EVERY Billboard #1 rhythm & blues hit discussion thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by tomstockman, Mar 4, 2016.

  1. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Now there's a thread: the first record or CD of a female artist you ever bought.

    Thinking back, the first first 45 by a female artist I ever bought with my own money was probably "Touch Me In The Morning" by Diana Ross in 1973. The second was "Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" by Aretha Franklin. The Fifth Dimension probably doesn't count, as it was a group with men in it.

    My other family members bought all the records in the house that were by female artists before '73.
     
    CliffL likes this.
  2. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Funny . . . growing up, among LP's in the collection were Judy Collins #3 and The Judy Collins Concert (this was years before I was aware of her big hit "Both Sides Now"); and Sharona Aron Sings Israeli Songs (the U.S. issue on Angel with a few tracks shaved off from what was on the U.K. Columbia release). More folk music, true, but still . . .
     
  3. zebop

    zebop Well Known Stranger

    This is the only one :)
     
  4. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    My second-ever album (after Thriller) was the Pointer Sisters' Break Out, although that was on cassette.
     
  5. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Next song:

    If I Were Your Woman - Gladys Knight & The Pips



    One of the finest songs they ever did, IMO.
     
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  6. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Oh, I agree, I agree. One of the few times Motown did right by them. Produced by someone relatively new to the label, Clay McMurray.

    Another instance of how Columbia was back in the loop among Motown pressing plants. My own copy, of course, is from Pitman, with lacquers cut by their Chicago studios on McClurg Court (Pitman by this point distinguished themselves among all other plants by putting 'SIDE 1' and 'SIDE 2' markings above the cat. #):
    [​IMG]
    Only one other Soul 45 in this period is documented to have had a Pitman variant with their typefaces as seen here: "God Bless Whoever Sent You" by The Originals (S 35079).

    A "close but no cigar" from this period - stuck at #2 on the soul charts - also with a CBS Pitman variant as in my collection, was Stevie Wonder's "Heaven Help Us All" (another step in his musical evolution):
    [​IMG]
    Alas, one important Tamla single we'll get to in a bit, I saw no Pitman type variants, otherwise it too would be in my collection . . .
     
  7. John22

    John22 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northern Germany
    I love the song. Gladys Knight is for me the best female soul singer. Her best time came with the Buddah releases.
     
  8. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    I confess GK&TP were not on my radar in the 60s until Grapevine so my exposure to their Fury and Maxx releases came much later. I was struck by her vocals sounding like Dionne Warwick's in the 64-65 time frame but after joining Motown in "66, that smokey quality became more prominent. I especially love the run of tunes beginning with the funky The Nitty Gritty up through the delicious Daddy Could Swear. I don't recall ever hearing their first Soul records release Just Walk In My Shoes but it's a damn fine record.

     
  9. WLL

    WLL Popery Of Mopery

    ...It is interesting that
    the first official #1 R&B chartmaker vocalist was white (As I believe Slack was.) (And as I am.). I'll repeat anecdotes later, but Ms. Morse was widely believed at the time to be black.





    stockman, post: 13907316, member: 58335"]Was curious exactly what chart we're looking at after that last comment so I looked it up, for now it's the "Harlem Hit Parade" described as the "most popular records in Harlem, based on sales reports from Rainbow Music Shop, Harvard Radio Shop, Lehman Music Company, Harlem De Luxe Music Store, Ray's Music Shop and Frank's Melody Music Shop, New York." So it's not exactly a genre based chart but based on regional sales. Pretty neat, I thought![/QUOTE]
     
  10. danasgoodstuff

    danasgoodstuff Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    And they sold one to Atlantic and the other to Stax, and they both (each?) thought they'd gotten 'the one'.
     
  11. danasgoodstuff

    danasgoodstuff Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Not pronounced that way!
     
  12. WLL

    WLL Popery Of Mopery

    ...IIRC:
    Nick Tosches tells a story of her meeting Sammy Davis Jr. being suprised by her whiteness upon meting her and sayinhg " I thought you were one of us ! " to which she replied " Oh, but I am!".
    I recall mentioning her to my born-1924 father and he belieed she was back.
    I think 78-era artists who weren't massively in the movies or on network radio received little personal/image-building publicity - Pop records were, I believe, sold at most in generic label sleeves and sometimes not even that? And Capitol/the biz in general may well have deded to publicize her even less (She was " just " a band vocalist after all.), to not unduly disturb the " sista " impression - I recall a sheet music cover (Single sheets a far, far, bigger deal then.) of Mr. Five By Five only?? showing a cartoon illustration of the title character.







    LL, post: 17378132, member: 75635"]...It is interesting that
    the first official #1 R&B chartmaker vocalist was white (As I believe Slack was.) (And as I am.). I'll repeat anecdotes later, but Ms. Morse was widely believed at the time to be black.





    stockman, post: 13907316, member: 58335"]Was curious exactly what chart we're looking at after that last comment so I looked it up, for now it's the "Harlem Hit Parade" described as the "most popular records in Harlem, based on sales reports from Rainbow Music Shop, Harvard Radio Shop, Lehman Music Company, Harlem De Luxe Music Store, Ray's Music Shop and Frank's Melody Music Shop, New York." So it's not exactly a genre based chart but based on regional sales. Pretty neat, I thought![/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
     
  13. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Another thing about Ms. Knight's vocals as they relate to "If I Were Your Woman": When she sings the part that starts with, "You're like a diamond / But she treats you like glass," you could almost hear the glass shattering in her voice in that section. That powerful.
     
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  14. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Yeah, but still . . . you get the point.
     
  15. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Any more love for this? There was enough amongst soul music buyers to push this to #1 - but it also crossed over to the pop charts, peaking there at number nine . . . number nine . . . number nine . . . proving there was love in that segment as well in early '71. And it's obvious why it reached those heights.
     
  16. WLL

    WLL Popery Of Mopery

    ...I will jump ahead to Orwell's year with a Soul chart-topper by a group whose only #1 it was - " Operator " by Midnight Star, a #18 Pop (Their only foray into Casey K.-ville.), from tbeir 2nd of three gold (one platinum) albums in the 80s. The video is easy to find on Youtube, but I can't put up links here. They recorded for Dick Griffey's Solar label, which built up rather a " sound " reputatation at the time, though not many Pop hits or publicity. It spent five weeks at #1.
     
  17. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Please avoid jumping ahead in this thread.
     
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  18. zebop

    zebop Well Known Stranger

    I like Gladys Knight and the Pips's "If I Were Your Woman." A lot of their work on Motown/Soul has been forgotten or underplayed. I just looked at the single and I had no idea Leon Ware co-wrote that song, amazing..,
     
  19. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    This song was the first big hit by Gladys and the Pips that came out after I started buying records in November 1970. I liked it a lot but it got so much airplay I felt I didn't need to buy the single.
     
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  20. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Especially since a certain online encyclopedia claims Gloria Jones co-wrote it . . . made no mention of Leon Ware, though . . . (there was another Ware besides Leon, I should note - LaVerne Ware, which was cited as a pseudonym of Ms. Jones').
     
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  21. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    And she can still sing today, her voice has aged better than almost all her peers.

    Amazing song by an amazing group, their best years were still ahead of them though.
     
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  22. zebop

    zebop Well Known Stranger

    Well there's a great possibility and a probability...
     
  23. WLL

    WLL Popery Of Mopery

    ...That is how you feel? I haven't gone back and looked...But has every #1 over a 25 year-on period from Slack/Morse on, been discussed here?





    E="Grant, post: 17387147, member: 91"]Please avoid jumping ahead in this thread.[/QUOTE]
     
  24. WLL

    WLL Popery Of Mopery

    ...I see, BTW, tbat Wikipedia lists an Andy Kirk record as being the first R&B #1, Ms. orse/SMorse #2 - Oh, and I guess Ella May Morse received first billing on her record, so I should have abbreviated it to " Morse/Slack ", I guess. I followed the standard Big Band Era assumption...Maybs tbis wall discussed befofe, I Haven't Read Entire Line (HREL).
     
  25. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    She was a staff writer at Motown for a while. Really, I think Gloria Jones probably has the most impressive resume of any musician who never had a hit. (Don't even get me started on people who think Soft Cell wrote "Tainted Love"...)
     
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