Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “Billboard”

MUSIC MONDAY: “The Song Is You” – a Tribute Playlist to Legendary Song Stylist Nancy Wilson (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “The Song Is You” – a Tribute Playlist to Legendary Song Stylist Nancy Wilson (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 21, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Hey, it’s Lori, GBN’s Editor-in-Chief, stepping in with this week’s Music Monday share. As yesterday was what would have been song stylist Nancy Wilson’s 85th birthday, I have crafted an 85-song tribute playlist that spans her six decades-long recording career.

A prolific singer who recorded and released 52 albums, three-time Grammy Award winner Wilson was one of the greats who often is not given her just due in popular music history. For a time in the 1960s, Wilson was the second biggest recording artist at Capitol Records – the biggest being the Beatles.

Born on February 20, 1937 in Chillicothe, Ohio, Nancy Sue Wilson knew by the time she was four years old she would be a singer. By her teen years she won a talent contest and began performing on a local television program called Skyline Melodies, then became its host.

She soon met jazz saxophonist and bandleader Julius “Cannonball” Adderley, who was impressed with her talent and suggested she move to New York City. The move lead to Wilson landing a recording contract with Capitol and releasing her first single and album in 1960.

The first five songs that kick off this compilation are some of Wilson’s best known recordings, some of which charted on Billboard Magazine’s pop and/or R&B charts: “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am” – Pop #11; “Save Your Love For Me” – R&B #11; “Tell Me The Truth” – R&B #22 – others which are considered Nancy Wilson standards.

From Wilson’s rendition of  “Fly Me To The Moon” off her first album, Like in Love, until the playlist’s conclusion, I’ve ordered the songs to play mostly in chronological order, to offer a sense of how Wilson’s music and voice developed from the 1960s on.

Highlights include her recordings with George Shearing and Cannonball Adderley (The Swingin’s Mutual and Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley are two classic Nancy Wilson albums that deserve to be purchased and heard in their entirety), and the live tracks from The Nancy Wilson Show recorded live at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the tracks from one of my personal favorite Nancy Wilson albums, 1971’s But Beautiful, where she is backed brilliantly by the Hank Jones Quartet.

I’d also like to point out Wilson’s superlative cover of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” from her 1970 album Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and the utterly surprising and borderline funky “Tell The Truth” from her 1974 All in Love is Fair LP written by Wilson along with Tennyson Stephens. And YES, the first line is “Bitches taking money and they livin’ well.” Seriously, enjoy.

There are more treasures than I can count in this playlist, especially her later recordings towards the end of her career before she stopped recording such as “When October Goes,” “Peel Me A Grape” and “The Golden Years.”

Wilson passed in 2018 but her music deserves and needs to continued to be appreciated and shared for generations to come. To quote GBN music contributor Jeff Meier from his Facebook tribute to Wilson when she passed:

“While she was probably not a jazz purists favorite jazz performer, a pop fan’s favorite pop singer, nor a soul fan’s top soul artist, she was something in the middle, an accurately self-proclaimed ‘song stylist’ who was a true pioneer in African-American ‘supper club’ entertainment, blending the best from the American songbook – pop, jazz, blues, show tunes into one stylish mix.

In the vein of Johnny Mathis and Lena Horne, she was beautiful, elegant, classy – and therefore also the perfect archetype of ‘guest’ to help integrate television in the early ’60s, when she was regularly featured on variety shows like Andy Williams, Hollywood Palace, Danny Kaye, Smothers Brothers, Carol Burnett and many more.

She is undoubtedly what Columbia Records was trying to turn Aretha Franklin into before Aretha broke free for Atlantic to become her true self. Good thing, because just as there was only one Aretha, there was also only one Nancy Wilson.”

I hope you enjoy this playlist, and please know we are still working behind the scenes on re-creating and offering our playlists via Apple Music for those who would like a non-Spotify option. As soon as they are ready, I’ll be sure to post and let you know.

2/22/22 UPDATE:

Good Black News is now officially on Apple Music! Going forward, we will offer all MUSIC MONDAY playlists on both platforms. Slowly but surely, we will add the playlists from past Music Mondays on Apple Music as well. Enjoy!

MUSIC: All 9 Jackson Family Siblings Have Now Had Solo Hits on the Billboard Charts

By goodblacknews on June 16, 2016
The Jackson Five photographed in Amsterdam circa 1977.   (GIJSBERT HANEKROOT/REDFERNS)
article by Trevor Anderson via billboard.com
Tito Jackson joins his brothers and sisters like Michael and Janet, and scores his first solo hit on the Billboard charts with “Get It Baby.”  With the single’s recent debut, Tito becomes the ninth and final Jackson family sibling to place a solo single on the charts.
Michael Jackson’s Top 50 Billboard Hits
For over 45 years, the Jackson family has been charting hits — stretching back to the 1969 debut of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” on the Billboard Hot 100. In the following decades, the children of Joe and Katherine Jackson all embarked on solo careers, most spectacularly with Michael Jackson. By 1989, eight of the nine siblings had reached the charts.
“Get It Baby,” featuring Big Daddy Kane, debuts at No. 30 on the Billboard + Twitter Top Tracks chart dated June 11, and climbs 29-26 on the Adult R&B Songs airplay chart in its second week.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASwsMOy-pA]

The Jackson siblings’ solo chart runs date back to October 30, 1971, when Michael Jackson’s debut single, “Got to Be There,” started at No. 89 on the Hot 100. Since Michael kicked off his string, nine of the Jackson children have scored hits on a Billboard songs chart (listed in birth order):
Maureen “Rebbie” Jackson – seven charted titles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, including two top 10s in 1984’s “Centipede” (No. 4) and 1988’s “Plaything” (No. 8).
Sigmund “Jackie” Jackson – two charted titles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, including a 1989 top 40 hit “Stay” (No. 39).
Tito Jackson – “Get It Baby” debuted at No. 29 on Adult R&B Songs on the June 4, 2016 chart and Billboard + Twitter Top Tracks the following week.
Jermaine Jackson – 17 charted titles on the Hot 100, including two top 10 hits: “Daddy’s Home” in 1973 and “Let’s Get Serious” in 1980. Both cuts peaked at No. 9.
LaToya Jackson – nine charted titles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, including four top 40 hits. Her highest ranking track, “Bet’cha Gonna Need My Lovin’” climbed to No. 22 in 1983.
Marlon Jackson – two charted titles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, including the No. 2 smash “Don’t Go” in 1987.
Michael Jackson – 50 charted titles on the Hot 100, including 13 No. 1s, the most by any male artist in Hot 100 history.
Steven “Randy” Jackson – three charted titles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (one as a solo artist and two as part of Randy & The Gypsys). Of those three, 1990’s “Love You Honey” scored the best rank, topping out at No. 16.
Janet Jackson – 40 charted titles on the Hot 100, including 10 No. 1s.
Of course, the Jacksons also made music history working together. The Jackson 5 — a lineup consisting of Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael and Tito — scored Hot 100 No. 1s with their first four releases on Motown: “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There.”
After a break with the label, the group shifted to Epic Records and was renamed The Jacksons (with Randy replacing Jermaine). The new quintet racked up three more Hot 100 top 10s between 1977 and 1984.