Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday Sep 12, 2011 - "Hudson & Landry"
Saturday, July 23, 2011
7/22/11 - Rock on Rob!
ROB GRILL & THE GRASS ROOTS
Well I am starting back to work and thanks to all who helped me to get to this point!
Although these updates will not be as frequent as in the past, I thought we should get back to them. Last week we said goodbye to a legendary Pop Hitmaker, and he happened to be a friend who was part of the best time of my life. Rob Grill passed away at 67 and during my youth he was a hero to me as he frequently stopped by WRKO during the Top Forty years. Few people know him by name, but he was the lead voice behind all the super hits of "The Grass Roots" - "Midnight Confessions" ; "Sooner or Later"; "Where Were You When I Needed You"; "Two Divided By Love"; "Let's Live For Today"; "Temptation Eyes"; Heaven Knows" and a dozen more hits. In the beginning, "The Grass Roots" did not exist and were a brainchild of Dunhill Records, but when a bunch of demos reached the label they recruited a small LA based local band called "13th Floor" to cut the tracks. This is where Rob Grill took over and shaped the songs, the band and the top forty presentations into a slick operation. "The Grass Roots" got airplay on the best radio stations in the country. He insisted that each show was structured with all the hits and no new music. He wanted to give the fans what they came to see and worked very hard to make sure the live performances sounded exactly like the way listeners heard them on the radio. The band is still on the circuit, packing them in at oldies shows, because they bring back a part of yesterday and up until 3 months ago Rob was still doing lead vocals on the hits he helped to make part of American Rock History. After 26 years I happened to see a show a few years ago and it was like it was 1970 all over again. Rob was sounding good right til the end and as his famous line from their biggest hit, "Midnight Confessions" says, "I Love You" LIVE MEDLEY ED SULLIVAN 1970
Their story is below along with a link to a classic performance. "Rock on Rob"
The Grass Roots is an American rock band that charted between 1966 and 1975 as the brainchild of songwriting duo P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri. In their career, The Grass Roots achieved two gold albums, one gold single and charted singles a total of 21 times. Between 1967 and 1972, The Grass Roots set a record for being on the Billboard charts for 307 straight weeks. They have sold over twenty million records worldwide. Early member Rob Grill and a newer lineup of The Grass Roots continued to play many live shows each year. The band released a new live album chronicling their fourteen Top 40 Billboard hits titled Live Gold in 2008. The group's third — and by far most successful — incarnation was finally found in a Los Angeles band, called The 13th Floor (not to be confused with the 13th Floor Elevators). This band consisted of Creed Bratton, Rick Coonce, Warren Entner, and Kenny Fukomoto and had formed only a year earlier before submitting a demo tape to Dunhill Records. Rob Grill was recruited into the band when Fukomoto was suddenly drafted into the army. The band was offered the choice to go with their own name or choose to adopt a name that had already been heard of nationwide. In the beginning, they were one of many U.S. guitar pop/rock bands, but with the help of Barri and their other producers, they developed a unique sound for which they drew as heavily on British beat as on soul music, rhythm and blues and folk rock. Many of their recordings featured a brass section, which was a novelty in those days among American rock bands, with groups like Chicago just developing. The bulk of the band's material continued to be written by Dunhill Records staff (not only Sloan and Barri). The Grass Roots also recorded songs written by the group's musicians, which appeared on their albums and the B-sides of many hit singles. As The Grass Roots, they had their first Top 10 hit in the summer of 1967 with "Let's Live for Today", an English-language cover version of "Piangi con me", a 1966 hit for the Italian quartet The Rokes. "Let's Live For Today" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. With Rob Grill as lead singer, they recorded a third version of "Where Were You When I Needed You." The band continued in a similar hit-making vein for the next five years (1967–1972). The Grass Roots played at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on Sunday, June 11, 1967, in the "summer of love" as "Let's Live For Today" was at #15 and climbing. This music festival is important because it occurred just days before the Monterey Pop Festival but did not have a movie to document it for the ages (see List of electronic music festivals). On Sunday, October 27, 1968, they played at the San Francisco Pop Festival as their hit "Midnight Confessions" was peaking at #5 and then played at the Los Angeles Pop Festival and Miami Pop Festival in December 1968. In 1969, Creed Bratton left and was replaced by Dennis Provisor on keyboards and vocals, plus rotating lead guitarists Terry Furlong and Brian Naughton to form a quintet — the first of many line-up changes that the band was to be subject to. The Grass Roots with their new members played at Newport Pop Festival 1969 at Devonshire Downs, which was a racetrack at the time but now is part of the North Campus for California State University, Northridge. The group played on Sunday, June 22, 1969, a week before their hit "I'd Wait A Million Years" reached the Hot 100. In Canada, they played at the Vancouver Pop Festival at the Paradise Valley Resort in British Columbia in August 1969 In 1971, both of the band's alternating lead guitarists, Terry Furlong and Brian Naughton left, leaving the remaining the group a quartet for their latest album, Their 16 Greatest Hits, and the single, "Sooner or Later." However, drummer Rick Coonce and keyboardist Dennis Provisor left the following year (although Provisor was featured on the band's 1972 Move Along album) and were replaced by Reed Kailing, Virgil Weber and original member Joel Larson. Rob Grill remained the point of focus in all these years. Follow-up singles sold disappointingly or failed to chart. The 1976 single "Out In The Open" became their swan song, with the band having disbanded the previous autumn. The 1978 14 Greats album by Gusto Records featured Rob Grill, but none of the other original members, and consisted of 1978 versions of their hits. Rob Grill remained in the music business and launched a solo career in 1979 (assisted on his solo album by several members of Fleetwood Mac). When interest in bands of the 1960s began to rise again in the 1980s, Grill reformed The Grass Roots and toured the United States and Japan. He continued to lead the band into the current millennium as The Grass Roots sole owner and made special appearances with the band until his death. In 1982, The Grass Roots performed an Independence Day concert on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting a large crowd and setting a record for attendance at an outdoor concert. However, in April 1983, James G. Watt, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, banned Independence Day concerts on the Mall by such groups. Watt said that "rock bands" that had performed on the Mall on Independence Day in 1981 and 1982 had encouraged drug use and alcoholism and had attracted "the wrong element", who would mug people and families attending any similar events in the future. During the ensuing uproar, Rob Grill stated that he felt "highly insulted" by Watt's remarks, which he called "nothing but un-American". Since 2005, Creed Bratton can be seen as "Creed Bratton", Quality Assurance Officer, in the American NBC television situation comedy The Office. He continues to write songs and has released several solo albums, including Chasin' the Ball, The '80s, Coarsegold, Creed Bratton, and Bounce Back. In 2006, former manager Marty Angelo published a book entitled, Once Life Matters: A New Beginning which has numerous stories about his life on the road with Rob Grill and The Grass Roots back in the early 1970s. Former drummer Rick Coonce died on February 25, 2011, and Rob Grill died on July 11, 2011. During of summers of 2010 and 2011, The Grass Roots had heavy touring schedules throughout the U.S. both on their own and as part of the Happy Together: 25th Anniversary Tour, along with Flo & Eddie of The Turtles, Mark Lindsay, The Buckinghams, and Monkees member Micky Dolenz .
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
May 17, 2001 - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"
The are both gone, but the music lives on - This seems to be a rehearsal of the song with a live stuidio audience and a grainy black & white camera before the studio version was produced - Enjoy!
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" 1966
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a four-octave vocal range. Starting as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late fifties, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960 signing with the Tamla Records subsidiary of Motown Records. After starting off as a session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label's top-selling solo artist during the sixties.
Because of solo hits such as "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", "Ain't That Peculiar", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, he was crowned "The Prince of Motown" and "The Prince of Soul". His work in the early and mid-1970s, including the albums What's Going On, Let's Get It On, and I Want You, helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early eighties, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, "Sexual Healing" and the Midnight Love album before his death. Gaye was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984. He was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Gaye at number 6 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked at number 18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. was born on April 2, 1939 at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C.. His father, Marvin Gay, Sr., was a minister at the House of God, which advocated strict conduct and mixed teachings of Orthodox Judaism and Pentecostalism. His mother, Alberta Gay (née Alberta Cooper), was a domestic and schoolteacher. Gaye was the second eldest of four children. His younger brother, Frankie (1941–2001), would be one of the main sources of Gaye's musical development and later served as a soldier in the Vietnam War and embarked on a singing career upon his return to civilian life to follow in his elder brother's footsteps. His youngest sister, Zeola "Sweetsie" Gay (b. 1945), would later become the main choreographer of her brother's live shows. As a child, Gaye was raised in the Benning Terrace projects in southeast D.C. Gaye's father was minister of a local Seventh-day Adventist Church for a time. By the time his eldest son was five, Marvin Sr. was bringing Gaye with him to church revivals to sing for church congregations. Gaye's father was assured all four of his children would follow him into the ministry and would later use his strict domineering to get his children to avoid secular activities including sports and secular music. Gaye's early home life consisted of violence as his father would often strike him for any shortcoming. Gaye and his three siblings were bed-wetters as children. Gaye would later call his father a "tyrannical and powerful king" and said he was depressed as a child, convinced that he would eventually "become one of those child statistics that you read in the papers" had he not been encouraged to pursue his dreams by his mother. By age fourteen, Gaye's parents moved to the Deanwood neighborhood of northeast D.C. The following year, Gaye's father quit the ministry after a disappointment over not being promoted as bishop of a House of God church. Gaye said his father later developed alcoholism, which furthered tension between father and son. Developing a love for music at an early age, Gaye was already playing instruments including piano and drums. Upon arriving to Cardozo High School, Gaye discovered doo-wop and harder-edged rhythm and blues and began running away from home to attend R&B concerts and dance halls defying his father's rules. Gaye joined several groups in the D.C. area including the Dippers with his best friend, Johnny Stewart, brother of R&B singer Billy Stewart. He then joined the D.C. Tones, whose members included another close friend, Reese Palmer, and Sondra Lattisaw, mother of R&B singer Stacy Lattisaw. Gaye's relationship with his father led him to run away from home and join the United States Air Force in hopes of becoming an aviator. However, discovering his growing hatred for authority, he began defying orders and skipped practices. Faking mental illness, he was discharged. His sergeant stated that Gaye refused to follow orders. Upon returning to his hometown, Gaye worked as a dishwasher to make ends meet. Gaye still dreamed of a show-business career, and rejoining Reese Palmer, the duo formed a four-member group calling themselves the Marquees.
In 1958, the Marquees were discovered singing at a D.C. club by Bo Diddley, who signed them to Okeh Records, where they recorded "Wyatt Earp", with "Hey Little Schoolgirl" as its B-side. It received moderate success, but not the success Gaye and his band mates had hoped for. Later that year Harvey Fuqua, founder and co-lead singer of the landmark doo-wop group The Moonglows, recruited them, after the break up of the original members, to be "The New Moonglows" which moved the formerly-named Marquees from Okeh to Chess Records. While there, the "new Moonglows" recorded background vocals for Chess recording stars Chuck Berry and Etta James. After "The Twelve Months of the Year", which featured a spoken monologue by Gaye, became a regional hit, the group issued "Mama Loochie", which was the first time Gaye sang lead on a record. The record was issued in late 1959 and became a hit in Detroit. Following a concert performance there, Gaye and other band members were arrested for small possession of marijuana. Afterwards, Fuqua decided to disband the group, keeping Gaye with him, as he favored him over the other members. In 1960, Harvey Fuqua had met Gwen Gordy and the couple embarked on both a personal and professional relationship. That year, the couple formed two record labels, the self-named Harvey Records, and Tri-Phi Records. Gaye was signed to the former label, whose other members including a young David Ruffin and Junior Walker. Gaye provided drums for The Spinners' first hit, "That's What Girls Are Made For", which was released on Tri-Phi. Stories on how Gaye eventually met Berry Gordy and how he signed to Motown Records vary. One early story stated Gordy discovered Gaye singing at a local bar in Detroit and that he had offered to sign him on the spot. Gaye's recollection, and also a story Gordy later reiterated, was that Gaye invited himself to Motown's annual Christmas party inside the label's Hitsville USA studios and played on the piano singing "Mr. Sandman". Gordy saw Gaye from afar and upon noting that Gaye was connected with Fuqua began to make arrangements to absorb Fuqua's labels to Motown bringing all of the labels' acts to Motown. Gordy said he immediately wanted to bring Gaye to Motown after seeing him perform, impressed by his vocals and piano playing. While working out negotiations, Fuqua would sell fifty percentage interest in Gaye to Gordy, which Gaye would find out later. After Gordy absorbed Anna and Harvey in March 1961, Gaye was assigned to Motown's Tamla division. Gaye and Motown immediately clashed over material. While Motown was yet a musical force, Gaye set on singing standards and jazz rather than the usual rhythm and blues that fellow label mates were recording. Struggling to come to terms with what to do with his career, Gaye worked mainly behind the scenes, becoming a janitor, and also settled for session work playing drums on several recordings, which continued for several years. One of Gaye's first professional gigs for Motown was as a road drummer for The Miracles. Gaye developed a close friendship with the label's lead singer Smokey Robinson and they'd later work together. Though already a seasoned veteran of the road and almost exempt from Gordy's Artist Development, which began operating in 1961, Gaye was still required to attend schooling, which he refused. He eventually took advice from grooming director Maxine Powell to keep his eyes open while performing because "it looks like you're sleeping when you're performing". Gaye would later regret skipping the school saying he could've benefited more from it. Before releasing his first single in May 1961, he altered his last name to "Gaye", later stating that he added the 'e' because "it sounded more professional" and to emulate what Sam Cooke had done before releasing his first secular record following his split from the Soul Stirrers. A famous story about the name change came from author David Ritz, Gaye's confidant in later years, who said Gaye had said that he wanted to "quiet the gossip" of his last name and to distance himself from his father. In May 1961, Tamla released Gaye's first single, "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide". The single flopped as a national release but was a regional hit in the Midwest, as was a follow-up single, the cover of "Mr. Sandman" (titled as just "Sandman" in Gaye's release in early 1962). In June 1961, Motown issued Gaye's first album, The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye compromising Gaye's jazz interests with a couple of R&B songs. The album tanked and no hit single came of it. A third regional hit, "Soldier's Plea", an answer to The Supremes' "Your Heart Belongs to Me", was the next release in the spring of 1962. Gaye had more success behind the scenes than in front. Gaye applied drumming on several Motown records for artists such as the Miracles, Mary Wells, The Contours and The Marvelettes. Gaye was also a drummer for early recordings by The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas and Little Stevie Wonder. Gaye drummed on the Marvelettes hits, "Please Mr. Postman", "Playboy" and "Beechwood 4-5789" (a song he co-wrote). Later on, Gaye would be noted as the drummer in both the studio and live recordings of Wonder's "Fingertips" and as one of two drummers behind Martha and the Vandellas' landmark hit, "Dancing in the Street", which was another composition by Gaye, originally intended for Kim Weston. Gaye said he continued to play drums for Motown acts even after gaining fame on his own merit. For Gaye's fourth single, the singer was inspired to write lyrics to a song after an argument with his wife, Anna Gordy Gaye (née Anna Gordy). While working out the song, Gaye mentioned he had his first "major" power struggle with Motown head Berry Gordy over its composition. Gordy insisted on a chord change though Gaye was comfortable with how he wrote it, eventually Gaye changed the chord and the song was issued as "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" in September 1962. The song became a hit on the Hot Rhythm and Blues Sides chart reaching number eight and eventually peaked at number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1963. A parent album, That Stubborn Kinda Fellow, was released in December 1962, the same month that Gaye's fifth single, "Hitch Hike", was released. That song reached number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, bringing Gaye his first top forty single. Gaye's early success confirmed his arrival as a hit maker, and he landed on his first major tour as a performer on Motown's Motortown Revue.
Gaye's career following his performances with the Motortown Revue assured him success. Gaye's next single, "Pride & Joy", became a major hit in the spring of 1963, reaching number-ten on the Billboard Hot 100, selling nearly one million copies. Later that year, Gaye repeated the success with the top thirty hit, "Can I Get a Witness", which found some leverage in the United Kingdom upon its release on Motown's UK label Stateside Records. Many of Gaye's early hits would later be heavily covered by acts such as The Rolling Stones, Dusty Springfield and The Who, performers who admired Gaye and American R&B music in general. Gaye's hits also was a big influence on the UK's mod scene with several mod groups including the future Elton John's Bluesology and Rod Stewart's Steampacket covering Gaye's hits there. Gaye's early hits were also a big influence on American producers, including Phil Spector, who nearly had a car accident while pulling over upon hearing "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" for the first time. Gaye's hits continued throughout 1964. Several top twenty pop hits from this period included "You Are a Wonderful One", "Try It Baby" and "Baby Don't You Do It" kept Gaye's momentum building. Gaye made his first public TV performance on American Bandstand in 1964 and later became a fixture on the show and on other programs such as Shindig! and Hullaballoo. Gaye's popularity further increased after Motown released his first duet project, an album with Mary Wells titled Together. The duo had two hit singles, "Once Upon a Time" and "What's the Matter with You Baby". In late 1964, Gaye also appeared in the concert film, The T.A.M.I. Show where he performed his hits to an enthusiastic audience (with backing vocals by The Blossoms). Gaye reached the top ten in early 1965 with "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", which sold close to a million copies. Gaye eventually scored his first immediate million-sellers in 1965 with the Smokey Robinson compositions, "Ain't That Peculiar" and "I'll Be Doggone". These songs and other singles released during the 1965-1966 period would be the result of Gaye's next release, Moods of Marvin Gaye.
Gaye struggled with his success. While deemed a "smooth song-and-dance ladies' man", he still aspired to perform more jazz work in his catalog. Because of his success, Motown allowed him to work on such recordings including When I'm Alone I Cry, Hello Broadway and a Nat King Cole tribute album, A Tribute to the Great Nat "King" Cole. All three albums flopped. Gaye tried performing the songs onstage but soon stopped once he discovered that the crowds weren't too appreciative of the material. One proposed standards project, which took over two years to record, was shelved due to session problems. Gaye's performances at the Copacabana in 1966 also led to conflict between Gaye and Gordy as Motown had recorded the album for purposes of releasing it in early 1967. However due to a struggle, Motown eventually shelved it until it was later released three decades later. In early 1967, Gaye scored his first international hit with the duet, "It Takes Two", with Kim Weston, who ironically had already left the label when it became a hit. Only one televised performance of the song showed Gaye singing the song to a puppet. That year, Motown hooked Gaye up with veteran Philadelphia-based singer Tammi Terrell, who had an early stint with James Brown. Gaye would later say of Terrell that she was his "perfect partner" musically.
Terrell and Gaye's first major hit was the Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson composition, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". The duo quickly followed up with the top five hit ballad, "Your Precious Love". Despite rumors of a romantic relationship - Gaye was married to Anna Gordy and Terrell was dating Temptations lead vocalist David Ruffin - both singers denied such a relationship with Gaye saying later that they had a brother-and-sister relationship, a statement reiterated by Ashford & Simpson. Other hit singles the duo scored within an eighteen-month period included "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By". Other hits such as "You Ain't Livin' till You're Lovin'" and "The Onion Song" found success in Europe. The duo's recording of "If This World Were Mine", the b-side of "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You", found modest success on the charts, the first sole Gaye composition to do so. The song later found major R&B success when Luther Vandross covered it with Cheryl Lynn over a decade later. The duo was also a success together onstage with Terrell's easy-going nature with the audience contrasting from Gaye's laid-back approach. However, that success was short-lived. On October 14, 1967, while performing at Virginia's Hampden-Sydney College, Terrell collapsed in Marvin's arms. Terrell had been complaining of headaches in the weeks leading up to the concert, but had insisted she was okay. However, after being rushed to Southside Community Hospital, doctors found that Terrell had a malignant brain tumor. The diagnosis ended her performing career, though she still occasionally recorded, often with guidance and assistance. Terrell ceased recordings in 1969 and Motown struggled with recording of a planned third Gaye and Terrell album. Gaye initially had refused to go along with it saying that he felt Motown was taking unnecessary advantage of Terrell's illness. Gaye only reluctantly agreed because Motown assured him recordings would go to insure Terrell's health as she continued to have operations to remove the tumor, all of which were unsuccessful. In September 1969, the third Gaye and Terrell duet album, Easy was released, with many of the songs subbed by Valerie Simpson, while solo songs recorded years earlier by Terrell, had overdubbed vocals by Gaye. Terrell's illness put Gaye in a depression; at one point he attempted suicide but was stopped by Berry Gordy's father. He refused to acknowledge the success of his song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", released in 1967 by Gladys Knight & The Pips (his was recorded before, but released after theirs), his first number-one hit and the biggest selling single in Motown history to that point, with four million copies sold.[citation needed] His work with producer Norman Whitfield, who produced "Grapevine", resulted in similar success with the singles "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" and "That's the Way Love Is". Meanwhile, Gaye's marriage was crumbling and he was bored with his music. Wanting creative control, he sought to produce singles for Motown session band The Originals, whose Gaye-produced hits, "Baby I'm For Real" and "The Bells", brought success.
Tammi Terrell died of a brain tumor on March 16, 1970. Gaye was so emotional at her funeral that he talked to her lying in state as if she was going to respond. Gaye insisted, following Terrell's death, that he would no longer record duets with any other female performer nor was he ever going to perform on stage again since Terrell's collapse and subsequent death had spooked him. He already had apprehensions of performing, suffering bouts of stage fright throughout his performing career. Prior to Terrell's death, he had withdrawn from a scheduled performance citing an illness and was later sued for failure to appear. After Terrell's death he stopped doing any more live gigs and never really recovered completely from her passing. He had an inspiration, going back to 1968, to try out for the Detroit Lions football team. After a tryout in early 1970, he wasn't allowed to join the team though he gained friendships with two of its teammates, Mel Farr and Lem Barney. After helping to collaborate what became "What's Going On", he returned to Hitsville on June 1, 1970 to record the song, which was inspired by Gaye's brother's accounts of his experience at the Vietnam War and co-writer Renaldo "Obie" Benson of the Four Tops' disgust of police brutality after seeing anti-war protesters attacked in San Francisco. Despite releases of several anti-war songs by The Temptations and Edwin Starr, Motown CEO Berry Gordy prevented Gaye from releasing the song, fearing a backlash against the singer's image as a sex symbol and openly telling him and others that the song "was the worst record I ever heard". Gaye, however, refused to record anything that was Motown's or Gordy's version of him. He later said that recording the song and its parent album "led to semi-violent disagreements between Berry and myself, politically speaking." Eventually the song was released with little promotion on January 17, 1971. The song soon shot up the charts topping the R&B chart for five weeks.[14][15] Eventually selling more than two million copies, an album was requested, and Gaye again defied Gordy by producing an album featuring lengthy singles that talked of other issues such as poverty, taxes, drug abuse and pollution. Released on May 21, 1971, the What's Going On album instantly became a million-seller crossing him over to young white rock audiences while also maintaining his strong R&B fan base. Because of its lyrical content and its mixture of funk, jazz, classical and Latin soul arrangements which departed from the then renowned "Motown Sound", it became one of Motown's first autonomous works, without help of Motown's staff producers. Based upon its themes and a segue flow into each of the songs sans the title track, the concept album became the new template for soul music. Other hit singles that came out of the album included "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)", making Gaye the first male solo artist to have three top ten singles off one album on the Billboard Hot 100. All three singles sold over a million copies and were all number-one on the R&B chart. International recognition of the album was slow to come at first though eventually the album would be revered overseas as a "landmark pop record". It has been called "the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices". The success of the title track influenced Stevie Wonder to release an album with similar themes, Where I'm Coming From, in April of that year. Following the release of the album and its subsequent success, Wonder rejected a renewing offer with Motown unless he was allowed creative control on his recordings, which was granted a year later. Gaye's independent success not only related to Motown recording artists, other R&B artists of the era also began to rebel against labels to produce their own conceptual albums. The Jackson 5, one of Motown's final acts to benefit from the label's "glory years" (1959–1972), tried unsuccessfully to get creative control for their own recordings and as a result left in 1975 for CBS Records. Gaye's success was nationally recognized: Billboard magazine awarded him the Trendsetter of the Year award, while he won several NAACP Image Awards including Favorite Male Singer. Rolling Stone named it Album of the Year, and was nominated for a couple of Grammy Awards though inexplicably wasn't nominated for Album of the Year. In 1972, Gaye reluctantly stepped out of his stage retirement to perform selected concerts, including one at his hometown of Washington, D.C. performing at the famed Kennedy Center, a recording of the performance was issued on a deluxe edition re-release of the What's Going On album. Also in 1972, Gaye performed for Jesse Jackson's PUSH organization and also for a Chicago-based benefit concert titled Save the Children aimed at removing the plight of urban violence in Chicago's inner city. The latter performance was issued as part of a concert film released in early 1973, also titled Save the Children. Following its success, Gaye signed a new contract with Motown Records for a then record-setting $1 million, then the most lucrative deal by a black recording artist. With creative control, Gaye attempted to produce several albums throughout 1972 and early 1973 including an instrumental album, a jazz album, another conceptually-produced album of social affairs (the canceled You're the Man project) and an album with Willie Hutch co-producing. In late 1972, Gaye produced the score for the Trouble Man film and later produced the soundtrack of the same name. The title track was the only full vocal work of the album and was released as a single in the fall of 1972 eventually reaching number seven on the pop chart in the spring of 1973. In late 1972, Gaye left Detroit and moved to Los Angeles but relocated to an area where he was far away from Motown, purchasing a house at the so-called "bohemian hippie" Topanga Canyon Boulevard district, which was a hotbed for musicians looking to get away from the trappings of the music industry and Hollywood itself. He continued to record music at Los Angeles' Motown studios (Hitsville West) and on March 18, 1973, recorded "Let's Get It On", reputedly inspired by Gaye's new-found independence, after separating from Anna Gordy the previous year. The single was released as a single in June of the year and became Gaye's second number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. It also was a modest success internationally reaching number thirty-one in the United Kingdom. With the success of its recording, Gaye decided to switch completely from the social topics that were on What's Going On to songs with sensual appeal. Released in August 1973, Let's Get It On consisted of material Gaye had initially recorded during the sessions of What's Going On. It was hailed as "a record unparalleled in its sheer sensuality and carnal energy." Other singles from the album included "Come Get to This", which recalled Gaye's early Motown soul sound of the previous decade, while the then-controversial "You Sure Love to Ball" reached modest success but was kept from being promoted by Motown due to its sexually explicit nature. With the success of What's Going On and Let's Get It On, Motown demanded a tour. Gaye only reluctantly agreed when demand from fans reached a fever pitch. After a delay, Gaye made his official return to touring on January 4, 1974 at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California. The recording of the performance, held by several music executives as "an event", was later issued as the live album, Marvin Gaye Live!. Due to Gaye's growing popularity with his increasing crossover audience and the reaction of the performance of "Distant Lover", which Motown later released as a single in late 1974, the album sold over a million copies. Gaye's subsequent 10-city tour, which took off that August, was sold-out and demand for more dates continued into 1975 while Gaye had struggled with subsequent recordings. A renewed contract with Motown in 1975 gave Gaye his own custom-made recording studio. To keep up with demand and hype, Motown released Gaye's final duet project, Diana & Marvin, an album with Diana Ross, which helped to increase Gaye's audience overseas with the duo's recording of "You Are Everything" reaching number-five in the UK, number-thirteen on the Dutch chart, and number-twenty in Ireland, while the album itself sold over a million copies overseas with major success in the UK. The recording of Diana & Marvin had started in late 1971 and overdubbed sessions took place in 1972 but was shelved from a release until late 1973 following the release of Let's Get It On. Gaye toured throughout 1975 without new releases and collaborated in the studio producing songs for the likes of The Miracles (now without Smokey Robinson) and Yvonne Fair, helping to produce her version of Norman Whitfield's "Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On", featured on Fair's The Bitch is Black, while also assisting her in the background with his vocals. Later in 1975, Gaye shaved his head bald in protest to Rubin Carter's prison sentence. Gaye initially insisted to keep it bald until Carter's release though Gaye's hair and beard returned within a few months. In 1976, Gaye released his first solo album in three years with I Want You. The title track became a number-one R&B hit while also reaching the top twenty of the national pop chart. The first of his albums to embrace the then popular disco sound of the time, Motown released a double-A 12' of "I Want You" alongside another smooth dancer, "After the Dance". The songs found success as a unit on the Billboard Hot Disco chart, reaching number-ten. By itself "After the Dance", which wasn't intended as a second single, eventually reached number fourteen on the R&B chart with minor pop traction, eventually reaching number seventy-four. That year, Gaye faced several lawsuits with former musicians and also faced prison time for falling behind on alimony payments ordered by law following his first wife Anna Gordy filing legal separation after a 15-year marriage. Gaye avoided imprisonment after agreeing to do a tour of Europe, his first tour of such in little over a decade. His first stop was at London's Royal Albert Hall and then at the city's London Palladium, where a recording was later released in early 1977 as Live at the London Palladium. Gaye performed in France, Holland, Switzerland and Italy to packed audiences and then returned for several U.S. tour dates though he often suffered from exhaustion from some of the U.S. dates. Between 1975 and 1976, Gaye was recognized by major corporations including the United Nations for charitable work dedicated to children and to affairs related to black culture. In the spring of 1977, Gaye released "Got to Give It Up, Pt. 1", which gave him his third number-one US pop hit, the final one Gaye released in his lifetime. The song also topped the R&B and dance singles chart and also found some international success reaching the top ten in England. Released as the only studio track from the Palladium album, its success kept Palladium on the charts for a year eventually selling over two million copies. It was recognized by Billboard as one of the top-ten selling albums of all time that year.
On the advice of Belgian concert promoter Freddy Cousaert, Gaye moved to Ostend, Belgium, in February 1981 where for a time he cut down on drugs and began to get back in shape both physically and emotionally. While in Belgium, Gaye began to make plans to renew his declining fortunes in his professional career, starting with a tour he titled "The Heavy Love Affair Tour" in England where he was greeted more warmly by the same London press that had criticized him of the Princess Margaret snub the previous year. The tour ended with two concert dates in Ostend. A documentary leading up to his Belgian concert performances titled Transit Ostend was initially released to just Belgian fans, and was later issued on VHS in bootleg copies following Gaye's death. After signing with CBS' Columbia Records division in 1982, Gaye worked on what became the Midnight Love album. Gaye reconnected with Harvey Fuqua while recording the album and Fuqua served as a production adviser on the album, which was released in October 1982. The parent single, "Sexual Healing", was released to receptive audiences globally, reaching number-one in Canada, New Zealand and the US R&B singles chart, while becoming a top ten U.S. pop hit and hitting the top ten in three other selected countries including the UK. The single became the fastest-selling and fastest-rising single in five years on the R&B chart staying at number-one for a record-setting ten weeks. Gaye wrote "Sexual Healing" while at the village Moere, near Ostend. Curtis Shaw later said that Gaye's Moere period was "the best thing that ever happened to Marvin." The now-famous video of "Sexual Healing" was shot at the Casino-Kursaal in Ostend. "Sexual Healing" won Gaye his first two Grammy Awards including Best Male Vocal Performance, in February 1983, and also won Gaye an American Music Award for Favorite Soul Single. It was called by People magazine as "America's hottest musical turn-on since Olivia Newton John demanded we get "Physical".
The following year, he was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance again, this time for the Midnight Love album. In February 1983, Gaye performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the NBA All-Star Game, held at The Forum in Inglewood, California, accompanied by Gordon Banks who played the studio tape from stands. In March 1983, he gave his final performance in front of his old mentor Berry Gordy and the Motown label for Motown 25, performing "What's Going On". He then embarked on a U.S. tour to support his album. The tour, ending in August 1983, was plagued by Gaye's returning drug addictions and bouts with depression. When the tour ended, he attempted to isolate himself by moving into his parents' house in Los Angeles. As documented in the PBS "American Masters" 2008 exposé, several witnesses claimed Marvin's mental and physical condition spiraled out of control. Groupies and drug dealers hounded Marvin night and day. He threatened to commit suicide several times after bitter arguments with his father. On April 1, 1984, Gaye's father fatally shot him after an argument that started after his parents squabbled over misplaced business documents. Gaye attempted to intervene, and was killed by his father using a gun that Marvin Jr. had given him four months before. Marvin Gaye would have turned 45 the next day. Marvin Sr. was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after it was revealed that Marvin Sr. had been beaten by Gaye before the killing. Doctors discovered Marvin Sr. had a brain tumor but was deemed fit for trial. Spending his final years in a retirement home, he died of pneumonia in 1998NME - December 1982
“ I don't make records for pleasure. I did when I was a younger artist, but I don't today. I record so that I can feed people what they need, what they feel. Hopefully, I record so that I can help someone overcome a bad time. ”
Thursday, May 12, 2011
May 12, 2011 - Harry Chapin "WOLD"
Harry Chapin "WOLD" (Listen - it will make you feel better)
Harry was the king of the "story" pop hit, including "Cat's in the Cradle", "WOLD", and of course his signature song "Taxi". "WOLD" was inspired and promoted by a jock I worked with in Boston, Jim Connors and eventually was the inspiration behind the hit TV series "WKRP in Cincinnati" . Return with us to a better time in the world of hit records and radio - Listen to the words and sing along .. "I am the morning DJ at WOLDDDDDDD!"
Harry Forster Chapin (December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer-songwriter best known in particular for his folk rock songs including "Taxi", "W*O*L*D", and the number-one hit "Cat's in the Cradle." Chapin was also a dedicated humanitarian who fought to end world hunger; his work was a key player in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger in 1977. In 1987, Chapin was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his humanitarian work.
Chapin was born into a middle-class family in New York City, the second of four children—including future musicians Tom and Steve—born to Jeanne Elspeth (née Burke) and Jim Chapin. He had English ancestry, his great-grandparents having emigrated in the late 19th century. His parents divorced in 1950, with Elspeth retaining custody of their four sons, as Jim spent much of his time on the road as a drummer for Big Band era acts such as Woody Herman. She married Films in Review magazine editor Henry Hart a few years later.
Chapin's first formal introduction to music was while singing in the Brooklyn Boys Choir. It was here that Chapin met "Big" John Wallace, a tenor with a five-octave range, who would later become his bassist and backing vocalist. He began performing with his brothers while a teenager, with their father occasionally joining them on drums. Chapin graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1960, and was among the five inductees in the school's Alumni Hall Of Fame for the year 2000. He briefly attended the United States Air Force Academy and was then an intermittent student at Cornell University, but did not complete a degree. He originally intended to be a documentary film-maker, and directed Legendary Champions in 1968, which was nominated for a documentary Academy Award. In 1971, he decided to focus on music. With John Wallace, Tim Scott and Ron Palmer, Chapin started playing in various local nightclubs in New York City. Following an unsuccessful early album made with his brothers, Tom and Steve, Chapin's debut album was Heads & Tales (1972, #60), which was a success thanks to the single "Taxi" (#24). Chapin later gave great credit to WMEX-Boston radio personality Jim Connors for being the DJ who "discovered" this single, and pushing the air play of this song among fellow radio programmers in the U.S. However, Chapin's recording future became somewhat of a controversy between two powerful record companies headed by two very powerful men, Jac Holzman of Elektra Records and Clive Davis of Columbia. According to Chapin's biography Taxi: The Harry Chapin Story by Peter M. Coan, Chapin had agreed in principle to sign with Elektra Records on the grounds that a smaller record label would give greater personal attention to his work. Davis, however, remained undaunted, doubling almost every cash advance offer Chapin received from Holzman. Despite a cordial relationship with Holzman, Davis had a long history of besting Holzman over the years to particular artists, but this was one time that he did not prevail. Chapin ultimately signed with Elektra for a smaller advance, but with provisions that made it worth the move. The biggest stipulation in the nine-album deal was that he receive free studio time, meaning he paid no recording costs. It was a move that would ultimately save Chapin hundreds of thousands of dollars over the term of his contract and set a precedent for other musicians. "This was completely unheard of," said Davis in the Coan book. "There was no such thing as free studio time." Chapin's follow-up album, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972, #160), was less successful despite containing the Chapin anthem "Circle" (a big European hit for The New Seekers). His third album, Short Stories (1973, #61), was a modest success. Verities & Balderdash (1974, #4), released soon after, was much more successful, bolstered by the chart-topping hit single "Cat's in the Cradle", based upon a poem by his wife; Sandra Chapin had written the poem inspired by her first husband's relationship with his father and a country song she heard on the radio. When Harry's son Josh was born, he got the idea to put music to the words and recorded the result. "Cat's in the Cradle" was Chapin's only number one hit, shooting album sales skyward and making him a millionaire. He also wrote and performed a Broadway musical The Night That Made America Famous. Additionally, Chapin wrote the music and lyrics for Cotton Patch Gospel, a musical by Tom Key based on Clarence Jordan's book The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John. The original cast soundtrack was produced by Tom Chapin, and released in 1982 by Chapin Productions. Chapin's only UK hit was "W*O*L*D", which reached #34 in 1973. His popularity in the UK owed much to the championing of BBC disc jockey Noel Edmonds. The song's success in the U.S. was championed by WMEX jock and friend of Chapin's Jim Connors who in part inspired the song. The national appeal of the song was a result of disc jockeys playing it for themselves, since the song dealt with a much-traveled DJ, problems in his personal life, and his difficulty with aging in the industry. This song was also a significant inspiration (though not the only one) for Hugh Wilson, who created the popular television series about DJs and radio, WKRP in Cincinnati. Chapin's recording of "The Shortest Story", a song he wrote about a dying child and featured in his 1976 live/studio album Greatest Stories Live, was named by author Tom Reynolds in his book I Hate Myself And Want To Die as the second most depressing song of all time. Chapin's personal interaction with his fans (he regularly led audiences in sing-alongs) was such that during a 1977 appearance at Pensacola Junior College, Pensacola, Florida, when he was touring with only his bass viol player, he recruited the back-up singers for "Mr. Tanner" out of the audience. By the end of the decade, Chapin's contract with Elektra (which had since merged with Asylum Records under the control of David Geffen) had expired, and the company made no offer to renew it. A minor deal with Casablanca Records fell through, and Chapin settled on a simple one-album deal with Boardwalk Records. The Boardwalk album would be his final work. The title track of his last album, Sequel, was a follow up to his earlier song "Taxi", reuniting the same characters ten years later. The songs Chapin was working on at the time of his death were subsequently released as the thematic album The Last Protest Singer. Chapin met Sandy Cashmore (née Gaston), a New York socialite nine years his senior, in 1966, after she called him asking for music lessons. They married two years later. The story of their meeting and romance is told in his song "I Wanna Learn a Love Song". He had two children with her, Jennifer and Joshua, and was stepfather to her three children from a previous marriage, Jaime, Jason and Jonathan.
On Thursday, July 16, 1981, just after noon, Chapin was driving in the left lane on the Long Island Expressway at about 65 mph on the way to perform at a free concert scheduled for later that evening at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, New York. Near exit 40 in Jericho he put on his emergency flashers, presumably because of either a mechanical or medical problem (possibly a heart attack). He then slowed to about 15 miles (24 km) per hour and veered into the center lane, nearly colliding with another car. He swerved left, then to the right again, ending up directly in the path of a tractor-trailer truck. The truck could not brake in time and rammed the rear of Chapin's blue 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit, rupturing the fuel tank by climbing its back and causing it to burst into flames. The driver of the truck and a passerby were able to get Chapin out of the burning car through the window and by cutting the seat belts before the car was completely engulfed in flames. He was taken by police helicopter to a hospital, where ten doctors tried for 30 minutes to revive him. A spokesman for the Nassau County Medical Center said Chapin had suffered a heart attack and "died of cardiac arrest", but there was no way of knowing whether it occurred before or after the accident. In an interview years after his death, Chapin's daughter said "My dad didn't really sleep, and he ate badly and had a totally insane schedule." Even though Chapin was driving without a license, his driver's license having previously been revoked for a long string of traffic violations, his widow Sandy won a $12 million decision in a negligence lawsuit against Supermarkets General, the owners of the truck.
Chapin's remains were interred in the Huntington Rural Cemetery, Huntington, New York. His epitaph is taken from his song "I Wonder What Would Happen to this World." It is:
- Oh if a man tried
- To take his time on Earth
- And prove before he died
- What one man's life could be worth
- I wonder what would happen
- to this world
In 2001, Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" was ranked number 186 of 365 on the RIAA list of Songs of the Century. Chapin was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on October 15, 2006.
The Lakeside Theatre at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, New York, was renamed "Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre" during a memorial concert held one month after his death, as a tribute to his efforts to combat world hunger. Other Long Island landmarks named in honor of Chapin include a graduate student apartment complex at Stony Brook University, a theater in Heckscher Park, and a playground at the intersection of Columbia Heights and Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights.
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