James Gadson
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James Gadson
James Gadson ( James Edward Gadson; born June 17, 1939) is an American drummer and session musician. Beginning his career in the late 1960s, Gadson has since become one of the most-recorded drummers in the history of R&B. He is also a singer and songwriter. Career Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Gadson played with the first line-up of Charles Wright's Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, and recorded three albums with them between 1968 and 1970. Along with other members of Wright's band, he went on to appear on many hit records, including with Dyke & the Blazers. Gadson started to become well known as a drummer following the release of the album ''Still Bill'' by Bill Withers, released by Sussex Records in 1972. He played on The Temptations album ''1990'', released on the Motown label in 1973. In 1975, he played with Freddie King on ''Larger Than Life'' and went on to record with Martha Reeves, Randy Crawford, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, B.B. King, Albert King, Rose Royce, Elkie ...
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Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas, with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about , making ...
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Rhythm And Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music ... ith aheavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contr ...
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Rose Royce
Rose Royce is an American soul and R&B group. They are best known for several hit singles during the 1970s including "Car Wash", " I Wanna Get Next to You", " I'm Going Down", "Wishing on a Star", and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore". Career The Los Angeles-based group comprised Gwen Dickey (vocals), Henry Garner (drums), Terral "Terry" Santiel (congas), Lequeint "Duke" Jobe (bass), Michael Moore (saxophone), Kenny Copeland (trumpet, lead vocals), Kenji Brown (guitar, lead vocals), Freddie Dunn (trumpet), and Victor Nix (keyboards). The group began in the early 1970s when members of several backup bands from the Watts and Inglewood areas of Los Angeles united under the name Total Concept Unlimited. In 1973, this collective toured England and Japan behind Motown soul star Edwin Starr. Starr introduced them to Norman Whitfield. Whitfield, after a decade at Motown, wanted to start a company of his own. He took the T.C.U. octet under his wing and signed them to his label. The group ...
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Albert King
Albert Nelson (April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992), known by his stage name Albert King, was an American guitarist and singer who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists of all time. He is perhaps best known for his popular and influential album ''Born Under a Bad Sign'' (1967) and its title track. He, B.B. King, and Freddie King, all unrelated, were known as the "Kings of the Blues". The left-handed King was known for his "deep, dramatic sound that was widely imitated by both blues and rock guitarists." He was once nicknamed "The Velvet Bulldozer" because of his smooth singing and large size–he stood taller than average, with sources reporting or , and weighed –and also because he drove a bulldozer in one of his day jobs early in his career. King was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2011, he was ranked number 13 on ''Rolling Stone''s 100 ...
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Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, utilizing a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, ''Head Hunters''. Hancock's best-known compositions include " Cantaloupe Island", " Watermelon Man", " Maiden Voyage", and " Chameleon", all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he enjoyed a hit single with the electronic instrumental " Rockit", a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 200 ...
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Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992. Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before working on pop music and film scores. He moved easily between musical genres, producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early 1960s (including " It's My Party") and serving as an arranger and conductor for several collaborations between the jazz artists Frank Sinatra and Count Basie in the same time period. In 1968, Jones became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "The Eyes of Love" from the film '' Banning''. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the 1967 film ''In Cold Blood'', making him the ...
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Randy Crawford
Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as a solo artist. However, she has appeared on the Hot 100 singles chart twice. The first time was in 1979 as a guest vocalist on The Crusaders' top-40 hit " Street Life". She also dueted with Rick Springfield on the song "Taxi Dancing", which hit number 59 as the B-side of Springfield's hit "Bop Til You Drop". She has had five top-20 hits in the UK, including her 1980 number-two hit, "One Day I'll Fly Away", as well as six UK top-10 albums. Despite her American nationality, she won Best British Female Solo Artist in recognition of her popularity in the UK at the 1982 Brit Awards. In the late 2000s, she received her first two Grammy Award nominations. Career Crawford first performed at club gigs from Cincinnati to Saint-Tropez, but made her name in the mid-1970s in New York ...
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Martha Reeves
Martha Rose Reeves (born July 18, 1941) is an American R&B and pop singer. She is the lead singer of the Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas which scored over a dozen hit singles, including "Come and Get These Memories", " Nowhere to Run", "Heat Wave", "Jimmy Mack", and their signature "Dancing in the Street". From 2005 until 2009, Reeves served as an elected council woman for the city of Detroit, Michigan. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Early life Martha Rose Reeves was born in Eufaula, Alabama, the first daughter of Elijah Joshua Reeves and Ruby Lee Gilmore Reeves, and the third of the couple's 11 children. She was a baby when the family moved from Eufaula to Detroit, Michigan, where her grandfather, Reverend Elijah Reeves, was a minister at Detroit's Metropolitan Church. The family was very active in the church and its choir. Elijah played guitar, and Ruby liked to sing; the children acquired their love o ...
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Motown Records
Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''motor'' and ''town'', has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned label that achieved crossover (music), crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its subsidiary labels (including Tamla Motown, the brand used outside the US) were the most of the Motown (music style), Motown sound, a style of soul music with a mainstream pop music, pop appeal. Motown was the most successful soul music label, with a net worth of $61 million. During the 1960s, Motown achieved 79 records in the top-ten of the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100 between 1960 and 1969. Following the events of the 1967 Detro ...
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1990 (The Temptations Album)
''1990'' is a 1973 album by The Temptations for the Gordy ( Motown) label, their final LP written and produced by Norman Whitfield. Music and lyrics The LP was the center of a number of problems. The Temptations were dissatisfied with Whitfield's socially conscious message tracks, which were by now failing commercially, and desired to get back to singing ballads. Whitfield relented some here, placing message tracks such as "1990" and "Ain't No Justice" alongside love songs such as "Heavenly" and "You've Got My Soul on Fire". Release and promotion The album's first single, the Rose Royce-backed and Dennis Edwards-led funk track " Let Your Hair Down", was its only Top 40 hit. The ballad "Heavenly", sung by Richard Street and Damon Harris, was caught in the center of a disc jockey boycott against Motown. A Motown executive did not thank the United States' DJs while accepting an award for the Temptations at the 1974 American Music Awards, and, as a result, the DJs refused to play " ...
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The Temptations
The Temptations are an American vocal group from Detroit, Michigan, who released a series of successful singles and albums with Motown Records during the 1960s and 1970s. The group's work with producer Norman Whitfield, beginning with the Top 10 hit single " Cloud Nine" in October 1968, pioneered psychedelic soul, and was significant in the evolution of R&B and soul music. The band members are known for their choreography, distinct harmonies, and dress style. Having sold tens of millions of albums, the Temptations are among the most successful groups in popular music. Featuring five male vocalists and dancers (save for brief periods with fewer or more members), the group formed in 1960 in Detroit under the name ''the Elgins''. The founding members came from two rival Detroit vocal groups: Otis Williams, Elbridge "Al" Bryant, and Melvin Franklin of Otis Williams & the Distants, and Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams of the Primes. In 1964, Bryant was replaced by David Ruffin, w ...
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Sussex Records
Sussex Records, Inc. was a Los Angeles-based record label, founded by music executive and businessman Clarence Avant, that existed from 1969 through 1975. History Sussex Records was launched in December 1969 by Avant, who had previously set up another mainly black music label, Venture Records for MGM. An offshoot of Buddah Records, initially it was located at 6430 W Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, at the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga Blvds. In 1972, it moved to 6255 W Sunset Blvd, Suite 1902. All records were distributed by Buddah Records until 1974 when Sussex switched to independent distribution until its closure. The company folded in July 1975, due to unpaid state and federal taxes amounting to $62,000: the Internal Revenue Service padlocked the offices and auctioned off all assets. Many of the label's master tapes went missing and were presumed destroyed. Rights to the catalog were acquired in a bankruptcy action by Tom Ficara and Combined Artists. Bill Withers was the label's b ...
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