BILLBOARD HOT 50 R&B SINGLES SPECIAL SURVEY February 11, 1967 (click on chart 2x for largest view)
THE NO. 1 HOTTEST R&B SINGLE IN AMERICA ’67 * FREDDY SCOTT
THE NO. 2 HOTTEST R&B SINGLE IN AMERICA ’67 * AARON NEVILLE
THE NO. 3 HOTTEST R&B SINGLE IN AMERICA ’67 * SPYDER TURNER
THE NO. 4 HOTTEST R&B SINGLE IN AMERICA ’67 * CANNONBALL ADDERLEY
THE NO. 5 HOTTEST R&B SINGLE IN AMERICA ’67 * THE FOUR TOPS
WCHB / WJLB ‘TOP 5’ DETROIT
The ‘Top 5’ soul records also were the most popular radio plays heard on Detroit’s two R&B stations 1440WCHB and 1400WJLB on the AM dial at the time, as well as other record selections off this chart, as tabulated nationally, week-ending 02/11/67.
From the Desk of Bill Gavin Billboard Contributing Editor
IT’S FUN, SO THEY TELL ME, to be a music director. It’s the most fun when you’re with an important station in a big city. Big name stars you’ve never met phone you, call you by your first name, and speak in a manner suggesting a lasting, possibly, personal friendship. Even though your own salary is considerably less than that of any disk jockey on your station, national officers of big record companies phone you, call on you, take you to dinner and treat you as a real V.I.P. Which you are.
Even if you’re in a smaller town, you can still be important. You have a sense of power. You can break new records in your area and force the nearby big city stations to he aware of them. Promotion men come to sec you, and they let you know just how much influence you really have. You may even receive pre -release mailings of new records and get them on the air ahead of your big town colleagues. It’s exciting work.
DISCUSSING ALL THE MEANINGLESS back slapping and phony good will that goes with record promotion, the music director is more a part of the record business than anyone else at his station. It is part of his job to know what is going on in the world of records. It’s a fascinating world of show business and it’s fun to be part of it, if only as an observer. The fun of being a music director more than compensates for the daily chore of auditing all those new releases. Those who have never faced this task for any length of time have little notion what a grinding and frustrating experience it can be. It requires many hours every day to listen all the way through both sides of every new record that arrives. Add to this the extra hours that the conscientious music director spends in listening several times to those entries that he considers important, and it makes for a pretty full week in auditioning alone. The amount of trash that must be sifted to discover the worthwhile items is horrendous. Of course, hardly any music director listens to all the sides all the way through. An unfamiliar label by an unknown artist may he tossed out unheard. The first few bars of one side may be so unacceptable that no further attention is paid to either side. And, if he gets too busy with other duties, he may put aside the remaining newcomers in a “file for future reference” category, the limbo of “lost” records.
THE BIGGEST HAZARD that any music director must face is his own ego. The search for fame as a “picker’ can distort objective judgment. There is little distinction in picking obvious hits, such as new Bobby Vintons. Elvis Presleys. the Beatles and Brenda Lee. It is human nature to want to he a hero by “discovering” a hit which others had overlooked. This is why so many music directors spend valuable air time looking for gold under the rocks and ignoring the diamonds lying around in plain sight.
BILLBOARDFebruary 8, 1964
Then there is the music director whose nickname might very well be “Flip.” He frequently takes issue with the record companies on their choice of plug side. One in a while he may be right in his espousal of the flip, but most often he is wrong. Certainly there is no necessity for anyone to accept the infallibility of the record company’s selection of a preferred side. In a list of top hits for any year there are always a few items that were broken by a music director who disregarded the company’s promotion of the flip side. With most music directors the flip pick is an honest judgment. With others it is hero mania. Every music director owes his employer the obligation to use his own best judgment in selecting the side to be played. He should also he ready to admit his mistakes and to correct them. Sometimes, however, the music director keeps trying to prove his point in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary and permits his own stubborn ego to blind him to the facts.
IN ORDER TO BE EFFECTIVE the music director must know his market. While a majority of hit records do well in all areas, certain artists and certain musical sounds tend to do better in one city than in another. An awareness of local preferences is essential in guiding the music director’s selection of new material. Even though record sales are the yardstick by which the music director’s success is measured. his prime concern is not with selling records but with station ratings. He may he tempted to “do a favor” for his favorite promotion man, but it is no favor to his employer to allow personal favoritism to interfere with the best possible programming. It is worthy of note that the most successful radio stations all have top-notch music directors. Whatever they are paid, they are well worth it. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; February 8, 1964)
A RIP FROM THE BILLBOARD PAGES: THE BILLBOARD TOP LP’S chart, February 11, 1967 (click on image 2x for largest detailed view)
50th! When two hot Monkees LP’s sat on top of the Billboard LP chart — #1 (second LP) and #2 (Debut LP) — for week-ending February 11, 1967.
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THE SUPREMES NINTH NO. 1 SINGLE!“Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone” was another Holland-Dozier-Holland composition from the Supremes 1967 album, ‘The Supremes Sing Holland Dozier Holland.’ The album would be the last collaboration with the Supremes with Holland-Dozier-Holland, by 1967’s end the famous composer/songwriters would depart Motown Records. The single peaked (one week) at No. 1 on the Billboard pop singles chart, week-ending March 11, 1967.THE SUPREMES became the most successful recording girl group act in pop (and R&B) music history. The Motown trio pulled a string of twelve number one singles on the Billboard chart during a five-year span from 1964 through 1969.
The Kingsmen Hit Deemed Lyrically ‘Obscene and Suggestive’
INDIANAPOLIS —“Louie Louie” has been fingered by Indiana’s first citizen, Gov. Matthew Welsh, as being “pornographic.” The Governor, who after hearing the hit Wand recording by the Kingsmen, told people his “ears tingled.” Welsh then promptly fired off a request to Reid Chapman, president of the Indiana Broadcasters Association, requesting that the record be banned from all radio stations in the State, and Chapman, vice-president of WANE AM-AV, Fort Wayne, dutifully passed Welsh’s request on to his membership.
Reports from the capital city reveal that a high school student from Frankfort, Ind., was first to send the Governor a copy of the allegedly pornographic recording. College students from Miami University in Athens, Ohio, followed suit by providing Welsh with copies of printed “obscene lyrics.”
A spokesman at Indianapolis’ WIBC, the city’s top-rater, said that the record (this week No. 6 in the nation) was No. 4 at the station for the past two weeks, but is not currently being played.
Group W’s 50,000-watt outlet in Fort Wayne reports that the station has never played the record, but is carefully investigating all the allegations. It was learned that attempts by WOWO and other stations to capture the lyrics from the Wand waxing was nearly impossible because of the allegedly unintelligible rendition as performed by the Kingsmen.
Sources at Sceptor-Wand Records in New York flatly stated that “not in anyone’s wildest imagination are the lyrics as presented on the Wand recording in any way suggestive, let alone obscene.”
The feeling at the diskery is that a bootleg version may be the culprit.
It also seems likely that some shrewd press agentry may also he playing an important role in this teapot tempest. Exactly whose press agent is hard to pin down at this point. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; February 1, 1964)
THE KINGSMENcirca 1964DETROIT FREE PRESS(editorial cartoon) December 10, 1985
BY THE END OF JUNE 1968DAVID RUFFIN had been dropped as the Temptations’ front-man due to personal indifferences alleged with Berry Gordy and members in the group. But by year’s end, Ruffin, by then vigorously still pursuing his talents as a solo artist with Motown, was awarded his first single, ‘My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me).’ The single, written and produced by Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, was released by Motown Records, January 1969. The album above, titled as same as Ruffin’s first solo single, was to be released later in May of that year.
DETROIT, Aug. 25, 1945 — Highlight of the WWJ silver anniversary show Monday (August 20) was probably the public realization for the first time that radio has come of age sufficiently to establish a real continuity of tradition. This was embodied in the veritable dynasty of the Scripps family association with the station.
Two generations were present, William E. Scripps, president of The Detroit News, and his grandson, William J. Scripps, who was general manager of WWJ until entering the armed forces. Interest actually dated back still another generation to the late James E. Scripps, father of William E. Scripps, and founder of The News, who, together with his son, provided the funds to establish an experimental wireless station here in 1902.
BILLBOARDSeptember 01, 1945
Thomas E. Clark, pioneer wireless inventor, who built and developed this station, resulting in the ultimate establishment of WWJ in 1920, was especially honored at the broadcast and at the party in the Book Cadillac Hotel which followed.
Clark’s showbiz experience takes the pioneer history of radio still further back to the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, when he was in charge of the General Electric exhibit. Clark there was intrigued by the operations of Nikola Tesla in early wireless, and returned to GE, headquarters to begin his own experiments.
Entertainment program at the party following the broadcast included a 35 minute sketch roasting every well-known station character, with Joe Gentile, of CKLW, in the lead role. Event was attended by station staff, press and radio figures of the town, and their guests, crowding the grand ballroom of the hotel. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; September 01, 1945)
