When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated world leaders and foreign dignitaries from across the world made their way to Washington DC to attend the state funeral. Among the distinguished guests was Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. Just a month before this, in October 1963, Selassie had been in the US addressing the United Nations General Assembly. Selassie delivered a powerful speech promoting peace and human rights, which was later published, with Selassie giving permission for the speech to be used freely. Bob Marley And The Wailers did just that, they put parts of the speech to music and released the song on their 1976 Rastaman Vibration album. The lyrics to War were only slightly modified from the actual speech, and it has become one of Marley's greatest classics. Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia since 1930, had gained a lot of respect across the world ever since his majestic 1936 speech to The League Of Nations in Geneva. That year Haile Selassie was celebrated in the US as Time Magazine's "Man Of The Year". When that 1936 speech was delivered Mussolini was invading his country - Selassie would spend the next five years in exile. His warnings in that visionary speech were ignored, and within just three years World War II broke out.
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In 1964, Eric Burton's English pop band The Animals hit number one in the UK and in the US with their rendition of Rising Sun Blues. The traditional folk song has been covered countless times, and it is older than the first known recording from 1937. Woody Guthrie recorded the song in 1941, and Lead Belly recorded it in 1944 and again in 1948. In the late 1950's it was recorded by Frankie Laine, and by Andy Griffith. And in the early 1960's the song was featured on debut albums of both Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. In 1962 Nina Simone released her first version of the song, which is said to have inspired The Animals to cover it. The Animals first used the song in 1964 as a closing song when they were touring London with Chuck Berry. Because of the huge response they were getting, they found a small studio to record the song between gigs. They recorded The House Of The Rising Sun in just one take, and it has come to be their signature song. It appeared on their second album, a second self-titled album from the band. Other successful recording followed - Frijid Pink recorded the song in the late 1960's, and Dolly Parton recorded it in the early 1970's. More recently it has been recorded by rock band Five Finger Death Punch. Nobody can claim rights to the song, and it can be recorded and sold by anyone royalty-free.
The Marvelettes were formed in 1960 by five teenage girls in a Michigan high school glee club, and in 1961 the group was signed to Motown Records - they were one of the young labels first successful bands. Their first single - Please Mr. Postman - was the first Motown Records single ever to hit number one on the charts. It was also one of the first times an all-girl group hit number one. The group had used the song for their audition, which they reworked from a friend's original blues song. Most of the early recordings by The Marvelettes, including Please Mr. Postman, featured Marvin Gaye on Drums. Twenty-two year old Gaye was trying to break into the industry, and he was working at Motown Records as a session drummer. When this song was recorded in 1961 people relied heavily on the postal service, it was one of the main ways people communicated. There were many other mail-related hit songs in this period, such as Return To Sender by Elvis and Signed Sealed Delivered by Stevie Wonder. At ten years old, country singer and songwriter Dolly Parton was already performing on radio and TV in Eastern Tennessee, where she grew up with twelve siblings in a one-room cabin. In 1964 she graduated from high school, and the following day she moved to Nashville. The day she arrived there she met Carl Dean, the man she would soon marry, at the Wishy-Washy laundromat. They were married in 1966, and the following year she connected with country entertainer Porter Wagoner, who she would spend the next eight years working with. Wagoner had invited her to be co-host on his TV show, where the two became famous for their duets. Eventually, it became time for the two to split, and in 1974 Parton showed her appreciation to Wagoner by writing him the song I Will Always Love You. The song was her second consecutive number one hit as a solo artist. At the time, Elvis Presley wanted to record a cover of the song. Parton's initial excitement faded when she realized that she would have to sign over half of her publishing rights - a common demand of Elvis when recording covers. Parton turned down the offer, and because of that she kept many millions of dollars that would have been taken from her by the Elvis estate. Northern Irish singer and musician Van Morrison was twelve years old when he started his first band, and when he was seventeen he toured Europe with his band for the first time. In 1965 he wrote the garage rock anthem Gloria, which he recorded with his band Them. When he went solo in 1967 he recorded his most popular song - Brown Eyed-Girl. In 1989 Morrison released his nineteenth studio album, Avalon Sunset, featuring his classic ballad Have I Told You Lately. It is thought that the song is about Morrison's relationship with God, although he has never been very specific when talking about this song.
Shuggie Otis grew up in Los Angeles, California, and he learned to play guitar when he was two years old. His father was rhythm and blues pioneer Johnny Otis - a multi-talented musician and TV personality who discovered numerous artists including Jackie Wilson, Big Mama Thornton and Etta James. At twelve years old Shuggie was playing in his fathers band, disguising himself with and fake mustache and sunglasses so he could perform in clubs. In 1970, at seventeen, he released Here Comes Shuggie Otis, his first solo album. His second album, 1971's Freedom Flight, features the song he is most known for - Strawberry Letter 23. The song was a love letter to his girlfriend, and for this twenty-third letter the young lover penned a song. The number of letters to his girlfriend shows the strength of his love, he even refers to his Letter 22 in the song. Shuggie's album and song both charted well, getting the attention of producer Quincy Jones. In 1977 Jones produced The Brothers Johnson album Right On Time, which features a funkier pop version of Strawberry Letter 23. Their cover of the famous Otis love letter hit number one on the soul singles chart. In 1991 Jones produced another cover version of this song for thirteen-year old Tevin Campbell's debut album.
Why Can't We Be Friends is the title track, and the final track, on the seventh album from California-based funk band War. The song was recorded in 1974, and it earned the group a Grammy nomination in 1976. That year War also was nominated for the song Lowrider, which appears on the same album. Why Can't We Be Friends makes a clear statement - that one shouldn't judge another by their differences. On the song each member of the band gets to sing their own verse. The harmonica player Lee Oskar from Denmark struggles on his verse, he was just learning to speak English at the time - "I may not speak right, but I know what I'm talking about."
In Detroit, Michigan in the mid-1970's, singer Al Hudson formed himself a backing band and named them The Partners. The band, which included singer Alicia Meyers as front-woman, would sometimes go by the name The Soul Partners. They recorded four albums before changing their name in 1979 to One Way featuring Al Hudson. Eventually the band would change it's name to simply - One Way. The final single before the band changed it's name was You Can Do It. The 1979 song had appeared on their album Happy Feet, which was released the same year. The song features Myers on vocals, who would leave the band to go solo in the early 1980's. One Way released ten albums in the 1980's, and they had two dozen charting hits, including 1982's Cutie Pie - their biggest hit at number four on the charts. Leon Haywood had his first charting single in 1965 with the song She's With Her Other Love. He had numerous charting hits since then, including his notorious I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You and Strokin' Pt. II. In 1980 Haywood released Don't Push It, Don't Force It. The song revived the swing jazz shuffle beat, and it reached number two on the US R&B charts. This was the only song Haywood ever hit the charts in the UK with, and it is because of this song that he is called a "one-hit wonder" there. The following year in 1981 Haywood wrote and produced the song She's A Bad Mama Jama (She's Built She's Stacked) for Carl Carlton - and he recorded the song as well. That song hit number two on the charts, and it earned Carlton a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male in 1982. In 1979 James Warren and Andy Davis formed the British pop band The Korgis. The band is best known for their 1980 international smash hit Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime, The song, written by guitarist and singer Andy Davis, appears on the band's second album Dumb Waiters. The song has been re-recorded by the band in various alternate versions numerous times over the years. It has also been covered by other artists dozens of times, including by Yazz and by The Dream Academy. Additionally, there have been numerous successful house and techno cover versions, and the song has been sampled and used across many genres of music. The song utilizes a unique instrument for pop music, as can be seen in the video, it is a very ancient Chinese instrument called a Guzheng (pronounced "Goo-Zheng"). |
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