doggies + Al Green

Al Green’s Unromantic Proposal

doggies + Al Green

In the earlier 1970s, Al Green ruled over the r&b and pop charts. “Tired of Being Alone” hit #11 pop/#7 r&b in 1971. This was followed by the classic “Let’s Stay Together” (#1 pop for one week), the first of seven top ten pop singles from 1972 thru 1974. His performance on the r&b chart was even stronger. “Let’s Stay Together” remained on top of that chart for nine weeks. Over the next six years Green placed thirteen more singles in the r&b top ten, including five #1s.

On the album side, he had a handful of gold releases, the last of which was 1973’s Livin’ For You. That album spawned the single “Let’s Get Married” (#32 pop/#3 r&b). Despite what one may infer from its title, “Let’s Get Married” is not a very romantic proposal. His reasoning for suggesting marriage to his girlfriend is that he’s “tired of playing around – a girl in every town.” He sings “let’s get married. Might as well,” adding during the record’s fade-out “Found out I don’t love nobody anyway.”

One woman Green didn’t propose to was his girlfriend at that time, Mary Woodson White. In October of 1974, four months after “Let’s Get Married” peaked on the charts, White, distraught that Green wouldn’t marry her (she was already married, btw), poured a pan of boiling grits on the singer while he was in the shower. She then took his gun and killed herself. Green suffered severe burns on his back, stomach and arms from the incident.

Citing this as a sign that he needed to change his ways, Green became an ordained pastor in 1976 and three years later moved from secular to gospel music.

Today the great Al Green turns 68 years old.

Ringo + Lisa S 002

It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!

Ringo + Lisa S 002
Today’s dance party kicks off with Lisa Stansfield’s “All Around the World,” a 1989 record that was a big hit all around the world, going to #1 in the U.K., Canada, Holland, Spain, Norway, Austria, and Belgium. It topped the U.S. Dance chart and R&B chart and reached #3 on the pop chart.

Lisa Stansfield turns 48 today. Her new album is entitled Seven.

Winston + Billie 002

“Strange Fruit” And Billie Holiday

Winston + Billie 002
In 1937, a white, Jewish high school teacher from The Bronx named Abel Meeropol published a poem entitled “Bitter Fruit” in a publication called The New York Teacher. The poem’s inspiration was a photo Meeropol saw in a civil rights magazine of two black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, hanging from a tree after being lynched in Indiana in 1930. The men in Lawrence Beitler’s photograph were the “bitter fruits” the tree bears.

Meeropol set his poem to music. The song was performed by Meeropol and his wife at various union gatherings. Later, a black singer named Laura Duncan performed the tune at Madison Square Garden.

Now known as “Strange Fruit,” the song made it to Billie Holiday, who performed it regularly at her Café Society show starting in 1939. She wanted to record the tune, but her record company, Columbia Records, fearing the reaction they would get from Southern record distributors and radio, refused. They allowed Holiday to record the song as a one-off for Commodore Records.

Holiday’s 1939 rendition of “Strange Fruit” would go on to become her biggest-selling record.

In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday suggests that she composed the song with Meeropol and two other men. This has been disproven. When confronted about the falsehood contained in Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday responded “I ain’t never read that book.”

Billie Holiday was born on this day 99 years ago. Here is a small sampling of her work.

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Winston + Agnetha 002

Endorsed By Lennon, Townshend, Cobain, Davies And Sex Pistols

Winston + Agnetha 002
Today Tunes du Jour celebrates the birthday of Agnetha Fältskog, one of the two women in ABBA.

Our playlist kicks off with “SOS,” a favorite of John Lennon, Ray Davies and Pete Townshend, who called it “the best pop song ever written.” It inspired the main riff of The Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant.” My favorite piece of trivia about the song – it is the only record to hit the Hot 100 where both the song title and the artist performing the song are palindromes.

Enjoy this playlist of tunes on which Agnetha handled lead vocals.

It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!

This week the dance music community lost one of its trailblazers, DJ/remixer/recording artist Frankie Knuckles, who passed away from diabetes-related complications Monday at age 59. Knuckles was instrumental in popularizing the post-disco genre of house music, so much so that he was nicknamed The Godfather of House.

He started DJing in New York in the 1970s and moved to Chicago by the end of that decade. It was in that city that house was born, named after the club where Frankie presided, The Warehouse. August 24, 2004 was declared Frankie Knuckles Day in Chicago, with the stretch of street that housed the club named Frankie Knuckles Way, an honor that came to be with help from an Illinois state senator named Barack Obama.

Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour, and today’s playlist includes some of Knuckles’ work mixed among other dance favorites.

Winston + Marvin 003

“I Heard It Through The Grapevine”

Winston + Marvin 003

By 1966, Barrett Strong, the singer on Motown Records’ first hit single, “Money (That’s What I Want),” had the core of a song based on expression that emanated from the Civil War era. Slaves in the United States passed along information via a “human grapevine.” In Strong’s time he often heard people passing along gossip, saying they “heard it through the grapevine.” With that line as the chorus and a bass line, he brought the song to Norman Whitfield, who added lyrics about someone who hears gossip that their lover is unfaithful and will leave him/her for another lover.

Whitfield produced a version of their new song, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” with Smokey Robinsons and the Miracles, but Motown chief Berry Gordy, Jr. rejected it.

In 1967, Whitfield entered the studio with Marvin Gaye. At the time Gaye was married to Berry Gordy’s sister Anna. Gaye heard that Anna was being unfaithful to him. The lyrics surely resonated with him (though in (un)fairness, he was cheating on Anna). To wring more emotion out of Gaye, Whitfield had him perform the song in a higher key than he normally used. This did not sit well with Gaye, who is quoted in his biography as saying “Norman and I came within a fraction of an inch of fighting. He thought I as a prick because I wasn’t about to be intimidated by him. We clashed. He made me sing in keys much higher than I was used to. He had me reaching for notes that caused my throat veins to bulge.”

All may have been for naught, as Berry Gordy rejected the Gaye recording as well.

In June of 1967, Aretha Franklin went to #1 with her version of Otis Redding’s “Respect.” With that record as his model, Whitfield again brought “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” into the studio later that year, this time with Gladys Knight and the Pips. This version was faster than the versions he produced for the Miracles and Gaye, with the intention to “out-funk” Aretha.

Gordy reluctantly approved the Pips version for release. It rose to #2 on the pop chart and went to #1 on the r&b chart, where it remained for six weeks. It became Motown’s biggest-selling single to that point.

The Gaye version ended up on his 1968 album In the Groove. The first single from that album, “Chained,” hit #32 on the pop chart. “Grapevine” got the attention of some radio disc jockeys, who gave it airplay. Said Gordy, “The DJs played it so much off the album that we had to release it as a single.”

Marvin Gaye’s version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was released as a single in fall of 1968. In mid-December it went to #1 on both the pop and r&b chart, and stayed on top of each for seven weeks, becoming Motown’s biggest hit to date. The week this went to #1 on the pop chart, Motown had the top three hits (#2 was “Love Child” by Diana Ross & the Supremes and #3 was “For Once in My Life” by Stevie Wonder.) The company held onto the top three for four consecutive weeks. “I Heard It through the Grapevine” bookended the r&b #1 slot in ’68 – the Pips’ version was #1 on January 1 and Gaye’s was #1 on Dec. 31.

By the time his “Grapevine” was released Marvin Gaye already had 23 top 40 pop hits. This was his first #1.

Gaye’s version made Rolling Stone’s list of the Greatest Songs of All Time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

“I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was the first collaboration between Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield. The duo went on to compose “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” for The Temptations.

Marvin Gaye died at age 44 on April 1, 1984, shot to death by his father the day before his birthday. The gun used was a Christmas present from Marvin.