Posts tagged as:
This is a video prelude to the full length documentary that is underway. Midtown – The Central District is a historic area in Gary, Indiana. It was vibrant and full of hope decades ago. It centered around black businesses and black unification. There is a strategic initiative in place to revive this once hustling and prosperous area
{ 1 comment }
American blues singer Gladys Bentley (1907 – 1960) poses with bandleader Willie Bryant (1908 – 1964) outside the Apollo Theater where posters advertise a performance by Bryant & his band, New York, New York, April 17, 1936.
Can you see music hero James Brown? He is also gone but far from forgotten…
{ 1 comment }
The Motown Revue comes to the Apollo, 1962
Michael Jackson is apart of the first class of entertainers to be honored with stars on a new Walk Of Fame site outside of New York’s Apollo Theatre.
Along with the King of Pop Michael Jackson, others to be honored will be The Godfather of Soul James Brown, Quincy Jones, Patti LaBelle, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Aretha Franklin , Little Richard and Ella Fitzgerald.
The plaques were installed this week for everyone except Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin. Jackson and Franklin’s plaques will be unveiled in June with the Gala Benefit.Each year at the non-profit Theater’s Spring Gala Benefit, legendary musicians, artists, and entertainers whose path to fame included the Apollo are inducted into the Apollo Legends Hall of Fame.
The Apollo theater is celebrating its 75th anniversary year.
{ 2 comments }
Motown had Holland brothers Brian and Edward write a collection of songs for Michael Jackson during his latter years at Motown. Holland–Dozier–Holland are a songwriting and production team made up of Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian Holland and Edward Holland, Jr. They are considered to be one of the greatest songwriting teams in popular music. The trio wrote and arranged many of the songs making up the Motown sound which dominated American popular music in the 1960s.
Click Here for all the posts relating to the song “We’re Almost There’
{ 0 comments }
Manu Dibango, born Emmanuel Dibango N’Djoké on 12 December 1933 in Douala, Cameroon) is a Cameroonian saxophonist and vibraphone player. He developed a musical style fusing jazz, funk and traditional Cameroonian music. He is a member of the Yabassi ethnic group, though his mother was a Duala. He is best remembered for his afrobeat single “Soul Makossa”, often considered the first disco record.
{ 1 comment }
Larry Mizell
Born on the 17th February 1944, Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Songwriter, percussion & keyboards
&
Alphonso ‘Fonce’ Mizell
Born on the 15th January 1943, Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Producer, percussion & keyboards
As teenagers both Fonce and Larry Mizell were given trumpets and joined their school band.
In time, the Mizells and classmate Freddie Perren formed a doo-wop group dubbed the Nikons recording a handful of demo sides before graduating high school.
The brothers and Perren later attended Howard University (a Black college located in Washington D.C.), in late 1961 forming the jazz harmony quartet the Vanlords with friend John Butler.
The group won a number of campus talent contests, and for a time featured a young Donny Hathaway on piano.
{ 0 comments }
Production and songwriting on Jackson 5 hits such as “I Want You Back” and “ABC” was credited to a generic-sounding group called The Corporation. But The Corporation was made up of four people, and one of them was Englewood native Frederick “Freddie” Perren.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the ’70s wouldn’t have been the same without him, as he contributed to some of the decade’s signature songs, particularly in the dance field. “He was an up-tempo guy,” said his widow, Christine. “He thought all the up-tempo songs should have the heartbeat of somebody who was dancing, and he always checked his rhythms to that.”
Perren lived in California from 1968 until his death, but grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He graduated from Englewood’s Dwight Morrow High School in 1961. He played in the school’s marching band and orchestra, and sang in its choral ensemble, the Chansoneers. “I asked him one time, ‘How do you know what music to write?’” said his sister, Florence Perren Diaz. “He said, ‘I have tunes running in my head all the time.’ That was so typical of him. He was interested in all kinds of music: He turned me on to opera.”
{ 1 comment }
“It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” is an R&B song written by Motown husband-and-wife songwriting team Freddie Perren and Christine Yarian for the 1975 film Cooley High. In the film, the song is performed by Motown artist G.C. Cameron, whose rendition peaked at number 38 on the Billboard R&B singles chart that same year.
The composition fared better when covered in an acappella rendition by contemporary R&B Motown group Boyz II Men 16 years later. Boyz II Men’s recording of “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” peaked at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and number two on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 21, 1991. The song also reached number five on the Hot 100 Airplay on December 7, 1991 and number two on the Hot Singles Sales on November 23, 1991.
{ 1 comment }
Pharrell Williams was born on April 5, 1973, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He met Chad Hugo in a seventh grade summer band camp where Williams played the keyboards and drums and Hugo played tenor saxophone. They were also both members of a marching band; Williams played the snare drum while Chad took the role of student conductor. Along with Hugo, Williams attended Princess Anne High School where they played in the school band.
In the 1990s, Hugo and Williams formed a 4-piece “R&B type” group along with friends Shay Haley and Mike Etheridge, which they named The Neptunes. They later entered a high school talent show where they were discovered by Teddy Riley, whose studio was next to Princess Anne High School. After graduating from high school, they signed with Riley as a group.
{ 0 comments }
