I was about to enter my freshman year at a small, socially backward engineering college in Philadelphia. Officially I would major in chemistry, but off the record I would major in college radio. Those radio skills were to be far more important than my degree in the long run.
So what were you up to?
Cue the Rockumentary theme!
This band was Motown’s Funk Brothers backed with pickup musicians from the Detroit Symphony.
Billy weighed in at about 400 pounds, which was not good for his heart or his general health. He had been singing gospel since he was 12, and his family had their own radio show in DC. He switched to the popular side of music and rubbed shoulders with Don Covay, Marvin Gaye and Bo Diddley before joining Bo as a piano player. He signed with Chess Records in Chicago and developed his own style of scat singing, an art form that had lived briefly in the Forties. He had the fastest mouth and largest body of anyone in the business. He died in 1970 at age 33 in a car accident.
The song is from the opening of “Porgy and Bess”, the George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and Dubose Heyward opera of 1935 that changed the American musical stage.
He WAS a big dude! Had some pipes, though!
In August, 1966, my father, a music teacher, church choir director, vocalist and fan of the classics heard us listening to this song on Boss Radio 93 KHJ. He hit the ceiling and charged Billy Stewart with committing an out-and-out travesty for what he did to a Gershwin classic, and he warned us that we were developing poor tastes in music.
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 America demands Justice for the Fallen of Benghazi! |
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