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Machine Gun (Commodores Album)
''Machine Gun'' is the debut studio album by The Commodores, released on July 22, 1974, on Motown Records. Singles The titular lead song has Milan Williams on clavinet, which led the Motown executive Berry Gordy to name the song "Machine Gun" as the clavinet work reminded him of gunfire. The title track peaked at number 7 on the US Billboard R&B Singles charts, while reaching number 22 on the US Billboard Pop Singles charts. As a single "Machine Gun" also reached No. 20 on both the UK Singles chart and the Canadian RPM Pop Singles chart. The second single to be released, "I Feel Sanctified", reached number 12 on the R&B charts, and concerns a man spiritually blessed by his girlfriend's love. The song has Ronald LaPread on bass guitar, while Lionel Richie and William King contributed horn arrangements. The tune has an '' a cappella'' introduction with three-way harmonization. Track listing Personnel Commodores * Lionel Richie – vocals, saxophones, keyboards * Milan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Commodores
Commodores are an American funk and Soul music, soul band, which were at their peak in the late 1970s through the mid 1980s. The members of the group met as mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968, and signed with Motown in November 1972, having first caught the public eye opening for the Jackson 5 while on concert tour, tour. The group's most successful period was in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Lionel Richie was the co-lead singer. The band's biggest hit record, hit singles are Sentimental ballad, ballads such as "Easy (Commodores song), Easy", "Three Times a Lady", and "Nightshift (song), Nightshift"; and funk-influenced dance songs; including "Brick House (song), Brick House", "Fancy Dancer", "Lady (You Bring Me Up)", and "Too Hot ta Trot". Commodores were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame. The band has also won one Grammy Award out of nine nominations. The Commodores have sold over 70 million a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berry Gordy
Berry Gordy III (born November 28, 1929), known professionally as Berry Gordy Jr., is a retired American record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record label and its subsidiaries, which was the highest-earning African-American business for decades. As a songwriter, he composed or co-composed a number of hits including "Lonely Teardrops" and "That's Why" ( Jackie Wilson), "Shop Around" (the Miracles), and "Do You Love Me" (the Contours), all of which topped the US R&B charts, as well as the international hit "Reet Petite" ( Jackie Wilson). As part of the Corporation, he wrote many hit songs for the Jackson 5, including "I Want You Back" and "ABC". As a record producer, he launched the Miracles and signed acts like the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Stevie Wonder. He was known for carefully directing the public image, dress, manners, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billboard 200
The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Often, a recording act will be remembered by its " number ones", those of their albums that outperformed all others during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, and acquired its current name in March 1992. Its previous names include the ''Billboard'' Top LPs (1961–1972), ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), ''Billboard'' Top 200 Albums (1984–1985) and ''Billboard'' Top Pop Albums (1985–1992). The chart is based mostly on sales – both at retail and digital – of albums in the United States. The weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, tracking week begins on Friday (to coinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Official New Zealand Music Chart
The Official New Zealand Music Chart ( mi, Te Papa Tātai Waiata Matua o Aotearoa) is the weekly New Zealand top 40 singles and albums charts, issued weekly by Recorded Music NZ (formerly Recording Industry Association of New Zealand). The Music Chart also includes the top-20 New Zealand artist singles and albums and top 10 compilation albums. All charts are compiled from data of both physical and digital sales from music retailers in New Zealand. Methodology The singles chart is currently sales and streaming data of songs. In June 2014 it was announced that the chart would also include streaming; this took effect for the chart published 7 November 2014 and dated 10 November 2014. Previously airplay was factored into the chart methodology as well. History Before 1975, music charts in New Zealand had been regionally compiled by magazines, record stores, and radio stations on an ad hoc basis. This often occurred at different times which made chart compiling complex, and even t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kent Music Report
The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to January 1999. The chart was re-branded the Australian Music Report (AMR) in July 1987. From June 1988, the Australian Recording Industry Association, which had been using the top 50 portion of the report under licence since mid-1983, chose to produce their own listing as the ARIA Charts. Before the Kent Report, ''Go-Set'' magazine published weekly Top-40 Singles from 1966, and Album charts from 1970 until the magazine's demise in August 1974. David Kent later published Australian charts from 1940 to 1973 in a retrospective fashion, using state by state chart data obtained from various Australian radio stations. Background Kent had spent a number of years previously working in the music industry at both EMI and Phonogram records and had developed the report initially as a hobby. The Kent Music Report was first release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, 1965 in an effort by the magazine to further expand into the field of rhythm and blues music. It then went through several name changes, being known as Soul LPs in the 1970s and Top Black Albums in the 1980s, before returning to the R&B identification in 1990 and affixing a hip hop designation in 1999 to reflect the latter's growing sales and relationship to R&B during the decade. From 1965 through 2009, the chart was compiled based on reported sales at a core panel of stores with a "higher-than-average volume" of R&B and/or hip-hop album sales to monitor buying trends of the African-American community. This panel included more independent and smaller chain stores compared to the high percentage of mass merchants that account fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cal Harris (engineer)
Calvin Lawrence Harris was an American sound engineer and the head of the recording department at Motown. He worked on projects such as Marvin Gaye's hit album ''What's Going On'', The Beach Boys' single “Good Vibrations”, and Lionel Richie's Grammy award-winning album ''Can't Slow Down''. He is the father of jazz musician Cal Harris Jr. and programmer/keyboard technician Eric Harris. Biography Cal Harris Sr. was born on August 9, 1941, in Marshall, Michigan. He began his musical career at Gold Star Records, as in intern for The Beach Boys. His work for at Gold Star Records gained him the recognition to get hired by Motown Records in the late 1960s. At Motown he became the head of the recording department. He died on August 14, 2017, in a California hospital due to natural causes. Working at Motown Records As the head of the recording department at Motown, Cal Harris Sr. was tasked with managing the team of sound engineers employed by Motown. As well as finding/hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas McClary (musician)
Thomas McClary (born October 6, 1949) is an American musician, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer best known as the founder and lead guitarist of The Commodores. McClary is credited with having created the signature sound of The Commodores' original music. Early life McClary was born in Eustis, Florida, in 1949. He became one of the first African-American students to integrate the Florida school system prior to the enforcement of Brown v. Board of Education. McClary began playing music at a very early age, starting with the ukulele and then adding the acoustic guitar and later the electric guitar to his repertoire. After graduation, McClary went to college at Tuskegee University in Alabama where he majored in business.Thompson, Dave. "Funk". Backbeat Books. 2001. Page 110 – 114. . Career As a freshman student at Tuskegee University, McClary met Lionel Richie in the registration line. The two became friends and in 1968 they began to put together a band which t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald LaPread
Commodores are an American funk and soul band, which were at their peak in the late 1970s through the mid 1980s. The members of the group met as mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968, and signed with Motown in November 1972, having first caught the public eye opening for the Jackson 5 while on tour. The group's most successful period was in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Lionel Richie was the co-lead singer. The band's biggest hit singles are ballads such as " Easy", "Three Times a Lady", and " Nightshift"; and funk-influenced dance songs; including " Brick House", "Fancy Dancer", "Lady (You Bring Me Up)", and "Too Hot ta Trot". Commodores were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame. The band has also won one Grammy Award out of nine nominations. The Commodores have sold over 70 million albums worldwide. History Commodores were formed from two former student groups, the Mystics and the Jays. Richie desc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William King (singer)
William King (born January 30, 1949) is an American singer, musician and choreographer. He is a founding member of the Commodores, where he plays trumpet, guitar, synthesizer, flute, and congas/percussion and is the group's choreographer. Background King was born in Birmingham, Alabama. After college, he considered playing tennis professionally but decided to continue his career with the Commodores. King was also hired by a digital computer company to write software but gave that up as well to join the band. King's compositions include "Lady" and "I'm In Love", both of which he co-composed with Harold Hudson and one other. The latter was the B side to their single "Janet" which was released in 1985.45Cat Commodores - Discography, USA/ref> Personal life King married his songwriting partner and fellow Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony, coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists, led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, rarely, as a synonym for ''alla breve''. Early history A cappella could be as old as humanity itself. Research suggests that singing and vocables may have been what early humans used to communicate before the invention of language. The earliest piece of sheet music is thought to have originated from times as early as 2000 B.C. while the earliest that has survived in its entirety is from the first century A.D.: a piece from Greece called the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lionel Richie
Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of funk band the Commodores; writing and recording the hit singles " Easy", " Sail On", "Three Times a Lady" and "Still", with the group before his departure. In 1980, he wrote and produced the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 number one single "Lady" for Kenny Rogers. The following year, he wrote and produced the single " Endless Love", which he recorded as a duet with Diana Ross; it remains among the top 20 bestselling singles of all time, and the biggest career hit for both artists. In 1982, he officially launched his solo career with the album '' Lionel Richie'', which sold over four million copies and spawned the singles " You Are", " My Love", and the number one single " Truly". His second album, ''Can't Slow Down'' (1983), reached number one on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart and sold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
