Let the music play on
Welcome on board to the Nostalgia page. I am Kolapo Olayiwola and I would be taking you on a historical journey into the lives and times of our favorite musicians, including how they were made, their successes and their failings.
How Chic created their biggest tune after being denied entry at studio 54
"Le freak" one of the biggest disco tunes was produced by Chic out of frustration and rejection. After Chic released their first single "Dance Dance Dance" in 1977 and the single did very well on
the billboard charts by going straight to No 1 on the disco charts and No 6 on the pop charts.
The success of "Dance, Dance, Dance" changed the lives of Nile and Benard in terms of who they now
rub shoulders with in the industry also they had now become rich by the virtue of the single selling
over a million copies resulting to more money in their pockets .
During one of the industry meetings they ran into Grace Jones sometimes in December 1977 and
she asked both Nile and Benard to join her at studio 54(one of the hottest disco night clubs in New York)
THE RISE AND FALL OF MUSICAL YOUTH
A band betrayed by accountants ,lawyers and the record company which led to the members going into depression, robbery, drug use and ending up doing menial Jobs, Fred Waite and George Grant were friends from Jamaica and Fred used to be part of a band called the techniques and they were a fairly successful band, George also used to play music with his friends and they used to jam at George's place, playing instruments like Piano and Violin, while Watching their father and his friends play the Grant boys started showing interest in Instruments. Mike loved the Piano and Kevin loved the Guitar, having seen how interested his boys were in Playing musical instruments George now got in touch with his friend Fred Waite to help sharpen The skills of the boys.
Midnight Star :The rise of the Kentucky band and why the Calloway brothers left the band.
Midnight star was formed by Reggie Calloway and Bill Simmons while studying at the Kentucky State University, they then invited fellow students, Belinda Lipscomb, Melvin Gentry, Kenneth Grant And Bo Watson to complete the band, Reggie later invited his brother Vincent who was still a high school student to join the band. After getting the group together they all left the university campus to move to Reggie and Vincent's Mum's house
In 1984 Ray Parker Jnr had semi-retired from music at the age of 29 due to the illness of his parents and he was looking after them in Detroit and he was really settling down there away from all the razzmatazz of music and show business.
One day in Detroit while still looking after his parents he got a call from Jheryl Bursby who was In charge of Black/ R&B music on MCA label, he wanted wanted Ray to go to Boston and see New Edition
Ghostbursters
Deniece Willaims
The Deniece Williams Story
One day while going through the tapes submitted, there was a cassette submitted by one of Stevie Wonder's background singers, the young lady happened to be Deniece Williams. On the cassette were some great songs but even the voice on those songs were amazing and it is what one would call a producer's delight
The group was formed in 1992 in Minneapolis by two brothers Terry "T low" Brown and Raphael "Tweety"Brown, according to the brothers because of the physical abuse they suffered from their Mother they found refuge in going for choir practice in the church and this led to their musical skills Being developed which apart from voice training also included learning how to play musical instruments.
After the New Edition/Bobby Brown tour in 1989, Johnny Gill started the recording of his 1990 Album titled Johnny Gill, the production of the album was shared between two teams of super Producers LA & Babyface and the other team ( Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis).
LA & Babyface during the mid eighties were one of the production teams to go to if you needed a hit, they had the charts filled up with so many records. They produced for Bobby Brown, Karyn White, Mac Band, Pebbles .
The late Jheryl Busby had been poached from MCA by Motown to become their President and Chief Executive.
Orlando Julius Ekemode
“Going back to my roots”, a song written and released in 1977 by Lamont Dozier, the song was produced by Stewart Levine and Hugh Masekela.
The song was Reproduced by Odyssey in 1981 and it did well in the European charts and fairly well in The R&B charts in the USA
The song according to an embittered American born Nigerian Orlando Ekemode Julius was based on a concept of his song called “Ashiko” , which he produced in the late 60's and it was a song which he normally rehearses with his band to make it sound better.
The classic Five were Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin .
In the beginning Otis Williams had a singing group which originally consisted of Melvin Franklin,
Aly Bryant , James Crawford, Richard Street and Otis, these five succeeded in securing a record deal With Johnnie Mae a record label owner who swindled them out of the royalties from the first record Which was a minor hit.
Then One Night in 1960 while performing at a community center, in walked a local star and his group (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles) they were accompanied by a song writer/Business man who was about starting his record label ,his name was Berry Gordy .
The Temptations with David Ruffin
How prince kicked out Alexander o Neal out of the Time.
In the 80's Roger Nelson introduced us to the Minneapolis sound and he had started
To burn the charts and rule the airwaves. This young man was none other
than the artiste we all know as Prince .
Having been successful with his first two albums he needed to spread his wings ,
So sometimes he would jam with some of his friends to get new sounds. Among them
Was this young Prince lookalike, Morris Day, who had a song which Prince liked and
wanted, so he asked what Morris wanted in return for the song, a credit that they wrote
The song or to help him set up his band and also get a record deal.
