard Berry was back at work as a jobbing musician. He wrote one song, between sets at a gig, which he scribbled down on a napkin and didn’t record for two years, but “Louie Louie” didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would have any commercial success, so he stuck to recording more commercial material, like “Yama Yama Pretty Mama”: [Excerpt: Richard Berry “Yama Yama Pretty Mama”] We’ll pick back up with Richard Berry in a couple of years’ time, when people remember that song he wrote on the napkin. Meanwhile, Etta James continued with her own career. She recorded a follow-up to “the Wallflower”, “Hey Henry”, but that wasn’t a hit, and was a definite case of diminishing returns: [excerpt: Etta James, “Hey Henry”] But her third single, “Good Rockin’ Daddy”, was a top ten R&B hit, and showed she could have a successful career. But after this, it would be five years before she had another hit, which didn’t happen until 1960, when after signing with Chess Records she released a couple of hit duets with Harvey Fuqua, formerly of the Moonglows. [excerpt: Etta James and Harvey Fuqua, “Spoonful”] Those duets saw the start of an incredible run of hits on the R&B charts, including some of the greatest records ever made. While we’re unlikely to be covering her more as the story goes on — her work was increasingly on the borderline between blues and jazz, rather than being in the rock and roll style of her early recordings with Johnny Otis — she had an incredible career as one of the greatest blues singers of her generation, and continued recording until shortly before her death in 2011. She died three days after Johnny Otis, the man who had discovered her all those decades earlier.

Worship songs:  Every Beat, Won’t Stop Now, How Deep The Father’s Love for Us, Great Are You Lord Connection Groups: Jesus' promise to be "with us always" is yet to be finalized in his promised return. Until then the promise is being fulfilled in three primary ways: By His Spirit. Read John 14:16-17 and Acts 2:1-4. Do you believe that you are filled by the Holy Spirit? Why or why not? Is there such thing as a Christian not filled by the Spirit? How might we become more aware of the Spirit with us day to day? By His Word. Read 2 Timothy 3:14-17. Have you sensed God's presence through the study of the Bible? If so, how? If we believe the scriptures are inspired and will reveal Gods teaching, rebuking, correcting and training, how can we be more in the Word? By His Body. Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. Christians are never in isolation in the Bible: Jesus called the 12. Paul always traveling with companions. The letters are written primarily to churches. How can we experience God with us with his people?

Worship songs: Every Beat, Jesus Paid It All, God I Look To You, Yes I Will Connection Groups: Last week Jesus called his disciples "to the other side." Crossing over is a scary adventure, and full of storms. Many Christians have discovered that they must leave the place where Jesus first called them to leave, and go with him, to another place. What/who did you encounter when you left? Did the people you leave behind understand? Abandon you? Judge you? Read Mark 5:1-20 Once they get to the other side things get even scarier! The man they encountered was living among the dead, possessed, out of his mind, harming himself, dangerous to others. This is the condition of many of God's children: are you, or anyone you love, "living among the dead," possessed or addicted to something dangerous or even evil, harming themselves or harming others? Discuss how you, or someone you love, needs deliverance. The people of the region ask Jesus to leave. Why do they reject deliverance? How do people today reject Jesus?

Topics: Dj Kool Herc, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Pam Grier, The Mack, & George Jefferson. (Bonus Artist: Luck Pacheco)   1.    Snapshots   2.    General News   3.    Richard Nixon STILL President.   4.    Vietnam War: year 18 of 19   5.    The Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973, effectively removed the U.S. from the conflict in Vietnam.   6.    Deaths: 168 killed. Down from 641 in 1972   7.    Nixon, on national TV, accepts responsibility, but not blame, for Watergate; (April 30).   8.    Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President and then pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes while Governor of Maryland (Oct. 10).   9.    Jan: Military draft ends   10.    Jan: Roe v. Wade, SCOTUS ruled that a right to privacy extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but with some limits.   11.    Apr: The World Trade Center   12.    Economics:   13.    Oct: OPEC embargo sets off an oil/energy crisis and starts the recession.   14.    Unemployment: 4.9% / Black unemployment: 5.7 / minimum wage: still $1.60 ($64w, $3,200y, ~$19,800 in 2018)   15.    Open Comments:   16.    Sports:   17.    Super Bowl: Miami d. Washington   18.    World Series: Oakland A's d. NY Mets (4-3)   19.    NBA Championship: New York d. LA Lakers   20.    Pop Music:   21.    Top radio singles:   22.    #1 "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", Tony Orlando and Dawn   23.    #2 "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", Jim Croce   24.    #3 "Killing Me Softly with His Song", Roberta Flack   25.    1973 Grammy Awards:   26.    ROY, “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” Roberta Flack   27.    SOY, “Killing Me Softly with His Song,”   28.    AOY, Innervisions, Stevie Wonder   29.    New Artist, Bette Midler   30.    Open Comments:   31.    Top Movies:   32.    #1 The Sting   33.    #2 The Exorcist   34.    #3 American Graffiti   35.    Top Television:   36.    #1 All in the Family   37.    #2 The Waltons   38.    #3 Sanford and Son   39.    Black Folks   40.    Illinois 1st state to declare MLK Day   41.    Alice Walker publishes 1st book   42.    Red Foxx NAACP Entertainer of the Year   43.    Open Comments:   44.    Social/Political Scene: The Birth of a Hip-Hop Nation   45.    Clive Campbell (@18yrs) - a.k.a. DJ Kool Herc (Hercules), founding father of hip hop.   46.    It's summer time of 1973 in the Bronx NY.   47.    In the recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a HISTORIC party jumps off. - And hip hop is born!   48.    Bio: Kool Herc was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, moved to NYC as a teen and started spinning records at parties with his dad's PA system.   49.    He was deep into Reggae and he styled himself like a Jamaican “selector” (DJ) and did a lot of “toasting” (talking/chanting) over the instrumentals.   50.    But his real genius was paying attention to the crowds. He said a lot of DJ's back then would put on a record and go smoke a cigarette.   51.    He watched what got the crowd going and noticed hat it was the instrumental bridge, or drum breaks, that was hot with the dancers.   52.    His SIGNATURE move and GROUNDBREAKING contribution was to use the two turntables of a regular DJ setup, NOT to switch between songs, BUT switch back and forth between the break beats and keep the crowds moving!   53.    His homie, Coke La Rock, would get on the mic and do shout outs ("so and so is in the house!"), do call-and-response phrases (yes, yes, y'all - you don't stop, ...just throw your hands in the air), and do catchy "poems" (Hotel, motel, you don't tell, we won't   54.    tell)   55.    Herc had been working on it this new style for almost a year, but that summertime party in 73 was his breakout moment.   56.    After that, the crowds got too big for the rec room and he started throwing jams in the park. Those crowds where bigger than some at the clubs and that's where all four elements of hip hop would really come together. (Dj'ing, MC'ing, dancing, and graffiti)    57.    He got stabbed at a party just a few years later, and while he was sidelined, his 2 homies and "understudies" took over hip hop, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash!    58.    Hip Hop basically started by presenting a party on wax.   59.    Question: How has partying changed? (i.e., dancing, music, sex, drugs, socializing, violence, etc...)   60.    Final thoughts: Kool Herc continues be an undervalued personality. He deserves WAY more credit.   61.    Music Scene:   62.    Pop Singles   63.    #1 - Tony Orlando and Dawn, Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree   64.    #3 - Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly With His Song   65.    #4 - Marvin Gaye, Let’s Get It On   66.    #8 - Billy Preston, Will It Go Round In Circles   67.    #10 - Diana Ross, Touch Me In The Morning   68.    #15 - Billy Paul, Me And Mrs. Jones   69.    #17 - Dobie Gray, Drift Away   70.    #19 - Stevie Wonder, You Are The Sunshine Of My Life   71.    #21 - Isley Bros., That Lady   72.    #22 - Sylvia, Pillow Talk   73.    #26 - Stevie Wonder, Superstition   74.    #32 - O’Jays, Love Train   75.    #33 - Barry White, I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More   76.    Vote:   77.    Jan - 360 Degrees of Billy Paul, Billy Paul   78.    Feb -Talking Book, Stevie Wonder   79.    Feb - The World Is a Ghetto, War   80.    Apr - Wattstax: The Living Word, Soundtrack / Various artists   81.    Apr - Neither One of Us, Gladys Knight & the Pips   82.    May - Masterpiece, The Temptations   83.    May - Spinners, The Spinners   84.    Jun - Birth Day, New Birth   85.    Jun - Call Me, Al Green   86.    Jun - Live at the Sahara Tahoe, Isaac Hayes   87.    Jul - I've Got So Much to Give, Barry White   88.    Jul - Back to the World, Curtis Mayfield   89.    Aug - Fresh, Sly and the Family Stone   90.    Aug - Touch Me in the Morning, Diana Ross   91.    Sep - Innervisions, Stevie Wonder   92.    Sep - Deliver the Word, War   93.    Sep - Let's Get It On, Marvin Gaye   94.    Dec - Imagination, Gladys Knight & the Pips   95.    Key Artist: Gladys Maria Knight, aka The Empress of Soul (@29): Singer, song writer, actress.   96.    Born and raised in ATL   97.    Started touring with the Pips at 16yrs old, signed with Motown at 22, and started dropping hits:   98.    "Every Beat of My Heart/I Heard It Through the Grapevine/If I Were Your Woman   99.    In 1973 she left Motown (Former Motown artists where EVERYWHERE) and blew up!   100.    They landed 4 straight #1 Soul Lps between 1973 and 1974   101.    Neither One of Us/Imagination/Claudine/I Feel a Song   102.    Gladys will tell you that Diana Ross, kicked her off a tour once because the crowds were feeling her more and that The Boss felt overshadowed.   103.    Some people called her the true successor to Aretha.   104.    Question: What was Glady's biggest hurdle: Too nice, Diana, song material, or a CRAZY personal life? (4 marriages, custody battles, legal issues with the Pips, child kidnapped, or the Mormons?   105.    Key Artist: Stevland Hardaway Morris (@23yrsold), aka Stevie Wonder: Musical Genius   106.    Born in Michigan, raised in Detroit   107.    Started getting down with Motown in 1961 at 11yrs old and rose to fame FAST!   108.    Fingertips/Uptight (everything's Alright/Sign, Sealed, Delivered/My Cherie Amour   109.    In 1971, he let his Motown contract expire, muscled his way to a bigger royalty, got more creative independence, and proceeded to change the history of pop music.   110.    His next 3 releases each won album of the year! - a first for an RnB act.   111.    Partly influenced by his Motown homie Marvin Gaye and his album "what's Going On", (and to some degree his FRIENDS the Beatles!) he consciously changed up his style.   112.    "We as a people are not interested in 'baby, baby' songs anymore," he said back then. "There's more to life than that.   113.    Innervisions (16th studio LP) was where he stopped being merely a "boy" genius.   114.    "It is the album that best celebrates his musical maturity and completes the transition from Little Stevie Wonder to the grown-up artist with an active imagination and burning social conscience. Coming just nine months after Talking Book, Innervisions is Wonder at  115.    the absolute peak of his powers, a 23-year-old man with the world at his fingertips." - BBC Review   116.    Question: Bigger impact, Stevie or James? (Writing, singing, performing, musician)   117.    Conclusion: IMHO, Stevie is the most important black artist ever.   118.    Movies   119.    Key Actor: Pamela Suzette Grier (@24yrs old); Actress, author, superstar girlfriend   120.    Born in North KakalaKa and raised as an Air Force kid   121.    The family settled in Denver and she went to East High School - Genina's alma mater   122.    She started competing in state wide beauty contests and that led to her moving to LA to pursue acting at 18   123.    In 1971, at 22, she made her movie debut in Big Doll House.   124.    She did a few more "women in cages" movies and broke out in 1973 with Coffy!   125.    "The baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever-hit town!"   126.    In 1974, she delivered her iconic performance as Foxy Brown   127.    A gun toting prostitute out for revenge   128.    This solidified her as really the first female action hero.   129.    It also, stigmatized her acting career, as she basically got limited to Blaxploitation roles   130.    However, she still received props for her acting skills in those roles.   131.    "What makes Coffy interesting is Miss Grier...she’s' beautiful, but also has a kind of physical life to her that is sometimes missing in beautiful actresses...she gets into an action role and does it right." - film critic, Roger Ebert   132.    Question: where have the female black action heroines gone?   133.    Key Movie: The Mack   134.    Question: What was that?!?!?!   135.    Television:   136.    Key Character: George Jefferson, Dry cleaning Business owner   137.    Played by Sherman Hemsley (@35): born and raised in Philly   138.    High school dropout and former Air force   139.    went to NYC and got regular work as a Broadway actor   140.    In 1971 (@33) he flashed on Broadway and caught the attention of the producer for "All in The Family" (sorta like Redd Foxx)   141.    In 1973 he debuted on the show as Archie's "opinionated, rude, bigoted, scheming neighbor.   142.    Always trying to move "to a deluxe apartment in the sky"!   143.    But, he was also a loving and hard-working family man, who was cleverer than Archie.   144.    Sherman himself was shy and very private.   145.    Never married and no kids.   146.    He said playing George Jefferson "was hard for me. But he was the character. I had to do it."   147.    Question: Was GJ a positive or negative character?   148.    Schoolhouse Rock! Animated musical educational short films.   149.    Aired from 1973 to 1985 (12 Yrs.)   150.    64 -3m episodes   151.    Topics covered: Math, grammar, American history, and science.   152.    The creator noticed one of his sons was having trouble remembering the multiplication tables, BUT the kid knew all the lyrics to the current rock songs.   153.    The goal was to educate through videos, motivate kids with music, and convince them learning is fun.   154.    Question: What are some of your favorite SHR episodes?   155.    Conclusion:  No doubt, for a generation of kids, every Saturday morning, SHR put it DOWN!   156.    Wrap Up   157.    Question: What had the biggest impact from 1973?

Earl Rose is a pianist, composer, conductor, performing and recording artist. An Emmy award-winner and 14-time Emmy nominee, Rose has also won 3 ASCAP awards. Earl Rose is a popular performer at The Carlyle, the landmark hotel located at 35 East 76th Street in the Upper East Side of New York City. In the pop music world, Rose is the co-writer of some multi-platinum selling songs. Every Beat of My Heart is a song he wrote with the recording artist Bryan McKnight. With songwriter Victoria Shaw and Olivia Newton-John he wrote the song Love is a Gift which Olivia Newton-John recorded. Peabo Bryson recorded I Found Love which he co-wrote with Rose. The legendary vocalist Johnny Mathis recorded two Earl Rose songs: Every Beat Of My Heart and Right From The Heart. Respect and appreciation to Jennifer Cooke of The Carlyle for making this interview with Earl Rose a reality. Enjoy this insight from a man who has touched so many people with his music. Now he shares his story, right here on The Paul Leslie Hour. Support The Paul Leslie Hour by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-paul-leslie-hour

Every Beat 150€ + mixed MP3 File + splittet WAVE Files + with Exclusive Rights Contact me via Facebook (KID SOUL) or Mail (info@KIDSOUL.net)

Every Beat 150€ + mixed MP3 File + splittet WAVE Files + with Exclusive Rights Contact me via Facebook (KID SOUL) or Mail (info@KIDSOUL.net)

Every Beat 150€ + mixed MP3 File + splittet WAVE Files + with Exclusive Rights Contact me via Facebook (KID SOUL) or Mail (info@KIDSOUL.net)

Every Beat 150€ + mixed MP3 File + splittet WAVE Files + with Exclusive Rights Contact me via Facebook (KID SOUL) or Mail (info@KIDSOUL.net)

Every Beat 150€ + mixed MP3 File + splittet WAVE Files + with Exclusive Rights Contact me via Facebook (KID SOUL) or Mail (info@KIDSOUL.net)

Every Beat 150€ + mixed MP3 File + splittet WAVE Files + with Exclusive Rights Contact me via Facebook (KID SOUL) or Mail (info@KIDSOUL.net)

FUNKY PEARLS SPECIAL "CROWN HEIGHTS AFFAIR" BY DJ TAREK FROM PARIS ♪♫ ♪ with new single!!!! A Wonderful Time (feat. L a Blacksmith) ♪♫ ♪ Now Available on I-Tunes and all other Digital Upload Sites around the world. Thank you and God Bless you all of our Loyal Fans, Friends and Family!! https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/wonderful-time-feat.-blacksmith/id871204635 Biography Like Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang before them, Crown Heights Affair artfully bridged the gap between funk and disco, guaranteeing their records new life via sampling by successive generations of rappers and DJs. Originally dubbed New Day Express, the group formed in Brooklyn, NY, in 1967, originally comprising lead vocalist Philip Thomas, guitarist William "Bubba" Anderson, bassist Arnold "Muki" Wilson, keyboardist Stan Johnson, and drummer Raymond "Sugar Ray" Rock. Crown Heights Affair's roster soon expanded to include saxophonist Darryl Gibbs, trumpeter James Baynard, and trombonist Julius Dilligard, Jr., and in 1973 they signed to RCA, releasing their self-titled debut LP the following year. While a hit in New York, the first single, "Super Rod," failed to earn attention across the rest of the country, and when the follow-ups "Leave the Kids Alone" and "Special Kind of Woman" met the same fate, the group was left without a label. At that point Johnson, Gibbs, Baynard, and Dilligard all resigned from Crown Heights Affair, with Howie Young joining on keyboards, Tyrone Demmons coming in on trumpet, and siblings Bertram and Raymond Reid playing saxophone and trombone, respectively. This lineup signed to De-Lite, home to kindred spirits Kool & the Gang, and in 1975 Crown Heights Affair issued its sophomore effort, Dreaming a Dream, with an extended disco mix of the title cut cracking the R&B Top Five and the pop Top 50; "Every Beat of My Heart" and "Foxy Lady" soon followed, further establishing the group's growing reputation among clubgoers. Percussionist Skip Boardley joined the lineup with 1976's Do It Your Way; although the first single, "Dancin'," was a rather shameless knockoff of Isaac Hayes' classic "Theme from 'Shaft'," sales were again respectable, even if the LP's second single, "Do It the French Way," failed to generate much attention. 1978's Dream World was buoyed by De-Lite's new international distribution deal with Polygram. Virtually overnight Crown Heights Affair emerged as major fan favorites in the U.K., with the singles "Galaxy of Love" and "I'm Gonna Love You Forever" both reaching the British pop charts. While the title cut to 1979's Dance Lady Dance was another British hit, the album flopped stateside, prompting Crown Heights Affair to recruit producer Bert DeCoteaux, known for hits with Sister Sledge; the resulting Sure Shot remains a minor masterpiece, highlighted by the disco classic "You Give Me Love," a Top Ten U.K. pop hit during the summer of 1980. But the general public's interest in disco soon took a nosedive, and Crown Heights Affair spent the next two years on hiatus. Minus keyboardist Young, the group resurfaced in 1982 with Think Positive, a failed attempt to update their sound to current tastes. After one final effort, 1983's Struck Gold, Crown Heights Affair split. Bert Reid went on to enjoy some success as a producer, helming Denroy Morgan's underground smash "I'd Do Anything for You" as well as sessions for Unlimited Touch ("I Hear Music in the Streets"), Raw Silk ("Do It to the Music"), and Barbara Tucker ("Stay Together"). As vintage Crown Heights Affair grooves found their way onto latter-day hip-hop and R&B records. Né au début des années 70 à Brooklyn, New York, Crown Heights Affair est un groupe de funk et R'n'B. Composé de 9 membres, Crown Heights Affair doit son succès avec des titres tels « Dreaming a dream », « Foxy lady » ou encore « You gave me love ». De Nue Day Express à Crown Heights Affair Avant d'être Crown Heights Affair, le groupe se nommait Nue Day Express avec Donnie Linton à la basse, Raymond Rock à la batterie, William Anderson à la guitare ainsi que Phillip Thomas au chant. Progressivement, Nue Day Express adopte le nom de Crown Heights Affair et se complète avec la venue de Julius Dilligard Jr. au chant, Darryl Gibbs au saxophone, James ''Ajax'' Baynard à la trompette et Stan Johnson aux claviers. Par la suite, Donnie Linton sera remplacé par Arnold "Muki" Wilson tel que le premier reste le manager du groupe. En 1974, Crown Heights Affair sort son premier album éponyme dont sont extraits deux titres « Leave the kids alone » ainsi que « Super rod ». Les années suivantes marquent les départs et les venues de certains membres tel que la formation la plus retenue est celle composée par Howard Young, William Anderson, Phillip "Flip" Thomas, Darryl Gibbs, Arnold 'Muki' Wilson, Raymond Reid, Bert Reid, Raymond Rock ainsi que James Baynard. Succès international Après avoir signé auprès de RCA Records pour leur premier album, Crown Heights Affair Change de label avec De-Lite records, le même label que le groupe Kool and The Gang. C'est ainsi que Crown Heights Records sort son deuxième album « Dreaming a dream ». L'album contient 9 titres dont une version disco du morceau « Dreaming a dream » et une autre version a cappela. La version disco arrive à la première place du Billboard Hot dance Club Play. Issus du même album « Every beat of my heart » ainsi que « Foxy » reçoivent également le même accueil de la part du public. En 1975, l'album « Foxy lady » arrive dans les bacs qui reprend certains titres de l'album précédent. Un an plus tard, ils sortent « Do it your way » avec des titres tels « Dancin' », « Music is the way » ou encore « French way ». L'année 1978 voit la sortie de « Dream world » toujours produit par De-Lite Records, une filiale de Polygram aux États-Unis. Relayé par Mercury Records dans la distribution de « Dream world » au Royaume-Uni, les singles extraits de cet album y rencontrent un petit succès. En effet, « Galaxy of love » arrive dans le top 30 du UK Charts tandis que « I'm gonna love you forever » entre dans le top 50 du UK Charts. Crown Heights Affair, suite et fin En 1979, le groupe sort « Dance lady dance », un album qui comprend 6 titres dont « The rock is hot », « Come fly with me » ou encore « Empty soul of mine ». Un an plus tard, ils sortent « You gave me love » qui arrive à la 10e place au UK Charts. D'autres albums arrivent durant les années 80 avec « Sure shot », « Think positive » ainsi que « Struck gold ». Par ailleurs, le titre « Somebody tell me what to do », paru en 1982 est considéré comme étant le dernier grand hit du groupe. L'aventure auprès de Crown Heights Affair prenant fin, la majorité des membres du groupe se sont reconvertis en producteurs à savoir Raymond Reid et William Anderson qui intègrent l'équipe de Donnie Linton et ont notamment produit quelques titres d'Amii Stewart ou encore de France Joli. En 2004, Bert Reid, le saxophoniste de Crown Heights Affair décède des suites d'un cancer du poumon.