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Nat Tarnopol
Nat Tarnopol (January 26, 1931 – December 25, 1987) was an American record producer. He played a vital role in producing and shaping R&B music throughout the 1960s and 1970s as the president of Brunswick Records, a subsidiary label of Decca Records. Responsible for launching the careers of The Chi-Lites, Jackie Wilson, Tyrone Davis, Barbara Acklin and The Young-Holt Unlimited, Tarnopol scored 150 songs on the ''Billboard'' charted singles between 1957 and 1981. Early life Tarnopol was the younger of two sons born to first generation Americans from Eastern Europe on January 26, 1931, in Detroit, Michigan.Pruter (1992), p. 264 As a young man, Tarnopol's two passions were baseball and R&B music. His mother, Pearl Tarnopol, died shortly after his twelfth birthday, which forced Tarnopol to spend the remainder of his childhood in the home of his Aunt Lena. His parents originally wanted him to become a rabbi. As a star shortstop, Tarnopol was scouted by, and was offered deals to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bell Sound Studios
Bell Sound Studios was an independent recording studio in New York City from 1950 to 1976. At its height, the studio was the largest independent recording studio in the United States, and the site of recording sessions that produced seminal hits by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, the McGuire Sisters, The Flamingos, Dion and the Belmonts, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, the Drifters and Ben E. King, The Four Seasons (band), The Four Seasons, Lesley Gore, the Dixie Cups, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and Kiss (band), Kiss. History Early years Co-founders Allen Weintraub and Dan Cronin were classmates at Brooklyn Technical High School and aspiring radio engineers. In June 1950 with an initial investment of $600 Weintraub and Cronin established the recording studio as Bell Recording Co. in a storefront at 73 Mott Street in New York's Chinatown, Manhattan, Chinatown. The studios were initially used for recording radio airchecks and weddings and bar mitzvahs. Within a year the studio had ou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Green
Albert Leornes Greene (born April 13, 1946), better known as Al Green, is an American singer, songwriter, pastor and record producer best known for recording a series of soul hit singles in the early 1970s, including " Take Me to the River", " Tired of Being Alone", " I'm Still in Love with You", " Love and Happiness", and his signature song, " Let's Stay Together". After an incident in which his girlfriend died by suicide, Green became an ordained pastor and turned to gospel music. He later returned to secular music. Green was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. He was referred to on the museum's site as being "one of the most gifted purveyors of soul music". He has also been referred to as "The Last of the Great Soul Singers". Green is the winner of 11 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also received the BMI Icon award and is a Kennedy Center Honors recipient. He was included in the ''Rolling Stone'' list of the 10 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clarence Avant
Clarence Alexander Avant (born February 25, 1931) is an American music executive, entrepreneur, and film producer, who also went by the name of "The Black Godfather". Avant's 75th birthday was celebrated by ''Billboard'' in its February 2006 issue. Biography Early career Clarence Alexander Avant was born in Climax, North Carolina; he was the oldest of eight children. He attended a one-room school in Greensboro, NC until the ninth grade. He spent his freshman and second years of high school at Dudley High School in Greensboro before moving to New Jersey in 1947 as a teenager. In New Jersey, Avant worked as a stock clerk at Macy's and for a law directory. He began in the music business in the 1950s as a manager of Teddy P's Lounge in Newark, New Jersey, owned by promoter Teddy Powell. Joseph G. "Joe" Glaser (December 17, 1896 – June 6, 1969), music manager of Louis Armstrong from 1935 until his death in 1969, and the original proprietor of Sunset Gardens on the South Side o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lonely Teardrops
"Lonely Teardrops" is a song written by Berry Gordy Jr., Gwen Gordy and Roquel "Billy" Davis, first recorded and released as a single in 1958 by R&B singer Jackie Wilson on the Brunswick label. It is a 1999 Grammy Hall of Fame Inductee. The recording became an across-the-board national Top 10 Pop smash (# 7), a # 1 hit on the R&B charts, and is ranked #315 on ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It is ranked as the 57th biggest U.S. hit of 1959. "Lonely Teardrops" is also listed on the ''Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's'' list of ''"The 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll"''. Song information Written by Berry Gordy Jr., Gwendolyn Gordy (Berry's sister) and Roquel "Billy" Davis, going under the pseudonym Tyran Carlo, the single, alongside Wilson's debuting five consecutive singles between 1957–58, turned Wilson into an R&B superstar and influenced the later careers of Davis, who joined the staff of Chess Records while Gordy used the money f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues Ballad
The term blues ballad is used to refer to a specific form of popular music which fused Anglo-American and Afro-American styles from the late 19th century onwards. Early versions combined elements of the European influenced "native American ballad" with the forms of African American music. From the 20th century on it was also used to refer to a slow tempo, often sentimental song in a blues style. Structure and variations The blues ballad often uses the Thirty-two-bar form of verse-verse-bridge-verse, in contrast to the 12-bar or 8-bar blues forms.Boyd, Jack (1991). ''Encore!: A Guide to Enjoying Music'', p.31. . " 2-bar formis sometimes called ballad form because so many of our popular ballads, middle-of-the-road popular songs, and Country Western songs use this form." Popular blues ballads The first blues ballads tended to deal with active protagonists, often anti-heroes, resisting adversity and authority, often in the context of industrialisation. They usually lacked the stro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Davis (songwriter)
Roquel "Billy" Davis (July 11, 1932 – September 2, 2004), of Detroit, was an American songwriter, record producer, and singer. Davis was also known as a writer/producer of commercial jingles, mostly for Coca-Cola. He was also known as Tyran Carlo on writing credits. Early in his career in Detroit, Davis sang and wrote with an early version of the Four Tops called "The Four Aims", which included his cousin Lawrence Payton. In the late-1950s, he collaborated with Berry Gordy, the Motown Records founder, to write a number of hit songs for Jackie Wilson. The most notable of these was "Lonely Teardrops", written by Davis, Gordy, and Gordy's sister Gwen, who was Davis's girlfriend at the time. Davis and Gwen Gordy later founded Anna Records, which was the distributor of the early singles from Berry Gordy's newly formed Tamla label. The two also wrote "Reet Petite (The Finest Girl You Ever Want To Meet)" for Wilson, which was a Top 10 hit for the singer in the UK and later top ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gwendolyn Gordy
Gwen Fuqua (born Gwendolyn Gordy; November 26, 1927 – November 8, 1999) was an American businesswoman, songwriter and composer, most notably writing hit songs such as "Lonely Teardrops", " All I Could Do Was Cry" and "Distant Lover". She acquired her full name after marrying Harvey Fuqua and kept the name after their divorce. Biography Early life and career Gwen Gordy was born to Berry Gordy Sr. and Bertha Ida (née Fuller) Gordy in Detroit. She was the youngest of the four Gordy sisters (Esther, Anna and Loucye) and the third youngest of the entire family (brothers Berry and Robert were born after her). Following graduation from high school, Gwen owned the photo concession at Detroit's popular Flame Show Bar, which helped to make her a celebrity in Detroit's nightlife. By the late 1950s, Gordy had also become a cheerleader for brother Berry's musical efforts. She provided Berry with his first important music business contact when she introduced him to the manager of the ... [...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, dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Crickets
The Crickets were an American rock and roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer-songwriter Buddy Holly in January 1957. Their first hit record, "That'll Be the Day", released in May 1957, peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Top 100 chart on September 16, 1957. The sleeve of their first album, ''The "Chirping" Crickets'', shows the band line-up at the time: Holly on lead vocals and lead guitar, Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar, Jerry Allison on drums, and Joe B. Mauldin on bass. The Crickets helped set the template for subsequent rock bands, such as the Beatles, with their guitar-bass-drums line-up, performing their own self-written material. After Holly's death in 1959 the band continued to tour and record into the 1960s and beyond with other band members through to the 21st century. History Formation Holly had been making demo (music), demo recordings with local musician friends since 1954. Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, and Larry Welborn particip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Willie John
William Edward "Little Willie" John (November 15, 1937 – May 26, 1968) was an American R&B singer who performed in the 1950s and early 1960s. He is best known for his successes on the record charts, with songs such as " All Around the World" (1955), "Need Your Love So Bad" (1956), " Talk to Me, Talk to Me" (1958), "Leave My Kitten Alone" (1960), "Sleep" (1960), and his number-one R&B hit "Fever" (1956). An important figure in R&B music of the 1950s, he faded into obscurity in the 1960s and died while serving a prison sentence for manslaughter. John was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2022, John was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Biography John was born in Cullendale, Arkansas on November 15, 1937. He was one of ten children born to Lillie (née Robinson) and Mertis John. Many sources erroneously give his middle name as Edgar. His family moved to Detroit, Michigan, when he was four, so that his father could find factory work. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
