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Take A Letter Maria
"Take a Letter Maria" is the debut single written and recorded by American soul singer R. B. Greaves. It was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio on August 19, 1969, using the house studio musicians. These include Donna Jean Thatcher on vocals (later Donna Jean Godchaux of the Grateful Dead), Roger Hawkins on drums, Barry Beckett on electric piano, Eddie Hinton and Jimmy Johnson on guitar, David Hood on bass, and Mel Lastie on trumpet. "Take a Letter Maria" was released in September 1969, quickly gained regular airplay. The single peaked at No. 2 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and was kept from the top spot by the 5th Dimension's "Wedding Bell Blues". The single was certified gold by November 1969; one million copies had shipped. By 1970, sales totalled 2.5 million. Background "Take a Letter Maria" has a Latin music flavor, complete with a mariachi-style horn section, and tells of a man who has learned of his wife's infidelity the night before. He dictates a letter of ...
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Soul Music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence with artists like Erykah Badu under the genre neo-soul. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls, and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflects the African-American identity, and it stresses the importance of an African-Ameri ...
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RIAA Certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets.RIAA certification criteria
Retrieved on September 11, 2006
Other countries have similar awards (see music recording certification). Certification is not automatic; for an award to be made, the must first request certification. The audit is conducted against net shipments after returns (most often an artist's royalty s ...
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Doug Stone
Doug Stone (born Douglas Jackson Brooks; June 19, 1956) is an American country music singer and actor. He debuted in 1990 with the single "I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)", the first release from his 1990 self-titled debut album for Epic Records. Both this album and its successor, 1991's '' I Thought It Was You'', earned a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. Two more albums for Epic, 1992's '' From the Heart'' and 1994's '' More Love'', are each certified gold. Stone moved to Columbia Records to record ''Faith in Me, Faith in You'', which did not produce a Top Ten among its three singles. After suffering a heart attack and stroke in the late 1990s, he exited the label and did not release another album until ''Make Up in Love'' in 1999 on Atlantic Records. '' The Long Way'' was released in 2002 on the Audium label (now part of E1 Music), followed by two albums on the independent Lofton Creek Records. Stone has charted twenty-six singles on ...
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Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sales and streaming. The current number-one song, as of the chart dated December 24, 2022, is "You Proof" by Morgan Wallen. History ''Billboard'' began compiling the popularity of country songs with its January 8, 1944, issue. Only the genre's most popular jukebox selections were tabulated, with the chart titled "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records". For approximately ten years, from 1948 to 1958, ''Billboard'' used three charts to measure the popularity of a given song. In addition to the jukebox chart, these charts included: * The "best sellers" chart – started May 15, 1948, as "Best Selling Retail Folk Records". * An airplay chart – started December 10, 1949, as "Country & Western Records Most Played By Folk Disk Jockeys". The juk ...
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Anthony Armstrong Jones
Ronnie Jones (June 2, 1949 – June 16, 1996) was an American country music singer known professionally as Anthony Armstrong Jones, a stage name that he took from the name of the British photographer who married Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. A former professional golfer, Jones recorded four albums for Chart Records in that timespan, in addition to charting six times in the Top 40 on the ''Billboard'' country singles charts. His debut single was a No. 22-peaking cover of "Proud Mary," originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival, which served as the title track of his first album. Its second single was "New Orleans," originally recorded by Gary U. S. Bonds. Jones' second album, ''Take a Letter Maria'', produced his biggest hit in its No. 8 title track, a cover of the pop hit for R. B. Greaves. Later that year, he released ''Sugar in the Flowers'', which produced singles in "Lead Me Not into Temptation" and its title track. Finishing off his single releases that ...
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Country Music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, old-time, and American folk music forms including Appalachian, Cajun, Creole, and the cowboy Western music styles of Hawaiian, New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country. Country music often consists of ballads and honky-tonk dance tunes with generally simple form, folk lyrics, and harmonies often accompanied by string instruments such as electric and acoustic guitars, steel guitars (such as pedal steels and dobros), banjos, and fiddles as well as harmonicas. Blues modes have been used extensively throughout its recorded history. The term ''country music'' gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to '' hillbilly music'', with "country music" being used today to describe many styles and subgenres. It came to encomp ...
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Cover Version
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song released around the same time as the original in order to compete with it. Now, it refers to any subsequent version performed after the original. History The term "cover" goes back decades when cover version originally described a rival version of a tune recorded to compete with the recently released (original) version. Examples of records covered include Paul Williams' 1949 hit tune "The Hucklebuck" and Hank Williams' 1952 song "Jambalaya". Both crossed over to the popular hit parade and had numerous hit versions. Before the mid-20th century, the notion of an original version of a popular tune would have seemed slightly odd – the production of musical entertainment was seen as a live event, even if it was reproduced at home via a cop ...
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RPM (magazine)
''RPM'' ( and later ) was a Canadian music-industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. ''RPM'' ceased publication in November 2000. ''RPM'' stood for "Records, Promotion, Music". The magazine's title varied over the years, including ''RPM Weekly'' and ''RPM Magazine''. Canadian music charts ''RPM'' maintained several format charts, including Top Singles (all genres), Adult Contemporary, Dance, Urban, Rock/Alternative and Country Tracks (or Top Country Tracks) for country music. On 21 March 1966, ''RPM'' expanded its Top Singles chart from 40 positions to 100. On 6 December 1980, the main chart became a top-50 chart and remained this way until 4 August 1984, whereupon it reverted to a top-100 singles chart. For the first several weeks of its existence, the magazine did not compile a national chart, but simply printed the cur ...
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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 ...
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Adult Contemporary (chart)
The Adult Contemporary chart is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary radio stations in the United States. The chart is compiled based on airplay data submitted to ''Billboard'' by stations that are members of the Adult Contemporary radio panel. The chart debuted in ''Billboard'' magazine on July 17, 1961.Hyatt, Wesley (1999). ''The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits''. New York City: Billboard Books. . Over the years, the chart has gone under a series of name changes, being called Easy Listening (1961–1962; 1965–1979), Middle-Road Singles (1962–1964), Pop-Standard Singles (1964–1965), Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks (1979–1982) and Adult Contemporary (1983–present). Chart history The ''Billboard'' Easy listening chart, as it was first known, was born of a desire by some radio stations in the late 1950s and early 1960s to continue playing current hit songs but distinguish themselves from b ...
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Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by '' Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 positions but was shortened to 50 positions in October 2012. The chart is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, rock and roll, soul, and funk, it is today dominated by contemporary R&B and hip hop. Since its inception, the chart has changed its name many times in order to accurately reflect the industry at the time. History Beginning in 1942, ''Billboard'' published a chart of bestselling black music, first as the Harlem Hit Parade, then as Race Records. Then in 1949, ''Billboard'' began publishing a Rhythm and Blues chart, which entered "R&B" into mainstream lexicon. These three charts were consolid ...
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Divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the particular country or state. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world, but in most countries, divorce requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process, which may involve issues of distribution of property, child custody, alimony (spousal support), child visitation / access, parenting time, child support, and division of debt. In most countries, monogamy is required by law, so divorce allows each former partner to marry another person. Divorce is different from annulment, which declares the marriage null and void, with legal separation or ''de jure'' separation (a legal process by which a married couple may formalize a ''de facto'' se ...
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