The Spinners are an American rhythm and blues vocal group that formed in 1954 and are still active. They enjoyed a string of hit singles and albums during the 1960s and 1970s. Formed in Detroit, Michigan, the group still tours regularly as of 2015, although Henry Fambrough is the only remaining original member.
The group is also listed as the Detroit Spinners and the Motown Spinners (for their 1960s recordings with the Detroit label). These other names were used in the UK to avoid confusion with a British folk group also called the Spinners. In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Philippé Wynne was an American singer. Best known for his role as the lead singer of The Spinners. Wynne scored notable hits such as “How Could I Let You Get Away”, “The Rubberband Man”, and “One of a Kind”.Wikipedia.
Phoebe Snow (born Phoebe Ann Laub; July 17, 1950 – April 26, 2011 was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for her 1975 song “Poetry Man”. She was described by The New York Times as a “contralto grounded in a bluesy growl and capable of sweeping over four octaves.”
Professional life
It was at The Bitter End club in 1972 that Denny Cordell, co-owner (with Leon Russell) of Shelter Records, was so taken by the singer that he signed her to the label and produced her first recording. She released an eponymous album, Phoebe Snow, in 1974. Featuring guest performances by The Persuasions, Zoot Sims, Teddy Wilson, David Bromberg, and Dave Mason, Snow’s album went on to sell over a million copies in the United States and became one of the most acclaimed recordings of the era.
This spawned a Top Five single on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Poetry Man” and was itself a Top Five album in Billboard, for which she received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. The cover of Rolling Stone magazine followed, while she performed as the opening act for tours by Jackson Browne and Paul Simon (with whom she recorded the hit single “Gone at Last” in 1975). 1975 also brought the first of several appearances as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live, on which Snow performed both solo and in duets with Paul Simon and Linda Ronstadt. During the 1975 appearance, she was seven months pregnant with her daughter, Valerie. Her backup vocal is heard on Paul Simon’s hit song “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” along with Valerie Simpson and Patti Austin, from 1975. She also duets with him on the song gospel-tinged “Gone At Last”. Both songs appear on Simon’s Grammy-winning 1975 album “Still Crazy After All These Years”.
Legal battles took place between Snow and Shelter Records. Snow ended up signed to Columbia Records. Her second album, Second Childhood, appeared in 1976, produced by Phil Ramone. It was jazzier and more introspective, and was an RIAA Certified Gold Album for Phoebe, with the Gold Album awarded on July 9, 1976.[13] She moved to a more rock-oriented sound for It Looks Like Snow, released later in 1976 with David Rubinson producing. 1977 saw Never Letting Go, again with Ramone, while 1978’s Against the Grain was helmed by Barry Beckett. After that Snow parted ways with Columbia; she would later say that the stress of her parental obligations degraded her ability to make music effectively. In 1979, she toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada with noted guitarist Arlen Roth as her lead guitarist and Musical Director. In 1981, Snow, now signed with Mirage Records, released Rock Away, recorded with members of Billy Joel’s band; it spun off the Top 50 hit “Games”.
The 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide summed up Snow’s career so far by saying: “One of the most gifted voices of her generation, Phoebe Snow can do just about anything stylistically as well as technically … The question that’s still unanswered is how best to channel such talent.” Snow spent long periods away from recording, often singing commercial jingles for AT&T and others in order to support herself and her daughter.Later, in the 1990s, Snow’s voice was featured on commercials for Cotton Incorporated and their The Fabric of Our Lives campaign. During the 1980s she also battled her own life-threatening illness.Snow sang the theme song for NBC’s A Different World during the show’s first season (1987–88).
Snow returned to recording with Something Real in 1989 and gathered a few more hits on the Adult Contemporary charts. Also, Snow composed the Detroit’s WDIV-TV Go 4 It! campaign in 1980. She sang Ancient Places, Sacred Lands composed by Steve Horelick on Reading Rainbow’s tenth episode The Gift of the Sacred Dog which was based on the book by Paul Goble and narrated by actor Michael Ansara. It was shot in Crow Agency, Montana in 1983.
Snow performed in 1989 on stage at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City as part of Our Common Future, a five-hour live television broadcast originating from several countries.
In 1990, she contributed a cover version of the Delaney & Bonnie song “Get Ourselves Together” to the Elektra compilation Rubáiyát which included Earth Wind & Fire guitarist Dick Smith. In 1992, she toured with Donald Fagen’s New York Rock and Soul Revue and was featured on the group’s album recorded live at the Beacon Theater in New York City. Throughout the 1990s she made numerous appearances on the Howard Stern radio show. She sang live for specials and birthday shows. In 1997, she sang the Roseanne theme song a cappella during the closing moments of the final episode.
In 1995, Snow participated in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True at the Lincoln Center in New York City. In addition to Ms. Snow, the Concert featured performances by Jewel, Joel Grey, Roger Daltrey, Jackson Browne amongst others. Snow sang a very distinctive medley of “If I Only had a Brain; a Heart; the Nerve”. An album of the concert was released on Compact Disc on Rhino Records as catalog number R2 72405.
Snow joined the pop group, Zap Mama, who recorded its own version of “Poetry Man,” in an impromptu duet on the PBS series, “Sessions At West 54th.” Hawaiian girl group Na Leo also had a hit on the Adult Contemporary chart in 1999 with their cover version of “Poetry Man”.
In May 1998, Snow received the Cultural Achievement Award by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. She was also the recipient of a Don Kirschner Rock Award, several Playboy Music Poll Awards, New York Music Awards and the Clio Award.
Snow performed for U.S. President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, and his cabinet at Camp David in 1999.
In 2003, Snow released her album Natural Wonder on Eagle Records, containing ten original tracks, her first original material in fourteen years. Snow performed at Howard Stern’s wedding in 2008, and made a special appearance in the film Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom as herself. Some of her music was also featured on the soundtrack of the film. Her Live album (2008) featured many of her hits as well as a cover of “Piece of My Heart”.
Death
Phoebe Snow suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on January 19, 2010 and slipped into a coma,enduring bouts of blood clots, pneumonia, and congestive heart failure. Snow died on April 26, 2011 at age 60 in Edison, New Jersey.
Stacy Lattisaw (born November 25, 1966) is an American R&B, Dance and gospel singer. From her debut in 1979 until 1990, she sang mostly R&B and Pop music. Since the 1990s, she has exclusively sung gospel music.
Career
When she was a teenager in the early 1980s, Lattisaw had a string of Top 40 R&B hits, with several songs— “Let Me Be Your Angel”, “Jump to the Beat”, “Love on a Two-Way Street”, and “Miracles”—crossing over to the pop mainstream. Lattisaw recorded her first album for Cotillion Records at the age of 12 in 1979, under the direction of record producer Van McCoy. However it was not until she affiliated with Narada Michael Walden, a former drummer with the Mahavishnu Orchestra who was just beginning a career as a producer, that she found success. Under Walden’s direction, she had five hit albums between 1981 and 1986. She also opened for the Jacksons Triumph Tour in 1981. From Lattisaw’s 1982 album Sneakin’ Out, Mariah Carey used a sample of the song “Attack of the Name Game” (R&B #14) for her 1999 #1 hit “Heartbreaker.”
Lattisaw continued recording into the late 1980s, signing with Motown in 1986. She scored her only #1 R&B hit with frequent duet partner Johnny Gill, titled “Where Do We Go from Here”, in 1989. While the success was great, she grew increasingly disenchanted with the record industry. By the early 1990s, she decided to retire from the music industry and concentrate on raising her family. Her official website stated that she was to work on a gospel CD. In 2010, Lattisaw’s music career was chronicled on the TV One docu-series Unsung, in which she also appeared.
Over the course of their career, the Temptations have released four Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles and fourteen R&B number-one singles, and their material has earned them three Grammy Awards. The Temptations were the first Motown recording act to win a Grammy Award – for “Cloud Nine” in 1969[5] – and in 2013 received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Six of the Temptations (Edwards, Franklin, Kendricks, Ruffin, Otis Williams and Paul Williams) were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Three classic Temptations songs, “My Girl”, “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”, and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, are among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The Temptations were also ranked at number 68 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of all time.
Deniece Williams (born June Deniece Chandler; June 3, 1950) is an American singer, songwriter and record producer who achieved success in the 1970s and 1980s. Williams is known for hits such as “Free” (1976), “Silly” (1981), “It’s Gonna Take a Miracle” (1982), “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” (1984), and for her duets with Johnny Mathis.
Career
Born in Gary, Indiana, Williams attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, in the hopes of becoming a registered nurse and an anesthetist, but dropped out after a year and a half. “You have to be a good student to be in college, and I wasn’t.”[1] She also performed on the side during that time. (“I got a part-time job singing at a club, Casino Royal, and I liked it. It was a lot of fun.”) During those years Williams worked also in a telephone company and as a ward clerk in the Chicago Mercy Hospital.[1] As Deniece Chandler, she recorded for The Toddlin’ Town group of labels and one of those early records, “I’m Walking Away”, released on Toddlin’ Town’s Lock Records subsidiary in the late 1960s, is a favorite on England’s Northern Soul scene. In the 1970s she became a backup vocalist for Stevie Wonder as part of “Wonderlove”.
She left Wonder in 1975 and after signing to Columbia Records, she teamed up with two famed producers: Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, and his frequent collaborator, Charles Stepney. Her 1976 debut album entitled This Is Niecy was released. The single “Free” reached No. 2 on the Black Singles chart, No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on the British Singles chart. The album also featured “Cause You Love Me Baby” (which charted separately on the R&B chart as the flip side of “Free”) and “That’s What Friends Are For”. She also shared a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with pop singer Johnny Mathis in 1978 with the duet “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late”. The duet also topped the Black Singles and Adult Contemporary charts. Williams also topped the dance charts with her disco single “I’ve Got the Next Dance”. Mathis and Williams also recorded the popular theme to the 1980s sitcom Family Ties, “Without Us”. Williams moved on to the American Recording Company (ARC) in the early 1980s where she scored the top ten R&B smash hit “Silly” in 1981. The following year, yet another famed producer, Thom Bell, helped Williams score another number-one R&B chart-topper with her remake of The Royalettes’ “It’s Gonna Take a Miracle”, which became a Top 10 pop hit as well, reaching No. 10.
“Hero” is a song by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey. It was released on October 19, 1993 via Columbia Records as the second single from Carey’s third studio album, Music Box (1993). Originally intended for Gloria Estefan, the song was written by Mariah and produced by her and Walter Afanasieff. While writing the song, Carey did not connect to its style or sound, therefore forfeiting it over to the soundtrack of the film of the same name. However, after being convinced to keep it, she personalized it, giving it a more pop and R&B melody,[citation needed] as well as changing some of the lyrics to more precisely fit her personality. Lyrically, the song is regarded as one of Carey’s most inspirational and personal ballads, with its protagonist declaring that even though we may feel discouraged or down at times, in reality we are “heroes” if we look inside ourselves and see our own inner strength; in time, it will help us “find the way.”
The song received mixed reviews by contemporary music critics for its lyrical content, while Carey’s vocal performance was praised. Aside from its lyrics, “Hero” derived its hook and sound from several musical instruments such as the guitar, piano and organ. The song experienced strong success in several international markets, and also became Carey’s eighth chart topper on the Billboard Hot 100. Additionally, it was ranked number 53 on the Decade-End Chart. Outside the United States, “Hero” enjoyed strong charting, reaching the top five in Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway and the top ten in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Due to fan requests and letters, as well as their connection to its personal meaning and content, the song remains one of Carey’s most performed songs. Deemed by many as her signature song, the song was originally performed on The Arsenio Hall Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Hey Hey It’s Saturday during its original chart run. Additionally, Carey performed it on several live telethons and specials, such as Pavarotti and Friends and Michael Jackson & Friends in 1999, America: A Tribute to Heroes in 2001, Live 8 in 2005, and the inaugural ball for Barack Obama in 2009. Additionally, the song was featured on the set-lists of all of Carey’s tours, usually serving as the encore or closing number, and making its debut during the album’s accompanying set of concerts, the Music Box Tour. The song was included on several of Carey’s compilation albums, #1’s (1998), Greatest Hits (2001), The Ballads (2008), and #1 to Infinity (2015).
Throughout the course of her career, Carey has re-recorded the song twice, and filmed other music videos aside from the original. The first music video for the song was filmed by Larry Jordan in July 1993 during a private concert at Proctor’s Theatre, later released on the home video Here Is Mariah Carey. In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, Carey re-recorded the song as a mash-up single titled “Never Too Far/Hero Medley,” a medley with her single at the time, “Never Too Far.” Additionally, prior to the release of her compilation album The Ballads, Carey re-recorded “Hero” and filmed a new video featuring behind the scenes footage of the studio. “Hero” won two ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards, one ASCAP Pop Music Award and one BMI Pop Award for the Songwriter Award. The song has been covered many times during both studio and live recordings, such as on global singing competitions.
In 1964, he moved to a new label (Baltimore’s Ru-Jac Records) and released “I’m a Lonely Stranger”. When Otis Redding heard this, he asked Conley to record a new version, which was released on Redding’s own fledgling label Jotis Records, as only its second release.[2] Conley met Redding in 1967. Together they rewrote the Sam Cooke song “Yeah Man” into “Sweet Soul Music”, which, at Redding’s insistence, was released on the Atco-distributed label Fame Records, and was recorded at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It proved to be a massive hit, going to the number two position on the U.S. charts and the Top Ten across much of Europe. “Sweet Soul Music” sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[3]
After several years of hits singles in the early 1970s, he relocated to England in 1975, and spent several years in Belgium, settling in Amsterdam (Netherlands) in spring 1977. At the beginning of 1980 he had some major performances as Lee Roberts and the Sweaters in the Ganzenhoef, Paradiso, De Melkweg and the Concertgebouw, and was highly successful. At the end of 1980 he moved to the Dutch town of Ruurlo legally changing his name to Lee Roberts—his middle name and his mother’s maiden name. He promoted new music via his Art-Con Productions company. Amongst the bands he promoted was the heavy metal band Shockwave from The Hague. A live performance on January 8, 1980, featuring Lee Roberts & the Sweaters, was released as an album entitled Soulin’ in 1988.
