Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic
Urszula Dudziak‘s debut single was deemed a ‘Pick of the Week’ by Cash Box whose October 4, 1975 review identified the Polish jazz vocalist as an important new voice from whom big things were expected: Since Minnie Riperton hit the scene a new vocal approach seems to be in the
From Wax of Stacks — David Bottoms‘ expansive history of Cincinnati’s record labels including, most prominently, King — we learn that recording engineer Lee Hazen generously provided the author a copy of an audio recording of a meeting that had been convened at King Records‘ Cincinnati headquarters by its founder/owner,
<LINK to related Spotify playlist: . Merry Clayton Steals The Show> From Terri Gross‘s 2013 interview on NPR’s Fresh Air radio program, we learn that it was Bobby Darin who had signed Merry Clayton to Capitol Records when the New Orleans-born vocalist was barely fifteen years old. And yes, it
Browsing Nina Simone‘s early single releases on Bethlehem Records — Gus Wildi‘s jazz label, whose control and eventual ownership would ultimately be given over to Syd Nathan of King Records — my eyes are immediately drawn to the instrumental B-side, “African Mailman,” a fairly radical and oblique song title for
As George Lipsitz points out in the introduction to Johnny Otis‘s memoir Upside Your Head! Rhythm and Blues on Central Avenue, Otis was a central organizing figure in the Los Angeles rhythm & blues scene of the late 1940s and early 1950s — thus, a shrewd move on Syd Nathan’s
One struggles to fathom how all that amazing footage from 1969’s Third Annual Harlem Cultural Festival could have gathered dust for decades until Questlove and his team brought these stellar live performances back to life to inspire the rest of the world via 2021’s Summer of Soul documentary. Q =
Jeff Krulik was the first to inform me that back in the mid-to-late 1980s, one could exit Silver Spring’s Track Recorders and walk about a mile or so up Georgia Avenue to reach another commercial sound facility: Central Recording Studio. Silver Spring historian, Robert Oshel, wrote about this very parcel
JazzTimes‘ Christopher Porter, amusingly, conducted his interview with bass legend, Keter Betts, at Silver Spring, Maryland‘s humble 9-hole Sligo Creek Golf Course due to its proximity to both Betts’ home and JazzTimes‘ editorial office. .From Porter’s 2002 JazzTimes piece, I learned that — Photo: Discogs Hinton initially met Betts in
Jimmy Colvard was a teen in 1963 when he played those distinctive snapping and popping guitar sounds that helped make “Six Days on the Road” a runaway hit for Dave Dudley. I have since learned that Colvard played guitar on a number of albums in the 1960s and 70s by
Note: Spotify playlist at the end of this piece Music writer/historian, Randy McNutt, in King Records of Cincinnati, points out the irony of “How You Gonna Get Respect (When You Haven’t Cut Your Process Yet)” – a Hank Ballard single “obviously aimed at the R&B market” – being voiced by mostly white
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