Zoom Meeting #2
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
Forum Name: Chat Board
Forum Description: Chat away but please observe the chat board rules
URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9545
Printed Date: 02 May 2025 at 4:59pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.07 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Zoom Meeting #2
Posted By: Paul Haney
Subject: Zoom Meeting #2
Date Posted: 27 January 2021 at 5:22am
|
Since there was such a good response to our first online meeting, I thought we might try it again.
I'm looking at Sunday - February 21st - preferably in the afternoon (say 3PM Central time). The first one was fun, but kind of all over the place. I'd like to make this one a little more formatted. Maybe going around the horn and having each person talk a little bit about themselves and sharing with the group how they got started collecting and what and how they collect their music. If you are interested in joining, drop me a PM (with your current e-mail address) and we'll go from there. Hope to see you in February! |
Replies:
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 27 January 2021 at 9:10am
|
Paul - I'm in!
I know there were a few people on the last call who were too shy to ask their questions, so I'd suggest soliciting questions from people in advance. The questions can be directed at specific people, or to the group as a whole. Looking forward to it! Thanks, Ron G (Oops - this was supposed to be a PM, but it works as a public post.) ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 27 January 2021 at 9:48am
|
Good idea, Ron!
Again, I'd like to give everyone a chance to talk a little bit about themselves and their music collection. However, if anyone can think of any general questions for the group (especially if you can't make the meeting), then please feel free to post them in this thread! |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 27 January 2021 at 9:48am
| Also, I'd like to limit the meeting to around 15 or so participants. So please let me know as soon as you can! |
Posted By: Chartman
Date Posted: 27 January 2021 at 11:49am
Any chance Joel could be one of those 15? I know it's a no go but doesn't hurt to ask! |
Paul Haney wrote:Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 29 January 2021 at 2:14am
|
Thanks to everyone who has responded so far!
There's still a few spots open, so please drop me a PM if you think you'd be interested. |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 29 January 2021 at 5:45am
|
I sent you a PM Paul. Hopefully I can make it in.
------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 29 January 2021 at 6:56am
Thanks, Jody. You're in! |
Posted By: davidclark
Date Posted: 30 January 2021 at 9:27pm
|
I would love to join, but I would have to be awake (and coherent) at 4am my
time. sigh... ------------- dc1 |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 31 January 2021 at 12:40pm
|
It looks like we've now got a full house for the next Zoom meeting. As of today (Sunday - January 31st), everybody
who asked to participate should be in. Hopefully I got back to most of you (if I didn't, I apologize). It's still 3 weeks away yet, so let me know if you can't make it in case somebody else wants to join. Thanks and hope to see you all then! |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 31 January 2021 at 12:47pm
| Looks like I got in, in the nick of time! I really enjoyed the last one and hope we continue to do them. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 03 February 2021 at 4:21am
|
Just a quick update...
The meeting is now full. Thanks to everyone who responded. I may even have a surprise guest or two. I'll be posting reminders as we get closer to February 21st. Should be fun! |
Posted By: Ringmaster_D
Date Posted: 03 February 2021 at 6:29am
|
Hi Paul,
Not sure how I missed this thread. Let me know if a slot opens up for me. I enjoyed it so much the first time around I hate to miss it. Dave |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 04 February 2021 at 7:25am
|
I'm looking forward to it myself, really enjoyed the
last one. |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 05 February 2021 at 8:15pm
|
I have a question for those who worked in radio at any
point time. What was the determining factors of playing a new song other than the issuance of a single? It seemed Top 40 would wait as long as they could before they began playing a new record. I know they believed that any R&B or country crossover should be fueled by a Top 10 on that chart first. I'm from NY and our R&B stations were extremely competitive and aggressive in what they played. They were called by labels several times and told not to play that song (atleast not yet anyway). WBLS and WRKS would play album cuts (future singles) and in one case gave the Commodores an unforeseen crossover mega- seller in "Three times a lady" which was regarded by Motown as filler. How aggressive were your PD's with the "spice tracks" that other stations weren't playing and were they ever told by labels to "Knock it off"? |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 05 February 2021 at 8:20pm
|
Where did you read or hear that Motown regarded "Three Times a Lady" as filler? I guess nothing should surprise me, but that does. That really was the 1st piano-based, fully AC ballad hit for Lionel, and that style became a staple of what he wrote. Maybe the label thought of it as a 3rd or 4th single (which would be shortsighted) but just an album cut?
Sorry to get off your topic. I'm curious to what other people have to say to your main point. |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 05 February 2021 at 10:31pm
|
Someone from Motown (perhaps Gordy himself called Hal
Jackson) who was program director of WBLS in 1978 in NYC and told him to stop playing "Three times a lady" as it wasn't a song they thought had any potential. By 1986, Hal hosted his own show, Sunday classics in which he would discuss many of his many encounters from the 30's to then present day. He made 96 and did the show up until a week before his death in 2011. Listening to Hal was like opening an encyclopedia. Lionel made a solid career out of that sound but before that they drove as hard as the Ohio Players on the funk side. You never know how things are going to shake out. You'd think Mr. Gordy might have learned that the first time when he almost didn't release Marvin's "What's going on"Lp. Did you hear about that one, Edison? |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 06 February 2021 at 1:35am
|
The "What's Going On" story rings a vague bell. Did Gordy think it was too political a message and want Marvin to stick to more love-oriented topics or something?
Those Hal Jackson stories/shows sound like they were really good. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 06 February 2021 at 5:48am
|
Adding records back then varied from market-to-market (and sometimes even station-to-station). In my
home market of Minneapolis/St. Paul (during the 1970s), the major Top 40 stations would only add certain R&B crossovers if they were huge sellers. In 1981, WLOL went Top 40 and they started opening up the market to more of those R&B hits. They were also more aggressive than KDWB on adding new artists and as a result, their ratings were very solid for most of the decade. Ironically, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, KDWB suddenly got hot and ended up the big Top 40 winner, a position they still hold today. As for album cuts, KDWB played quite a few of them during the 1970s. Mostly the big rock artists, catering to the upper mid-west listeners musical tastes at the time. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 06 February 2021 at 7:32am
|
Although I'm not questioning the accuracy of the
story, I find it somewhat hard to believe that Berry Gordy would have a problem with a station playing "Three Times A Lady" a little early. Why? 'Natural High' the album was released in May without an advance (or contemporaneous) single. Generally when a label does that to a hit act it means they want the radio stations and public to find "the hit". Well, the stations found it... This wasn't too common of a practice, although hit bands like Three Dog Night oftentimes did it that way. I do recall, though, many instances of a label having a release strategy with singles and not wanting radio to jump on an album track that might already be slated as the third single when the second single hasn't been released yet - basically they wanted maximum impact with the forthcoming video they hadn't started on yet.. Does anyone else have anything to add to this or similar stories to tell? Andy |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 06 February 2021 at 12:10pm
|
I was working at a small AM station in 1978 when Three
Times A Lady came out. The PD at the station had an odd way of putting new music in. Basically, if it was on the Hot 100 and we had received the record from Record Source International in Cincinnati, then we played it. I seem to remember Three Times A Lady getting a lot of requests and RSI didn't always service us with all the hits so I may have had to go to the local Murphy's or Fisher's Big Wheel in that town to buy the 45 for the station. I know I had to do that for Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad from Meat Loaf. Ahh, small town radio, lol. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 06 February 2021 at 10:55pm
|
"Three times a lady" has very soft vocals almost like
whispering Bill Anderson on the country side of things. Motown probably wasn't really thinking A/C crossover at this time from their leading funksters. "I like what you do" and "Visions" were the most original cuts. Gordy wasn't also thrilled with some of the themes in Marvin's "What's going on" despite Edwin Starr has a huge hit with with "War." It always helps to make sure the PD gets a promo. They even had issues in NYC getting promos. |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 06 February 2021 at 11:03pm
When Bobby Brown's Bobby dropped, the label had a huge release party broadcast over several radio stations where they played much of the album during that party. Wrks followed suit by playing singles early and it wasn't taken so well over at MCA. I heard every track on NY radio from both Guy albums, Babyface's "Tender lover", and Johnny Gills 1990 Motown album. |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 07 February 2021 at 9:28pm
|
Interesting reading these comments. I would have
thought that when an album was released, it was fair game for any track to be played on the radio. I guess the labels didn't want top 40 stations to play songs that weren't singles, because it could take time away from playing the songs that they were promoting as singles? When an album was released, in most cases were all the singles planned out in advance (for example, they knew which would be the second single, which would be the third, etc.) or was it decided on on the fly? Sometimes its obvious which songs should be singles but was the order of release always set in stone, or did it vary based on whims of the label, or strong responses on certain songs? In reading Billboard over the years, it seems that some songs they said would be later singles never did get released. I know that when "Thriller" was in the midst of its run, the plan was originally to make "Human Nature" the last single, but because sales of the album were still so strong, they kept releasing them. Was there a scenario which occurred more frequently? |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 07 February 2021 at 9:37pm
| There were so many sealed LPs that had stickers on the outside saying "featuring the singles..." or "featuring the songs..." - I think in both cases anything on the sticker would have been considered a future single. But in many cases, those songs that the label highlighted for the outside sticker ... did not end up being singles at all. |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 07 February 2021 at 10:57pm
|
Like all art, what the next single would be was never
set in stone and alot depended on how the early singles did. If they didn't do well, the label would usually cut their losses with a hole punch and trip to the cut-out bin if the cost of warehousing a title exceeded any benefit of future expected sales. Atlantic Starr had a number of album air cuts before was monitored at Billboard and they did it to sell the album. A&M didn't release those probably to sell the album but if you listen to "Secret lovers", their ballads weren't easy to edit with vocals having to be cross-faded. I remember reading that promoters wanted country to drop a song after it peaked. In 1991, Billboard used accurate monitoring of sales and airplay and the logjam on the pop chart began. In the end, Billboard slowly ushered in new expanded rules for their recurrent chart to increase the desired upward movement. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 08 February 2021 at 6:33am
Extremely accurate statement there AutumnAarilyn. However, sometimes with a hot act with a hot album, labels would plan a release strategy with singles, videos and other "emphasis cuts for select formats" in advance of the second single or even the release of the LP. Labels didn't like deviation; however when the public or radio demanded a change (e.g. an album track was getting unusual attention) OR when the project strategy was failing (i.e. a single was stiffing) the labels were quick to abandon original plans (to either make more money, or to cut losses). Andy |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 09 February 2021 at 8:19pm
|
By the 80's, albums had songs slated for different
formats. Black radio typically was a wake-up club in the morning, hot urban AC in the day time, a R&B top 40 in evening, and free form Quiet Storm ballads at night with all sorts of jazz mixed in. Any rap was limited to the evening section and this held until about the mid 90's. Many ballads weren't released as singles as those listeners had more money to buy albums and the listener usually didn't want a truncated ballad. Atlantic Starr was one of those groups. If you listen to the Spinners first album on Atlantic, the shortest songs were the hit singles and many ballads go on for 6 plus minutes and got heavy airplay especially at night. |