On March 10, 1967, Aretha Franklin released her 11th album, but her first on Atlantic. She had had limited success while under contract with Columbia Records.
In January 1967 she had signed to Atlantic Records and under the aegis of Jerry Wexler she traveled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record at Rick Hall‘s FAME Studios to record the song, “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You).” Tom Dowd was the engineer and the musicians of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section [The Swampers] played.
Quite a backing!
King Curtis – tenor saxophone
Carolyn Franklin – background vocals
Erma Franklin – background vocals
Cissy Houston – background vocals
Willie Bridges – baritone saxophone
Charles Chalmers – tenor saxophone
Gene Chrisman, Roger Hawkins – drums
Tommy Cogbill – bass
Jimmy Johnson – guitar
Melvin Lastie – trumpet, cornet
Chips Moman – guitar
Dewey Oldham – keyboards
Aretha Franklin Never Loved
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Atlantic had released the single of I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You on February 10 and it wouldreach #1 on the R & B chart on March 25 and stayed there until May 12.
Atlantic released her next single, Respect, on April 29. It reached #1 on the R & B chart a week after I Never Loved a May the Way I Love You left. Respect stayed there until July 14.
The album itself eventually was certified a gold album.
Side one
“Respect” (Otis Redding) – 2:29
“Drown in My Own Tears” (Henry Glover) – 4:07
“I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” (Ronnie Shannon) – 2:51
A year later In February 1968, Franklin earned a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
In June 1968, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
Aretha Franklin Never Loved
And in 2014 she sang at the White House. And 47 years later Aretha Franklin could still sing the socks off the song.
Aretha Franklin Never Loved
Reference: Paste magazine article: “50 Years the Queen: Aretha Franklin’s Seminal Album I Never Loved a Man The Way I Love You Hits the Half-Century Mark”
Aretha died on August 6, 2018. In her obituary the Guardian wrote “…it was that quality of exaltation that raised her above a remarkable generation of church-trained soul divas. Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick, Candi Staton, Etta James, Mavis Staples, Tina Turner and many others… but Aretha Franklin was the greatest of them all
The Four Preps formed in 1956 and sang great harmonies. Their biggest hit was in 1958: 26 Miles. They appeared on TV, on popular shows, and with popular stars.
But the 50s were finished and it was…
Four Preps Write Beatles
Beatlemania arrives
March 1964. The Beatles had arrived with their three consecutive weeks on the Ed Sullivan Show and their Meet the Beatles the #1 album (since February 15 and would remain there until May 1).
Then The Beatles Second Album would hit #1 and remain there until June 5. Then from July 25 until October 30 those damn Beatles would have another #1 album, Hard Days Night,
Between April 4 – May 8, five of their singles “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “Twist and Shout”, “She Loves You”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and “Please Please Me” had been top five songs.
AND the week of April 11, the Beatles had 14 songs in the top 100:
Can’t Buy Me Love
Twist & Shout
She Loves You
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Please Please Me
Do You Want to Know a Secret
I Saw Her Standing There
You Can’t Do That
All My Loving
From Me To You
Thank You Girl
There’s A Place
Roll Over Beethoven
Love Me Do
In total, The Beatles will have five #1 singles in 1964.
Four Preps Write Beatles
Four Prep strategy
The Four Preps
So it was completely understandable when on March 9, 1964 Capitol Records, the company that released almost all of the Beatles’ songs in the US, decided to cash in on such a gold mine. Written by Ivan Ulz, Glen Larson, and Bruce Bellard, Letter to the Beatles was a novelty song in which a boyfriend wishes his Beatle-maniac girlfriend would get her mind off of those Beatles.
My girl fell in love with a singing group From England far away. She lost her mind, she lost her heart, When they began to play, “I want to hold your hand, I want to hold your hand, I want to hold your hand. “And so my girl wrote a letter to The Beatles, Saying “You’re so fine. You can have my love to keep, Take this heart of mine. ” (Well) “Beatles, I’d give you anything, All of my true love. “But they wrote a letter back to her, Sayin’ that ain’t enough. You gotta send us twenty-five cents for an autographed picture, One dollar bill for a fan club card. And if you send in right away You get a lock of hair from our St. Bernard. (oh no) I want to hold your hand.
On April 11, 1964 Billboard magazine reported that Capital Records has stopped pressing the Four Preps single of “A Letter to the Beatles” because Duchess Music, the American licensor, refused to give Capital permission to cover a parody of an actual Beatles disk…”The song burst out of the gates and did well until Duchess Music, the publisher of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” refused to give permission to used the song in their song (which they had).
So close!
Four Preps Write Beatles
Have a listen…
For those (many) of you who have never hear the song, here you go.
Four Preps Write Beatles
Ironically, the Four Preps continue (mostly) today while the Beatles broke up more than 50 years ago. And in 2007 “The clean-cut West Coast-based” band was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
Bill Graham’s Fillmore East was the counterpart to his San Francisco-based Fillmore venues. Located at Second Avenue and Sixth Street in New York City’s East Village, the Fillmore East began as the Commodore Theater in 1926. Immediately before becoming the Fillmore, it was known as the Village Theater.
Bill Graham Fillmore East
Wolodia “Wolfgang” Grajonca
Graham was born Wolodia “Wolfgang” Grajonca in Berlin, Germany on January 8, 1931. During World War II, with his father dead, the Nazi pogrom underway, and his mother gassed to death on a train to the Auschwitz concentration camp, Grajonca fortunately became part of a group of children that the International Red Cross enabled to ultimately escape to the United States where he was placed in an upstate New York army barracks.
Later, a Bronx family brought him to live with them. Though not a citizen, he was drafted into the army and served meritoriously in the Korean War. Graham’s first experiences with entertainment came when he worked in various New York Catskill resorts, such as Grossinger’s (Liberty), the Concord Hotel (Kiamesha Lake), and the President Hotel (Swan Lake).
Bill Graham Fillmore East
San Francisco Mime Troupe
In the mid-1960’s, Graham was drawn to concert promotion while business manager for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a radical theater group. [On November 1, 1965, Graham had presented his first show, a benefit for the San Francisco Mime Troupe.]
Graham eventually found success promoting and presenting such bands as the Jefferson Airplane, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and famously the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore Auditorium (between 1966 and 1968) and later at the Fillmore West (beginning July, 1968).
Bill Graham Fillmore East
Fillmore East
Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East on March 8, 1968 with blues guitarist Albert King, folk singer-songwriter Tim Buckley, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. The hall’s characteristic schedule was a two-show triple-bill concert several nights a week. Graham would regularly alternate acts between his east and west coast venues. Until early 1971, he booked bands both Friday and Saturday nights to play two shows per night–8 pm and 11 pm, The late show might not end at 3 AM or later.
Complimenting FM radio stations then recent forays into progressive rock formats whose DJs exposed rock music lovers to so-called underground bands with their extended improvisational jams, the Fillmore East fed the growing appetite for live music venues and presented those bands as well as introducing upcoming groups such as Santana and Sly and the Family Stone.
Bill Graham made the Fillmore a safe haven where kids could experience the music they wanted without getting busted. As he wrote in a letter published in the Village Voice just before the Fillmore’s closing: it was my sole intention to do nothing more, or less, than present the finest contemporary artists in this country, on the best stages and in the most pleasant halls.
The list of performers who played at the Fillmore East is a “Who’s Who” of rock and roll greats. A very partial list includes: the Grateful Dead (39 shows over 28 dates); Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies; John Lennon and Yoko Ono who performed with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; the Allman Brothers (whose double-album Live at the Fillmore East is ranked 49th amongst Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”); Jefferson Airplane; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Joe Cocker; Miles Davis; Derek and the Dominoes; The Chambers Brothers; Mountain; Ten Years After; and Johnny Winter.
Bill Graham Fillmore East
Joshua Light Show
An integral component of each performance, the Joshua Light Show provided a psychedelic art lighting backdrop behind bands . From the summer of 1970, Joe’s Lights, made up of former members of the Joshua Light Show, became the house light show, trading duties with The Pig Light Show until the venue’s closing.
By 1971 Graham had become disenchanted with the direction of the music promotion scene and closed both Fillmores. According to Graham: The time and energy that is required for me to maintain a level of proficiency in my own work has grown so great that I have simply deprived myself of a private life. At this point I feel that I can no longer refuse myself the time, the leisure, and the privacy to which any man is rightfully entitled.
The Fillmore East closed on June 27, 1971; 1206 nights after it opened.
