Flashbacks – Page 259 – USA Radio Museum

BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY

FOUR TOPS’ ’67 CLUB SCENE . . . SEPTEMBER 23, 1967

From the MCRFB news archive: 1967

Room At The Top, Motown’s Own Four Tops Customizing Song Selections For Nightclub Acts

Hollywood — The Four Tops, who closed their first booking at the Cocoanut Grove with a live LP recording, have learned to custom-tailor their repertoire to suit the level of the room audience. Four years ago the Detroit quartet was still hustling around the “chitlin’ circuit.”

The Four Tops Autograph Photo — The Four Tops.

Today, the male vocalists are a top Motown act and a new find for such rooms as the Grove and New York’s Copa, Washington D.C.’s Shoreham, Cherry Hill, New Jersey’s Latin Casino, and Hollywood, Miami’s own Diplomat — all forthcoming bookings.

On recordings, the quartet sings the pop love songs of Eddie Holland-Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier. On stage, they dip into the Broadway and film repertoire for adult-oriented tunes which fit the Tops’ pleasant harmonies.

“We try to keep the composer’s beauty in the material,” explains Renaldo Benson, who along with Levi Stubbs, Jr., Lawrence Payton, and Abdul (Duke) Fakir formed the group thirteen-years ago.

During their Grove engagement the quartet included an Academy Award medley as its customizing salute to the film-oriented audience. Wade Marcus, the group’s musical director, along with Payton produced the live LP, for which Motown’s chief engineer was flown here for the special event.

Four Tops in Session — The Four Tops circa 1966.

Benson, the “philosopher” in the group, feels that as a result of the Grove appearance, the group sought a wider musical scope in selections of other songs they were to perform. “For the last four years we’ve been playing rock concerts where sounds are really not that important. Here, we have to truly work to stimulate the audience.” Benson says they never “jive the audience” because they’ve been through the scuffling bit and appreciate the opportunity to work in the big time.

The Tops’ troupe numbers nine (including rhythm section) which involves a healthy weekly pay, but they are earning substantially more than their “chitlin’ circuits” salaries of from $1,000 to $1,500.

Two months ago the artists worked the Whisky A Go-Go on the Sunset Strip, where their repertoire was more tuned to their Motown singles hits. Their booking into the downtown prestige room here in Los Angeles was so soon after the Whiskey exposure, that it was a surprising bit of scheduling for the Tops.

When they play for colleges, the students ask for the single hits. This fall the quartet is planning a new act for the Ivy circuit, which also considerably pays better than the “chitlin'” clubs they frequented just five-years earlier.

The Tops now plan to begin producing records, which is a characteristic of the Motown operation where executives are artists, and where writers are the artists as well. END

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(Information and news source: Billboard; September 23, 1967)

DARIN DOES ‘ROOSTERTAIL’ . . . SEPTEMBER 23, 1967

From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1967

Darin Darling of Detroit in Nightclub Bow

DETROIT — Bobby Darin opened at the Roostertail on Thursday, September 21, with an act that had the club audience shouting for more with a standing ovation.

Everything about Darin’s act is contemporary. Even when he does a standard like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” it has a big beat band arrangement. He isn’t bogged down by nostalgia but knows exactly what’s happening today with the music scene.

Darin put his heart into “Drown In My Own Tears,” and also his version of “The Work Song,” which added tremendous emotional impact, while mesmerizing the Detroit audience by his presence on stage.

Darin’s act paced beautifully as he wrapped up the evening playing on the piano, electrifying the crowd with a swinging version of “What’d I Say.” END

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A MCRFB Note: Lorraine Alterman also was the teen-editor for the Detroit Free Press’ ‘Teen Beat’ column which appeared in print in the daily newspaper then, every Friday, in 1966.

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(Information and news source: Billboard; September 23, 1967)

GREETINGS FROM WKNR’S BOB GREEN: HELLO DETROIT!

BOB GREEN * HELLO DETROIT * BOB GREEN PRODUCTIONS

FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: MARCH 25

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: MARCH 25

1958: reporting to Ft. Chafee, Arkansas by bus, Elvis Presley has his famous hair shorn off by an Army barber. For the occasion, the media was there with cameras in hand.

Elvis Presley performs for a benefit concert at Pearl Harbor while in the U.S. Army in 1961. — Elvis performing on stage at the Bloch Arena, at Pearl Harbor, while serving in the Army in 1961.

1961: Elvis Presley holds an afternoon press conference and, in the evening, performs the USS Arizona concert at Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena. The Presley performance raised $62,000 for the memorial dedicated to the 1,177 servicemen killed when the ship went down on December 7, 1941. It was to be his last concert appearance for eight years.

1965: After Eric Clapton quit the band, London session guitarist Jeff Beck joins the Yardbirds after being recommended by the group’s first choice, another session man named Jimmy Page.

1967: The Who plays their first American show at New York’s RKO Radio Theater.

1967: Cream arrive in the U.S. to begin their first North American tour.

1968: Roy Orbison marries his second wife, Barbara Wellhonen, in Nashville, Tennessee. They would remain married until Orbison’s death twenty-years later.

Lennon and Ono in Amsterdam Bed-in in 1969. — Lennon and Ono’s famous four-day bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969.

1969: A just-married John Lennon and Yoko Ono decide to use the press to promote an end to the Vietnam war, and all wars in general, during their honeymoon. The duo stay, fully clothed, in their bed at the Amsterdam Hilton for the next four days, talking about peace to a cadre of largely skeptical reporters from around the world.

1971: New York radio station WNBC becomes the first to ban Brewer’s and Shipley’s hit “One Toke Over The Line” due to alleged marijuana references.

1976: Jackson Browne’s wife, Phyllis Major, commits suicide with sleeping pills just months after their marriage.

Jackson performs 'Billie Jean' at Motown 25; 1983. — Michael Jackson at Motown 25 in 1983.

1983: Motown tapes an all-star concert at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California in order to celebrate Motown’s 25th year anniversary. Michael Jackson steals the show with his solo performance of his new single, Billie Jean, complete with moonwalk. That performance event alone catapults Jackson from superstar to megastar status worldwide overnight.

1985: Stevie Wonder wins his first Oscar for his theme to the film The Women In Red, entitled, “I Just Called To Say I Love You.” Sixteen-years later to the day, Bob Dylan will win his first Oscar ever for his “Wonder Boys” song, “Things Have Changed.”

Chuck Berry; 1989 — Chuck Berry performing during his worldwide 1989 tour; stops would include Detroit, Oct. 18 at the Fox.

1989: The recording studio at Chuck Berry’s ranch at Wentzville, Missouri is destroyed by a fire, taking with it 13 of Berry’s unreleased songs.

Deaths: On this date, Bill Kerney (The Inkspots fame) 1978; Joe Schermie (Three Dog Night fame) 2001; Buck Owens (Country singer) 2008; Dan Seals (England Dan and John Ford Coley fame) 2009.

And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day….