Gary U.S. Bonds circa 1961(Click image for larger view)
PHILADELPHIA — Rock and roll singer Gary (U.S.) Bonds claims that twister Chubby Checker swiped his top-selling song, “Quarter To Three.” And he went into U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to get the song back.
Bonds, who used to sing out of Norfolk, Va., as plain U.S. Bonds, filed a $100,000 damage suit against Checker. Bonds, a one-time spiritual singer named Gary Anderson, and Rock Master, Inc., a firm in which Bonds is associated with, claimed that “Quarter To Three” sold 800,000 records in 1961 before Checker and a number of co-defendants pirated it, as Bonds and his firm claimed in court.
The suit, filed by attorney Harold Lissius, alleges that they “manufactured and sold a version of “Quarter To Three” called “Dancin’ Party,” sung by Checker.
Named as co-defendants with Checker were Kalmann Muci, Inc., a publisher; Cameo-Parkway Recording Comapany, Kalmann Cohen, and officer of Kalmann Music, and David Appell, a music writer, all from Philadelphia.
U.S. Bonds says that “Dancin’ Party” was a flagrant imitation made to “deceive and confuse the public . . . and unlawfully capitalizes on the popularity of “Quarter To Three.” END.
(Information and news source: Billboard; January 12, 1963).
MOTOWN INTENDS TO BROADEN BASE OVERSEAS ACROSS EUROPEAN HORIZON
DETROIT — Tamla-Motown Records is going after the overseas market with serious intent. The hot singles label is sending three representatives to Europe to establish and expand agreements with distribution outlets on the Continent. President Berry Gordy, Vice-President Barney Ales and Mrs. Esther Edwards (Gordy’s sister) will leave for London March 1.
Esther Gordy Edwards and Barney Ales circa 1965(Click image for larger view)
The trio will make headquarters for the first week in the Carlton Towers. They expect to be in Europe four to six weeks. According to Ales, they will be cementing relations and affiliations not only for the label but also for the affiliated Jobete publishing and an associated management firm.
Ales also stated that this first trip to the Continent is exploratory in nature. He said he and Gordy were interested primarily in talking with as many companies as possible about distribution and representation.
The only firm from the Tamla-Motown labels have a solid agreement with at the present time is the Oriole label in England. This, Ales said, is due to run out in June. Most other agreement for distribution of records on the company’s labels are with companies on a one-shot basis with a 30-day cancellation clause.
The Detroit-based record executives will be touring Belgium, Germany, Holland and other European countries and wish to distribution and representation with many firms in those countries.
Ales stressed the importance of talks about the Jobete publishing and management firms because of the growing importance of both artists and tunes associated with the operation here. Ales noted that the Contours were going to appear in England in March and that three Jobete tunes have done very well in Europe: “Please Mr. Postman,” “Do You Love Me” and “Mashed Potatoes,” Dee Sharp had the hit on the last-named but Jobete had the copyright. END.
Esther Gordy Edwards, then the vice president of Motown Records, in her Detroit office with Smokey Robinson in 1967.
(Information and news source: Billboard; March 2, 1963).
WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey; No. 11 issued June 27, 1966 under Lee Alan, Program Director; WXYZ
(WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey for June 27, this date 1966; survey courtesy the Jim Heddle Collection. For the previous weekly WXYZ June 20, 1966 survey click here).
WWJ established the first FM radio station in Michigan in 1941.
Five years later, The News gave Detroiters their first chance to watch television. Ownership of WWJ-TV was traded to the Washington Post in exchange for its television station after the FCC ruled newspapers could not own a TV station in the same market. Media experts said in 1985 that the Washington television station was the jewel Gannett sought when it acquired the Evening News Association in 1985.
-Ted Gladwell / The Detroit News
LOS ANGELES — The wondrous instrument that was Karen Carpenter’s voice was perhaps described by writer Tom Nolan in a 1974 Rolling Stone cover story: “Hers is a voice of fascinating contrasts, combining youth with wisdom; chilling perfection with much warmth.”
The Carpenters
It was that warmth and heart and emotion that set Carpenter apart. There was a conversational intimacy and matter-of-fact naturalness in her style that made her thoroughly unpretentious and appealing.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times after Carpenter’s death of heart failure Friday, February 4, A&M co-founder Herb Alpert remembered the first time he heard a demo tape of Karen’s voice in early 1969: (her voice) “It just jumped right out at me,” he said, “it felt like she was in the room with me.”
In a mid-70s interview, Alpert also touched on this vocal intimacy. “Some people think they’re (the Carpenters) corny,” he acknowledged at the time, “but I’ve always thought of Karen as the type of singer who would sit on your lap and sing in your ear.”
That ease and subtlety in Karen’s style caused her to be dismissed by critics as tame and bland. But if there was a surface serenity to Karen’s vocals, there were also layers of of often contrasting emotions just below. Olivia Newton-John, one of the few artists to escape “the easy-listening pigeonhole and gain broader pop acceptance, told the L.A. Times after Carpenter’s death: “I think she was underestimated by many people. Her recordings were beautiful. She had a lovely voice and such wonderful control and feeling.”
Newton-John’s tribute were one of many in the wake of the singer’s death at age 32. Burt Bacharach, who wrote the Carpenter’s breakthrough hit, “Close To You,” noted: “When we first appeared together in concert, all that I could think of was that she had a heaven-sent voice, like no one before her and no one since.”
And John Bettis, lyricist of such Carpenters hits as “Yesterday Once More” and “Only Yesterday,” said simply: “My words have lost the best voice they ever had.”
In her last major print interview in 1981, with this writer, Carpenter downplayed dissection of her vocal technique. “I’m not that complicated,” she demurred. “I’m just a real easy-going singer. I don’t push. Even if I screamed I couldn’t sing as loud as some people. I just open my mouth and thank God it’s there.”
It’s sad that image considerations came to overshadow Carpenter’s vocal talent, and that she didn’t live to take her rightful place alongside Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick as one of the preeminent female vocalist of her generation. But the joy is that Carpenter’s expressive, beguiling is there to behold on 11 A&M albums.
The intimacy and personal connection in Carpenter’s voice render all the more poignant these closing lines (as written by Leon Russell) from the duo’s fourth album:
“And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
You were alone and I was singing this song
For you.”
PAUL GREIN
(Information and news source: Billboard; February 19, 1983).
WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey; No. 10 issued June 20, 1966 under Lee Alan, Program Director; WXYZ
(WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey for June 20, this date 1966; survey courtesy the Jim Heddle Collection. For the previous weekly WXYZ June 13, 1966 survey click here).
A MCRFB news brief: 1963
