MOTOWN SNAPSHOT FLASHBACKS: MARVIN GAYE, ’71

RELEASED IN MAY, 1971, MARVIN GAYE‘S ‘WHAT’S GOING ON‘ was the 11th album he recorded for the Tamla label. It was also his very first LP he was credited in having solely produced  — in its entirety. The album’s origin centered when Gaye began work on the single, “What’s Going On” (Pop #2; R&B #1), (released in January 1971; album titled as same) in June, 1970. Three other tracks from the LP would be released as singles. “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) (Pop#4; R&B #1),” “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler) (Pop #9; R&B #1),” and “Save The Children (UK only; #41).”  The album would become Gaye’s biggest of his career at the time, until 1973. It was also Gaye’s first album having cracked Top 10 (#6) in the Billboard Top LP chart, and, having charted there for almost a year. The British music publication New Musical Express ranked the LP #1 in their ‘All-Times Top 100 Albums’ in 1985. According to Wikipedia, “Gaye was the first male solo artist to place three top ten singles on the Hot 100 off one album, as well as the first artist to place three singles at number-one on any Billboard chart (in this case, R&B), off one single album.” In a 1999 poll conducted by The Guardian, it named the LP the “Greatest Album of the 20th Century”. 
MARVIN GAYE April 1971 (photo credit: Jim Hendin)

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WHYT-FM BACK ON THE RADIO: POWER 96 ‘HOT HITS’!

WHYT RECALLED ON MOTOR CITY RADIO FLASHBACKS

WHYT-FM 96.3 * 1982 * BOB BROWN

Bob Brown WHYT aircheck date: Wednesday, September 15, 1982

The very first hour — 5 PM to 6 PM — when easy-listening WJR-FM transitioned into Top 40 WHYT-FM Hot Hits!

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NEW! Special THANKS to Mike Jackson, Hartland, MI., for recently donating this WHYT radio aircheck to Motor City Radio Flashbacks!* The

* THE MIKE JACKSON COLLECTION *



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‘BLUES THEME’ REFUSES TO DIE . . . JULY 8, 1967

Motor City Radio Flashbacks logoA MCRFB NEWS brief: 1967

Blues Theme’ Records Has Its Ups and Downs and Ups Riding the Chart

 

 

 

 

NEW YORK — “Blues Theme,” by Davie Allen & The Arrows is the “nuttiest record I ever had,” said Hugh Dallas, national sales manager of Tower Records.

The chart history of the record would be enough to frustrate any record man… it keeps happening in market after market, but never at the same time. The record first hit Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart on April 22 at No. 97. It climbed to 92 in a couple of weeks, then dropped off and was in the Bubbling Under a couple of more weeks before disappearing.

But the record refuses to die. It began showing sales action in another market and was “Bubbling Under” again. This week, “Blues Theme” is back at No. 99 on the chart. “It’s been No. 1 on many major station playlists, including stations in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles,” said Dallas. END

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(Information and news source: Billboard; July 8, 1967)

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