RARE EARTH!!! A Motown white act! I didn't like them promoted that way but I saw them once!
The baton! Twisting! What fun! 🙂
This is the first song I ever fell in love with. Still do. 
@lana Hi Lana!! I bought the 45 of This Old Heart of Mine in 1966. It's on the Tamla lable. One of Barry Gordy, Jr's subsidiary labels.
It's a great song!!
Also in 1966 at the same record shop, Globe Records, I bought this one on the Motown label which was Gordy's main label. But first .....
James Jamerson plays bass and played bass on almost everything on the Motown labels then. Paul McCartney recently said Jamerson was his favorite bass player when he was young but those Motown albums and singles didn't list the players so McCartney didn't know the players name until years later. But he knew his style from listening to those Motown records during the early days of the Beatles.
Here is the other song and I may have bought it the same day as This Old Heart of Mine. I was 20;in 1966.
Just looking at my old collection of 45's and here is another 45 I bought in 1966.
This recording went to number ONE on the singles chart in 1966.
Also the great Hal Blaine is on drums. 3,000 singles. 150 top 10 singles. His headstone says " May he rest on the 2 and 4". The 2nd and 4th beat of a measure of music.
Back to when I was 14. I saw this girl group at an old vaudeville theatre in my hometown live on stage. It was late 1960 and Kennedy was just elected President.
This song, I later discovered in the early 70's, was written by Carol King with words by her then husband Gerry Coffin.
It was the group I much later read didn't like the song as it was a country song to them. But they reluctantly recorded it and strings were added and in November,1960 it became Number ONE on the Billboard singles chart.
And the group became the first African American female group to have a number one single on the Billboard Top 100 singles.
Carol King re-recorded it in 1971 for her Tapestry album which sold 10 million copies.
@robertdee Hi, RobertDee, it seems we liked a lot of the same music back in the 60s. My friends and I were obsessed with Tamla and Motown. We heard/read that some of the artists also worked at Hitsville USA, specifically Martha Reeves as a receptionist. So one afternoon after school we got together at a bar owned by one of our friends' Mom. Why? Because we wanted to call Motown and she was unlkely to notice one long distance call on the business phone bill ... unlike our parents and home phone bills. Crafty, huh? (aside: the bar had the greatest jukebox ever which we could play for free) Sooo, we called Motown. When a woman answered she barely got the word "hello" out of her mouth before we asked, "Who is this?". When she said, "Martha. How can I help you?" We screamed and hung up! How's that for cool? Lol.
Another favorite song:
@lana Hi again Lana!! Yes and I think he was billed as LITTLE Stevie Wonder when he first appeared on Motown.
I think some years ago a car in which Stevie was riding was involved in an accident in Winston Salem, NC and Stevie was injured and spend a few weeks in Baptist hospital there.
The Motown sound was contagious and I liked their sound then and still do.
Here is one I bought from 1965.
@lana Oh that story is cute!! It reminds me of a story the late Robert Osborn a host on Turner Classic Movies told. Osborn was a struggling actor when he first came to Hollywood and someone told him Lucille Ball now has full control of Desilu Studios and she likes to help young talent just getting started.
So Osborn said he got up his nerve and called Desilu and a voice said " Thank you for calling. This is Desilu Studios" and Osborn said " Is Miss Ball available? The voice on the phone said " In Lucille Ball".
She helped him get parts in several TV shows in the 1960's. I saw him the other day in an old Beverly Hillbillies episode.
@RobertDee, my friend Oscar and I actually got to meet Diana Ross. I worked at a radio station when I was in high school and also had a friend who was a photographer for the local newspaper. That combination provided a lot of fun experiences.
@lana Well that is interesting. And indeed fun.
I imagine Diana Ross was Motown 's most important female talent. At some point in the 1960's Motown changed their billing from "The Supremes" to Diana Ross and the Supremes".
Also I think she eventually went solo and the Supremes added a new lead singer and continued on and went back to just " The Supremes". But that version of the Supremes didn't sell many records.
Once I met Otis Redding and Jaimoe may had been his drummer but I didn't know anything about Jaimoe then.
I asked Otis what he thought about Aretha Franklin covering R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Otis said he loved it and she did knock it out of the park. And said hers sold more than mine but I made more money off her version than she did because Otis wrote it!!:)
Phil Walden was his manager as you know.
I saw J. Frank Wilson at an old vaudeville theatre on stage in the 1960's and I was a teen and helping out at the theatres and even changed the signs at the downtown theatres a Mr. Hines ran.
J. Frank Wilson showed up drunk and mean. The band was mean too and blasted. Cussing and threatening each other. They were in a beat up Ford Station Wagon with an equipment trailer hooked to the back bumper.
Once they got on stage they were okay I guess.
A few years ago I thought about J. Frank Wilson and Googled him and he died in his 40's of liver failure and alcoholism.
@RobertDee, good morning! btw, it was Oscar's (in the photo above) Mom who owned the bar with the great jukebox. Here's an article you might enjoy: https://www.thisdayinmusic.com/liner-notes/50-motown-records-facts/
@lana Fantastic Lana!! Thank you so much!! I've been reading that article for an hour. It has everything anyone would want to know about Motown.
Barry Gordy once worked for Ford in the assembly line. Motown is a nickname for Detroit because so many motors were built there.
Noticed James Jamerson was mentioned and given lots of space. Said he played bass on almost all Motown songs.
I mentioned the other day Paul McCartney was really into the bassist on most of the Motown songs and he was Paul's favorite bass player. But the recordings back then at Motown didn't list the musicians names so McCartney didn't know the name of his favorite bass player until many years later. It's James Jamerson!!! And here he is!!!
@lana Lana Oscar looks like a friendly and pleasant guy in the photo with you.
I never knew anyone who's mother owned a bar:)
Is Oscar still with us? I hope so.
@robertdee, good morning! Thnk you for asking. Here is the story of Oscar and his mom Molly:
https://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/06/07/101640-the-end-of-an-era-for-two-superior-icons
Much love!
@lana Well I'm disappointed Oscar is gone at age 62. And his mother, Molly, just two months earlier at 99.
They were certainly an interesting and amazing pair.
I'm sure it was a big loss for you Lana.
And Oscar was a huge Motown fan and kept the jukebox at Molly's loaded with Motown records.
And Diana Ross was his favorite. Well Diana was fabulous.
The Supremes and the Four Tops were my all time favorite girl and boy groups at Motown.
We haven't heard from the Four Tops on this thread. I think this from 1965 is my favorite. And what a voice the late Levi Stubbs had!
@robertdee, one of my favorite Four Tops songs also showcases Levi Stubbs:
@lana Oh yes Lana. Bernadette was a great Four Tops song!! They had several huge hits. Reach Out And I'll Be There was huge.
I especially liked how well they covered the British rock song Walk Away Renee originally recorded by the Left Bank.
Remember this?
@robertdee, I sure do remember Walk Away Renee. Both the original version and the Four Tops'. Great song! Here is a song that literally changed my life:
The local radio station used to post the Top 40 in their lobby every week. The aforementioned friends and I would stop by to see it on the way home from school. One afternoon a DJ came out into the lobby to say hi. He also asked what our favorite songs were. My friends froze, but I emphatically said "Uptight by Stevie Wonder". His repsonse was, "Uptight? Why?" "I don't know. I guess because it has soul." "Soul? What does a little girl from northern Wisconsin know about soul?"
What he didn't know was that aside from loving the Isley Brothers I, as so many kids did, listened to radio stations from Chicago and Shreveport, LA under the covers on my transistor radio when I was supposed to be sound asleep at night. Soul and blues ruled!
Anyway, based on that I was hired by the station for a job they created - their "teen ambassador". The job was to come in after school and/or on weekends, listen to all the 45s they got and tell them which I thought were hits. I also pulled news off the teletype, did some filing, etc. Whenever the station held a dance or concert I was part of the station's crew. The pay wasn't much but I got tons of free records, never had to pay for dances or concerts and met a lot of cool people.
So, thank you Stevie Wonder! You changed my life! Take care and know that you are loved.
@lana Lana that is a wonderful story from your youth. Those were great discoveries for you especially working at the radio station. I remember teletype machines typing away from another city with news, weather, sports etc. Some called them "tickers".
And eventually the big box of paper behind the machine running up and through it had to be changed before it ran out.
I remember Walter Cronkite discussing working in the CBS Newsroom in New York when suddenly the teletype rang FIVE BELLS for a major bulletin!! Cronkite said he went " Oh my this will be big" and he walked to the machine and it read " Three shots were fired at the Presidential motorcade in downtown Dallas. It is not know if anyone was hurt".
Uptight and Alright is one of THE BEST Motown sound songs. So great to dance to. It's infectious. Similar to This Old Heart of Mine by the Isley Brothers.
You had some special and memorable experiences growing up in upper Wisconsin. Working at a top hits radio station was unique indeed and such interesting responsibilities.
I leave you with a Stevie Wonder song I love which is a wish for the best to come your way!!
Another single I purchased in 1966 was this. I was hearing it on Top 40 radio and on the Jukebox in the places I went to eat, drink and dance etc.
Occasionally in the 1960's a crooner song would cross over to become a top 40 hit.
When I got home with it and played it on my 45rpm record player my dad said, " You finally bought one I enjoy".
Another odd piece of music to make the top 40 in 1967 I bought was this written and conducted by Italian conductor Ennio Morricone.
The movie was a big hit at the box office too.
TV series ( Rawhide) star Clint Eastwood stars along with the great Broadway stage actor Eli Wallace in an unusual role for him and long time film and various dramatic TV shows heavy Lee Van Cleef. ( I saw Van Cleef the other day playing a heavy in an episode of the Lone Ranger and when he gets his blanket off his horse to camp out it has the German Nazi symbol all over it!!! WTF. It's a 1952 episode but still!)
Alfie was another theme which became a big hit back then. I saw the movie. I left kinda depressed.
And this song and movie were huge in 1964.
