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| From | Michael Myers <mmyers1446@yahoo.com> |
| Subject | Re: JB, black stations et al - NYC and WWRL |
| Date | Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:45:35 -0800 (PST) |
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Bill;
I lived about 35 miles outside of NYC in northern NJ, and I don't remember WWRL coming through on my little transistor radio lol... I'll have to check with my friends to see if they remember being able to listen to it... it's cool you had that extra station to listen to... I also wonder if there was actual black ownership in that station, I wonder what the story behind that was...
cool contribution! thanks!
Mike
________________________________
From: Bill <billm45s@verizon.net>
To: audities@smoe.org
Sent: Tue, December 22, 2009 7:34:51 PM
Subject: Re: JB, black stations et al - NYC and WWRL
I will agree that this is an interesting discussion and I think I agree a little with and disagree a little bit with everyone.
First, I also got of grade school in Brooklyn back in 1965 and Mike is right that the main top 40 stations in NYC at that point WMCA and WABC played a large cross-section. However, he is wrong in that there were NYC black stations. I recall listening to WWRL (1600) quite a bit, which was the number one black station at the time and they played a much wider cross section of black music, than you heard on MCA or ABC (MCA was broader than ABC, which had a very limited playlist). There were some great DJs on WWRL, including Bobby Jay and Frankie Crocker who was also on MCA for a time. Also during the 60's WLIB was primarily a black station that played jazz. It was later purchased by Percy Sutton.
And James Brown was rarely (almost never) played on MCA or ABC. They played lots of Motown and some other, usually sweeter soul (think the Impressions or even the Drifters early on), and the more popular Stax-Atlantic artists. MCA also played the last remnants of some of the girl groups and New York Doo-Wop. BUT WWRL played James Brown and as I recall more of the Stax/Atlantic artists and lots more of the old New York R&B artists.
That said, I totally disagree that the Beatles were nothing in the black community. No they weren't James Brown but they were listened to and appreciated by almost all of my black friends. Occasionally you could even hear a white artist usually the most soulful of the blue-eyed soul singers) on WWRL. I could be wrong, but I think they played "You've Lost That Lovin Feelin" and some Young Rascals songs ("Groovin", in particular I believe).
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Myers" <mmyers1446@yahoo.com>
To: <audities@smoe.org>
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 9:27 AM
Subject: JB, black stations et al
> interesting discussion and generally correct but I just wanted to add couple thoughts regarding the discussion about "black stations" in the 60's... I got out of grade school in 1965 and lived in the nyc metro area... basically EVERYBODY listened to top 40 AM radio, regardless of race and those stations played a real mix of stuff... I agree JB wasn't on much but every 3rd song was Motown... look back at footage of American Bandstand and the like and the audience was integrated to a large degree... I think the notion of "black radio" stations back in those days might better pertain to more rural areas, although I'm sure Detroit and some other cities might have had more black-focused radio... JB was huge of course ( ie his Appollo shows/records) but I think he reached the black audience through touring and other means... remember, the charts were also constructed from record sales data as well, not just from airplay counts... there weren't all that many
> black-owned radio stations back then
>
> also, remember that LOTS of black artists covered the Beatles (Wilson Pickett, Supremes, etc)... one has to ask why they did that if there was zero cross-influencing going on...
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Gregory Sager <hochsalzburg@yahoo.com>
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Sent: Sun, December 20, 2009 11:36:48 PM
> Subject: Re: RRHOF
>
>
>> Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2009 13:15:43 -0800
>> From: Joe Field <joe@flyingcolorscomics.com>
>> To: audities@smoe.org
>> Subject: Fwd: RRHOF
>> Message-ID: <3678bbf20912201315kdfd3924oab465f5ea324ed0c@mail.gmail.com>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Joe Field <flycojoe@gmail.com>
>> Date: Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 1:15 PM
>> Subject: Re: RRHOF
>> To: audities@smoe.org
>>
>>
>> I don't purport to be a music historian, by any stretch,
>> but I do think
>> Elijah Wald has a somewhat myopic view of his subject
>> matter. Sure, it's
>> daring and controversial to call the Beatles the group that
>> destroyed the
>> integration of music and the Billboard R&B
>> charts, but that's his thesis to
>> sell some books. Doesn't make it true or totally accurate.
>>
>> Yes, the charts were integrated to a large degree by 1963.
>> Some of that had
>> to do with the backlash against Pat Boone and others that
>> made black music
>> into their own white hits. Some of it had to do with
>> listeners wanting to go
>> to the original source of the black-written white hits
>> ---and a lot had to
>> do with the growing civil rights movement and the
>> integration of American
>> society in general.
>>
>> Still, I do stand with my comment that the door opened
>> slightly by Pat Boone
>> and others who made black songs into pop hits...and then
>> the Beatles totally
>> demolished that door when they came on the scene, reducing
>> the need for an
>> R&B chart.
>>
>>
>> Joe Field
>> http://flyingcolorscomics.com
>
>
> Sorry, Joe, but I couldn't disagree more. I don't see eye-to-eye with Wald on a lot of what he had to say in that book, but he was right about the fact that the Beatles did not have a black following and were not a unifying factor in terms of musical taste across racial barriers. The Beatles were mayonnaise on Wonder bread as far as their music were concerned, particularly once they became megapopular and started writing all of their own material. They weren't played on black stations, and they did not have a black fanbase in this country. As far as black America was concerned, the '60s was the decade of soul -- JB, Aretha, Stax-Volt, etc. -- and Motown. It was *not* the decade of the British Invasion for young black people in this country.
>
> If the need for an R&B chart had been reduced in the '60s, then how do you explain the career of James Brown? The Godfather of Soul had very limited success on the mainstream charts in his heyday, and very little airplay on the major stations. He had 18 Top 20 hits on the pop charts, no more than four or five of which ever got any airplay on white stations or get airplay on white-based oldies stations to this day. Only one of them, "I Got You (I Feel Good)" reached the top five on the pop charts (it made #3 in 1964). Yet he owned the R&B charts and was to black music stations in the '60s what the Beatles were to white stations. Over the course of his career he had a staggering *eighty* Top 20 singles on the R&B charts, 17 of which made it all the way to #1. If music had been truly integrated in the '60s, as myth would have it, then James Brown would've been little more than a footnote and Aretha, Otis, the Wicked Pickett, and a lot of other soul stars
> would've been much lesser figures in terms of sales and airplay.
>
> White America and black America had different ears, and different superstars, in the '60s.
>
>
> Gregory Sager
>
>
>
>
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