|
|
Beach Bits: One of our great founding forefathers, Benjamin Franklin, was quoted as saying there were only two things
certain in life: death and taxes. That being said, this month's Beach Buzz column will be somewhat abbreviated due to the
fact that I am way, way behind on gathering information, calculating and submitting my income tax return. To top it off, last
week I get a letter from the IRS questioning the entries on my 2014 Federal return. Pretty intuitive of them, considering
I had not yet filed a 2014 return!! Can you say identity theft?
|
|
The Mighty Saints
Of Soul
Hot music: Just received in my email: an awesome new groove from the Mighty Saints Of Soul called I Fell In Love.......Our Alabama favorite, the right Reverend Bubba
D. Liverance has an exciting new song, A Night Like This, that will soon be moving up the charts...............Pam Russell,
aka Shaggie Maggie, teams up with the Felix Five on Shake It Out & Let It Go.........Allie Privette's rendition of the mid-'70's classic I've Got A Bone To Pick With You is new, fresh and starting to get
some rotational play........Movin' And Groovin'
is the title of the next KHP compilation, with the title track being a fine version of the song from Durham, N.C.'s
Phil Wilson........Paul Craver will have a new tune on the compilation entitled Don't Let Love Walk Out On Us. The song was written by the late Charles Richard
Cason, who penned songs for dozens of artists in his career, including the Temptations, Fifth Dimension, Dramatics, Johnnie
Taylor, Al Wilson, Denise LaSalle, Garland Green, Sam and Dave, Shirley Brown and ZZ Hill ....... Blackwater R&B Band
will have their latest, Dance Tonight,
on the comp as well.......
This lady continues her string of amazing original
tunes! Lesa Hudson's latest charter is entitled Get
Your Feet On The Floor. The same can be said of bandmate and song creator Rick Strickland. His latest, It Is What It Is, has a cool funky Tower of Power like sound to it............Tim
Cashion, in between road gigs with Grand Funk Railroad, has found time over the last several years to do some fine music production
in the Beach world. Love Again is his
latest big hit. Tim's full album, Feeturing,
should be available this week......This band name has been out there in Beach music now for approximately twenty four
years and they keep right on coming up with hit singles. The Holiday Band's latest song climbing the charts is Turn Down The Lights....
|
|
|
Two Charlotte area bands, Too Much Sylvia and Summerdaze,
have been battling it out (not consciously, LOL!) over the last oh, say year and a half to see who can have the most songs
hit the charts. 2MS has previously scored big with All I Wanna Do Is Dance, Stepped Right Outta My Dream and Complicated. Their latest hit is Bring
It On Back. Summerdaze had strong charters with Something Fried, Somebody Throw'd Bad Luck On Me and Shoot That Moon. Their latest is called Gotta Lotta Love featuring Cassie Kessler on lead vocals......
Farewell My Summer Love, a duet with Mark Bost and Mark Black, is
doing well on the National Beach Music Top 40 chart........ Another one that has moved up slowly but surely there is Steve
Owens & Summertime's Don't Let Our Love
Start Slipping Away from their Second
Time Around album.........Candi Staton's I
Ain't Easy To Love from her 2014 Life
Happens CD has spent some time this year on the National chart. Candi's
Beware She's After Your Man from the
same album hit our Southern Soul Smokin' Top 45 chart in July of last year.......Also from the Southern Soul arena, have you
heard Pat Cooley's shag version of her latest hit single Hold Still?..... Blues sensation Ruthie Foster's Let Me Know from her 2014 Promise
Of A Brand New Day album is an outstanding song that has seen some National Beach chart action this year........'90's
dance club diva CeCe Peniston hits the National chart with a current strong groove entitled Nothing Can Stop Me......
Forevermore Records latest hot single features the
Godfather of Beach, Jackie Gore, together with the Royal Drifters on a rendition
of My Little Girl Is Smiling........We
mentioned Olly Murs in last month's Beach Buzz - his song Dance With Me Tonight has begun to hit all the Beach music charts........Three Beers For Breakfast (now there's a concept!) is making some noise for the
Catalinas featuring Dwight Nichols............The 2014 Carolina Beach Music Rising Star Award went to the Marsha Morgan Band.
Their most recent tune is a rendition of the late
'90's Southern Soul jam This Girl Needs A Tune
Up.........
SOS Spring Safari Parade
It is almost SOS Spring Safari time once again! The
official dates this year are April 17th through April 26th with the annual SOS Parade being held on Saturday, April 25th.
As usual, there is a full lineup of bands and/or DJ's at the Spanish Galleon, OD Beach Club, Fat Harolds, Ducks, Pirates Cove,
Deckerz, HOTO's, 2001, Swillie's Hideaway and possibly some others I have failed to mention. OK, I'll go out on the proverbial
limb here and say the Deckerz SOS Spring lineup of bands is amazing!! A really good mix of the old and the new, and something
a little different! Check it out:
Swashtones
4/17
Smokin' Hot
4/18
King Tyrone
4/19
Tommy Black Band
4/20
Carolina Breakers
4/21
Holiday Band
4/22
Marsha Morgan Band
4/23
Midnight Allie
4/24
Shag Doctorz
4/25
By all means, support all the venues if possible
if you attend. During this special time, I personally love the late night DJ's at Pirates Cove, the ambience of Fat Harolds
and Ducks and band lineup at the Galleon. No matter what entertainment spot you choose, it is hard to go wrong at Spring SOS!
Memphis, Tennessee in the '60's and '70's, was a
hotbed for pure Soul music, with several tunes eventually ending up on the jukeboxes at the beaches of the Carolinas and beyond.
High volume producers of the music in the city were the Stax/Volt studios and later the Hi Records label. Although this vocal
group did not record at either of those historic labels, the Ovations were a prominent entity in Memphis that transcended
both decades. Lead singer Louis Williams, who had previously been in such groups as the 4 Kings, Del-Rios (together with William
Bell) and Montclairs, was with the Ovations from their beginning in 1964 until
they disbanded a dozen or so years later. The Ovations first recorded output was on the Goldwax label, whose artist list included
Percy Milem (I Slipped A Little) and
James Carr (Dark End Of The Street). Williams
was joined by Nathan Lewis and Elvin Lee Jones to form the original trio. I'm Living Good and Me And
My Imagination were their only charting hits on the label, although many of the group's singles during this period
are prized collectors items. The Goldwax label folded in 1969 amid royalty disputes leading to the breakup of the original
group.
Williams soon re-formed the Ovations with Rochester
Neal, Bill Davis and Quincy Billups, Jr., who were former members of Ollie & The Nightengales. Some of the Ovation's finest
work was recorded in the early '70's on the Sounds of Memphis label, a subsidiary of MGM Records. Killer tracks included Don't Break Your Promise, Hooked On A Feeling,
Touching Me, Don't Say You Love Me (If You Don't Mean It), I Can't Believe It's Over,
and I'm In Love. The
Ovations only Billboard Top 10 R&B song came about in 1973 with their medley adaptation of the Sam Cooke classic Having A Party. The tune also made it to #7 on the Beach Music Top
40 in 1974. Famed song composer George Jackson was part of the group at different
points in time and wrote or co-wrote several Ovations tunes. Their final recordings
as a group were a few singles on both the Chess and XI labels in the mid- '70's.
Artists, DJ’s,
Club owners etc. send me your latest news for potential inclusion in Beach Buzz at nealfur@aol.com.
|
