MOTOWN MOVES INTO OWN CASSETTE TAPE OPERATION . . . SEPTEMBER 6, 1969

Motor City Radio Flashbacks logoFrom the MCRFB news archives: 1969

 

 

 

 

 

 

DETROIT — Motown Records is moving into its own cassette tape operation, including packaging, merchandising, and distribution, beginning Monday, September 1.

Motown Records and Tapes
The new Motown Records and Tapes

RCA will duplicate Motown’s new cassette product, with Ampex, the previous cassette licensee, duplicating only reel-to-reel. Muntz Stereo-Pak will continue to duplicate Motown’s 4-track.

Motown’s initial cassette release under its own banner will be culled from catalog material. A fall production will emphasize new product.

The company will sell cassettes a $6.95, the same price as it’s 8-tracks, which it also markets and distributes.

Mel DaKroob, Motown national tape and album sales manager, said the increased emphasis on tape product is paying off. He feels 8-track sales this year will hit 3 million units. At the end of the first six-months of 1969, Motown’s 8-track sales increased 120 per cent over the same period in 1968. END

(Information and news source: Billboard; September 6, 1969).

MCRFB.COM Logo (2 BW)

Loading

’61 MOTOWN SNAPSHOT FLASHBACK! EDDIE HOLLAND

Motown-Record-MCRFB-Logo-1

EDDIE HOLLAND circa 1961
EDDIE HOLLAND circa 1961
EDDIE HOLLAND MOTOWN LP, 1962
EDDIE HOLLAND’S debut Motown LP, 1962
BRIAN HOLLAND, LAMONT DOZIER, EDDIE HOLLAND. H-D-H penned many of Motown's hit makers in the early, mid-1960s.
BRIAN HOLLAND, LAMONT DOZIER, EDDIE HOLLAND. Best known as the songwriting trio, Holland-Dozier-Holland, at Hitsville, they wrote many of Motown’s biggest hits, early, mid-60s.

Loading

BILLY JOE ROYAL, POP/COUNTRY SINGER, DEAD AT 73

The_New_York_Times_logo

OBITUARIES

___

’60s POP / COUNTRY SINGER BILLY JOE ROYAL DIES AT 73

 By William Grimes | NY TIMES Staff Writer | October 07, 2015

Billy Joe Royal, Singer, Dies at 73; His ‘Down in the Boondocks’ Was a Hit – NYTimes.com

 

Billy Joe Royal, late-1970s.
Billy Joe Royal, late-1970s.

Billy Joe Royal, a pop and country singer best known for his 1965 hit, “Down In The Boondocks,” died Tuesday at his home in Morehead City, N.C., He was 73.

The cause has not been determined, his publicist, Brent Taylor, said, adding that Mr. Royal had performed at a concert as recently as Sept. 24 and had a full touring schedule lined up for the fall.

Mr. Royal, who sang with a tremulous tenor and an intense delivery, had his biggest hits with several songs written and produced by Joe South. The top seller was “Down in the Boondocks,” the bitter lament of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks in love with a rich girl, which reached No. 9 on the pop charts.

“I guess people related to poor people,” Mr. Royal told The Chicago Tribune in 1990. “Once in a while I hear it on the radio, and it still stands up. The song meant everything to my career. I was making about $125 a week before that.”

He hit the charts with two other songs by Mr. South, “Hush” and “I Knew You When,” and ended the decade in the Top 20 with “Cherry Hill Park” (1969). CONT.

MCRFB note: For the rest of this New York Times Billy Joe Royal Obituary article (October 07, 2015), please GO HERE.

William Grimes | Copyright © 2015 New York Times

BILLY JOE ROYAL, 1965
BILLY JOE ROYAL, 1965

Loading