Marie Osmond
Olive Marie Osmond is an American singer, doll designer, and a member of the show business family the Osmonds. Although she was never part of her familys singing group, she gained success as a country music artist in the 1970s and 1980s. Her best known song is a cover of the pop ballad Paper Roses. From 1976 to 1979, she and her singer brother Donny Osmond hosted the variety show Donny & Marie. Olive Marie Osmond was born in Ogden, the daughter of Olive May and she was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the daughter of nine children, her brothers are Virl, Alan, Merrill, Donny. From an early age, her brothers maintained a career in show business, aside from her two oldest brothers, Marie was the only family member not involved in the music business. After the initial success of The Osmonds in 1970, Maries brother Donny gained success as a solo artist on the Pop Music charts and became a teen idol. The Osmonds management convinced Marie to give it a go and she signed with the record label, MGM/Kolob Records.
Her style was more directed towards music, in contrast with her brothers pop music. In 1973, Marie released her first single as a solo artist titled Paper Roses, the recording became a No.1 country hit, reached the Top 5 on the Billboard magazine pop chart, and achieved crossover success. The song earned a record as did the album of the same name. She released another single, In My Little Corner of the World, the title song on her next album, Whos Sorry Now, released in 1975, went to No.40. In 1977, Marie released her studio album titled This Is The Way That I Feel and was much different from her earlier country music where she covered several country artist hits. With the departure from the sound she went more in the direction of the pop style. This album had songs that were written for her as well as songs that were written by the Bee Gees, the album only had two singles and was not a commercial success. Additionally in 1974, Marie had two pop music hits with brother Donny, Im Leaving It All Up to You.
The former song was a Top 20 country hit, in 1984, Marie had a single on RCA Records called Whos Counting and only went to No.82 on Billboards Hot Country Singles
Donny Osmond
Donald Clark Donny Osmond is an American singer, radio personality, and former teen idol. Osmond has been a talk and game show host, record producer, in the mid-1960s, he and four of his elder brothers gained fame as the Osmonds. Osmond went solo in the early 1970s, covering such hits as Go Away Little Girl, for over thirty-five years, he and younger sister Marie have gained fame as Donny & Marie, partly due to the success of their 1976–79 self-titled variety series, which aired on ABC. The duo did a 1998–2000 talk show and have been headlining in Las Vegas since 2008, in 1989, Osmond had two big-selling recordings, the first of which, Soldier of Love, was initially credited to a mystery artist by some radio stations. Starting in July 1992, Osmond played Joseph in the Elgin Theatres Toronto production of Joseph, the musical toured North America until 1998. Creator Andrew Lloyd Webber chose him for the 1999 film version, in 2009, Osmond won the ninth season of Dancing with the Stars. Osmond appeared as a guest judge on Strictly Come Dancing on week 3 of the 12th series, Osmond was born on December 9,1957 in Ogden, the seventh son of Olive May and George Virl Osmond.
He is the brother of Alan, Jimmy, Wayne, Tom, Jay, Merrill and Donny were members of the popular singing group The Osmonds. Osmond was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah along with his siblings, Osmond has traced some of his family ancestry back to Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, his journey was documented in a BBC Wales program, Donny Osmond Coming Home. On the BBCs The One Show, a plaque was unveiled in the town to commemorate the ancestors of Donny Osmond, in his youth, Osmond held a ham radio license, KA7EVD. Andy Williams father, Jay Emerson Williams, saw the Osmond Brothers perform on a Disneyland televised special as a barbershop quartet, in short order, the group was invited to audition for The Andy Williams Show. In 1963, Donny Osmond made his debut on the show at the age of 5 singing You Are My Sunshine, the brothers continued to perform on the show throughout the 1960s along with a visit from their sister Marie. Osmond became a teen idol in the early 1970s as a solo singer, Bobby Sherman, and David Cassidy were the biggest Cover Boy pop stars for Tiger Beat magazine in the early 1970s.
His first solo hit was a cover of Roy Orbisons 1958 recording of Sweet and Innocent, in the 1980s, Osmond re-invented himself and abandoned the earlier television show image crafted to appeal to young viewers. They succeeded, returning Osmond to the US charts in 1989 with the Billboard Hot 100 No.2 song Soldier of Love, the campaign to market Soldier Of Love received considerable airplay with the singer being presented as a mystery artist before his identity was revealed. Launching an extensive tour in support of the Eyes Dont Lie record, he enlisted Earth Wind & Fire and Kenny Loggins guitarist Dick Smith along with keyboardist Marc Jackson. Osmond was often reluctant to perform his earliest songs, in particular Go Away Little Girl, now he embraces his initial recording period with fondness, and recognizes that his many fans around the world are always excited and appreciative to hear his earliest chart successes. Osmond was the guest vocalist on Dweezil Zappas star-studded version of the Bee Gees Stayin Alive which appeared on Zappas 1991 album Confessions, the song included guitar solos from Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Warren DeMartini, Nuno Bettencourt, and Tim Pierce
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music that began in the mid-1960s, with the garage and blues rock movements. It is typified by a use of aggressive vocals, distorted electric guitars, bass guitar, drums. Hard rock developed into a form of popular music in the 1970s, with bands such as The Who, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, AC/DC. During the 1980s, some rock bands moved away from their hard rock roots and more towards pop rock. Hard rock began losing popularity with the success of R&B, hip-hop, urban pop, grunge. Out of this movement came garage rock bands like The White Stripes, The Strokes, Interpol and, on, in the 2000s, only a few hard rock bands from the 1970s and 1980s managed to sustain highly successful recording careers. Hard rock is a form of loud, aggressive rock music, the electric guitar is often emphasised, used with distortion and other effects, both as a rhythm instrument using repetitive riffs with a varying degree of complexity, and as a solo lead instrument.
Drumming characteristically focuses on driving rhythms, strong drum and a backbeat on snare. The bass guitar works in conjunction with the drums, occasionally playing riffs, vocals are often growling, raspy, or involve screaming or wailing, sometimes in a high range, or even falsetto voice. In the late 1960s, the heavy metal was used interchangeably with hard rock. Heavy metal took on darker characteristics after Black Sabbaths breakthrough at the beginning of the 1970s, in the 1980s it developed a number of subgenres, often termed extreme metal, some of which were influenced by hardcore punk, and which further differentiated the two styles. Despite this differentiation, hard rock and heavy metal have existed side by side, with bands frequently standing on the boundary of, other antecedents include Link Wrays instrumental Rumble in 1958, and the surf rock instrumentals of Dick Dale, such as Lets Go Trippin and Misirlou. In the 1960s, American and British blues and rock bands began to rock and roll by adding harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming.
From the late 1960s, it common to divide mainstream rock music that emerged from psychedelia into soft. Soft rock was often derived from rock, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody. In contrast, hard rock was most often derived from rock and was played louder. Blues rock acts that pioneered the sound included Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, in songs like I Feel Free combined blues rock with pop and psychedelia, particularly in the riffs and guitar solos of Eric Clapton. Jimi Hendrix produced a form of blues-influenced psychedelic rock, which combined elements of jazz and rock, from 1967 Jeff Beck brought lead guitar to new heights of technical virtuosity and moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band, The Jeff Beck Group
Kent Music Report
The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to 1988. After 1988, the Australian Recording Industry Association, who had been using the report under licence for a number of years, prior to the Kent Report, Go-Set magazine published weekly Top-40 Singles from 1966 and Album charts from 1970 until the magazines demise in August 1974. David Kent publicised the Australian charts from 1940–1973 in a retrospective fashion using state by state chart data obtained from various Australian radio stations. Kent had spent a number of years working in the music industry at both EMI and Phonogram records and had developed the report initially as a hobby. The Kent Music Report was first released on a basis in July 1974 and was offered for subscription. The report data was based solely on radio station charts from around the country. These radio station charts were compiled using data collected from local record stores and.
In 1976, as funding from subscriptions grew, Kent himself started collecting data from retail stores to supplement the radio station charts. His operation grew and staff were employed to assist with research, within a year or so, the major record companies started using the Report for their own marketing programs and it had established itself as the leading national chart publication. From 1982, retail sales data collected by Kent and his staff were used exclusively, some radio station chart data was used as supplementary information, however. At about the time, the Australian Recording Industry Association was established by the major record companies, being EMI, Festival Records, CBS, RCA, WEA. From 1983 until 1988 ARIA had an arrangement with Kent to use the Report under their own banner. The Kent Report continued however and in 1987 was rebadged as the Australian Music Report, in 1988 the arrangement with ARIA ended and the ARIA Charts were produced in-house by the Association. In April 1998, the AMR charts ceased publishing, leaving the ARIA charts as the nationally recognised chart publication.
In 1993, David Kent published his Australian Chart Book 1970 -1992 and this was based on his chart data already published as the Kent Music Report from May 1974 onwards. He specially retro-calculated charts based on state-based Australian radio station available to him dated prior to May 1974. On this basis, he put together Australian national charts from 1940 -1969. Prior to 1949, radio music charts in Australia were only available on a monthly basis
Joe South
Joe South was an American singer-songwriter and record producer. Best known for his songwriting, South won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1970 for Games People Play and was nominated for the award in 1972 for Rose Garden. South started his pop career in July 1958 with the NRC Records novelty hit The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor, after this hit, Souths music grew increasingly serious. South had met and was encouraged by Bill Lowery, an Atlanta music publisher and he began his recording career in Atlanta with the National Recording Corporation, where he served as staff guitarist along with other NRC artists Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed. Souths earliest recordings have been re-released by NRC on CD and he soon returned to Nashville with The Manrando Group and onto Charlie Wayne Felts Promotions. South was a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Tommy Roes Sheila, Bob Dylans Blonde on Blonde album, South played electric guitar on Simon & Garfunkels second album, Sounds of Silence, although Al Gorgoni and/or Vinnie Bell feature on the title track.
Billy Joe Royal recorded four South songs, Down in the Boondocks, I Knew You When, Yo-Yo, and Hush. Responding to late 1960s issues, Souths style changed radically, most evident in his biggest single, 1969s pungent, no-nonsense Games People Play, a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanied by a lush string sound, an organ, and brass, the won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song. South followed up with Birds of a Feather and two other soul-searchers, the back-to-nature Dont It Make You Want to Go Home and the socially provocative Walk a Mile in My Shoes. Souths most commercially successful composition was Lynn Andersons 1971 country/pop monster hit, Rose Garden, Anderson won a Grammy Award for her vocals, and South earned two Grammy Nominations for it, as Best Country Song and Song of the Year. South wrote more hits for Anderson, such as How Can I Unlove You and Penny DeHaven had hits on the Billboard country chart with South songs. James Taylor, and k. d. lang, although most covered versions of Souths best known songs, the 1971 suicide of Souths brother, resulted in him becoming clinically depressed.
South was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1979, in 1988, a Dutch DJ, Jan Donkers, interviewed South for VPRO-radio. The radio show aired the interview played four new songs by South. On September 13,2003, South performed during the Georgia Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony and played with Buddy Buie, James B. Souths final recording, Oprah Cried, was made in 2009 and released as a track on the re-release of the albums So the Seeds are Growing. South died at his home in Buford, northeast of Atlanta, on September 5,2012, official website Joe South at AllMusic Entry at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Joe South and the Believers
Record producer
A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is a competent arranger, composer. The producer will liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording.
Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects.
These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
Mike Curb
Michael Mike Curb is an American musician, record company executive, and NASCAR car owner. A Republican, he served as the 42nd Lieutenant Governor of California from 1979 to 1983 under Democratic Governor Edmund G. Jerry Brown and he was acting governor of California while Brown spent time outside of California pursuing presidential ambitions. He is the founder of Curb Records as well as an inductee of the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame, in 1969, he merged his company with MGM and became President of MGM Records and Verve Records. Curb composed or supervised over 50 film scores and wrote over 400 songs and they recorded Together, a New Beginning in 1980, the theme song for Ronald Reagans successful presidential bid that year. The Mike Curb Congregation were weekly regulars on Glen Campbells CBS National Network Television Show, in 1969, Curb signed Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman to Capitol Records. Curb ran a country music subsidiary label for Motown called Hitsville Records. Curb composed It Was a Good Time for Liza Minnellis Emmy Award winning Liza with a Z.
He received BMI awards for composing Burning Bridges for Clint Eastwoods Kellys Heroes, and for composing All for the Love of Sunshine, which was Hank Williams, Jr. s first #1 Record. In 1970, Billboard reported that MGM Records president Mike Curb has dropped 18 acts who, in his opinion, Billboard reported that Curb was alarmed by the drug-related deaths of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Alan Wilson of Canned Heat. Among the musicians thought to be included in the purge were The Velvet Underground, however Zappa spoke out against drug use throughout his career and by early 1969 had fulfilled his MGM/Verve contract and moved to his own Bizarre Records label, distributed by Warner Bros. Also, when Eric Burdon, who was an advocate of psychedelics, dared Curb to release him from his even though he was his biggest selling artist. Curb claimed he had support, but the only record company official he cited, Bill Gallagher. Columbia Records president Clive Davis said Curb was grandstanding, and that his anti-drug stance had made him a hero of the Nixon administration.
In 1997, Curb said the affair had happened at a time when you were considered a freak if you spoke out against drugs, throughout Mike Curbs career he has helped artists through drug and substance abuse issues through numerous charities. Encouraged to enter politics in part by Ronald Reagan, Curb was elected lieutenant governor of California in 1978, defeating the incumbent Democrat, Democratic candidate Jerry Brown was re-elected governor in the same year. Curb worked with Harvey Milk on the campaign against the Briggs Initiative and persuaded Reagan to oppose it, Curb has been a leading conservative supporter of gay rights ever since. Curb lost the 1982 Republican gubernatorial nomination to California attorney general George Deukmejian, a vocal opponent of drug use, Curb advocated extension of the death penalty to include drug pushers whose narcotics trafficking resulted in a death. In 1980 Curb served as the National Co-Chairman of Ronald Reagan’s successful presidential campaign, Curb served as the Chairman of the convention program in Detroit and was appointed by President Reagan, to be chairman of the national finance committee in Washington DC
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a continental North and South American trade organization that represents the recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors, which the RIAA says create, the RIAA headquarters is in Washington, D. C. The RIAA was formed in 1952 and its original mission was to administer recording copyright fees and problems, work with trade unions, and do research relating to the record industry and government regulations. Early RIAA standards included the RIAA equalization curve, the format of the record groove and the dimensions of 33 1/3 rpm,45 rpm. Since 2001, the RIAA has spent $2 to $6 million each year on lobbying in the United States, the RIAA participates in the collective rights management of sound recordings, and it is responsible for certifying Gold and Platinum albums and singles in the United States. Cary Sherman has been the RIAAs chairman and CEO since 2011, Sherman joined the RIAA as its general counsel in 1997 and became president of the board of directors in 2001, serving in that position until being made chairman and CEO.
Mitch Glazier has been the RIAAs senior executive vice president since 2011 and he served as executive vice president for public policy and industry relations from 2000 to 2011. The past RIAA chairman and CEO is Mitch Bainwol, who served from 2003 to 2011 and he left in 2011 to become president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The board of directors consists of 26 members of the board, the RIAA operates an award program for albums that sell a large number of copies. The program originally began in 1958, with a Gold Award for singles, the criterion was changed in 1975 to the number of copies sold, with albums selling 500,000 copies awarded the Gold Award. In 1976, a Platinum Award was added for one million sales, the awards are open to both RIAA members and non-members. Since 2000, the RIAA operates a program for Latin music sales. Currently, a Disco De Oro is awarded for 30,000 units, the RIAA defines Latin music as a type of release with 51% or more of its content recorded in Spanish.
In 2006, digital ringtones were added to branch of certification. In the same year, the RIAA introduced the Latin Digital Award for digital recordings in Spanish and this release format includes DVD and VHS releases, and certain live albums and compilation albums. The certification criteria is different from other styles. Gold,50,000 Platinum,100,000 Multi-Platinum,200,000 copies The RIAA opposes unauthorized sharing of its music, studies conducted since the association began its campaign against peer-to-peer file-sharing have concluded that losses incurred per download range from negligible to moderate. The association has commenced high-profile lawsuits against file sharing service providers and it has commenced a series of lawsuits against individuals suspected of file sharing, notably college students and parents of file sharing children
Merrill Osmond
Merrill Davis Osmond is the lead singer and bassist of the 1970s pop-rock music group The Osmonds and its 1980s country music spinoff, The Osmond Brothers. He continues to perform with his brothers and without them as a solo act and he has released an new album, A Tribute to Classic Rock, and tours worldwide. Osmond was born in Ogden, the fifth of the nine children of Olive May, four of the Osmonds were cast over a seven-year period on NBCs The Andy Williams Show, a musical variety program. They appeared in nine episodes of the 1963-1964 ABC western television series, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, the series starred 12-year-old Kurt Russell on a wagon train headed to the American West. A tenor/countertenor vocalist well into adulthood, Merrill was either lead singer or co-lead singer on almost all of the Osmonds songs and co-wrote, along with older brother Alan, Merrill was the first of the performing siblings to marry. He wed Mary Carlson on September 17,1973, they have four sons, Merrills second son, Justin Osmond, is deaf, as are Justins uncles and Tom Osmond, Merrills two oldest brothers.
Justin Osmond works with organizations and launched the Olive Osmond Perpetual Hearing Fund in 2010. Like the rest of his family, Merrill is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in keeping with church tradition, all of his sons have served as missionaries. Merrill Osmond at the Internet Movie Database Merrill Osmond on Osmond family Official site
Roppongi
Roppongi is a district of Minato, Japan, famous for the affluent Roppongi Hills development area and popular night club scene. Many foreign embassies are located in Roppongi, and the life is popular with locals. It is in the part of Tokyo, south of Akasaka. The name Roppongi, which appears to have been coined around 1660, six very old and large zelkova trees used to mark the area, the first three were cleared, and the last were destroyed during World War II. Another legend has it that the name comes from the fact that six daimyōs lived nearby during the Edo period, in 1890, the Third Imperial Guard of the Imperial Japanese Army was moved to a site near Roppongi. The influx of soldiers led to the rise as a nightlife district. Roppongi was administratively part of Azabu Ward from 1878 to 1947, several large US military installations were located in the nearby area, with Hardy Barracks probably the most significant. Starting in the late 1960s, Roppongi became popular among Japanese people and foreigners alike for its disco scene, contributing to the international scene was the location of several foreign embassies and foreign corporate offices in the Roppongi area.
However, many clubs shut down in the recession following the market crash of 1989. The Roppongi area received an economic boost in 2002–2003 when the Izumi Garden Tower. These projects brought high-end office and condominium space to Roppongi for the first time, the Tokyo Midtown project, which was completed in 2006, and includes the first Tokyo Ritz-Carlton Hotel, continued this trend. The area features bars, strip clubs, hostess clubs, cabarets. Among the expatriate community, the area tends to be favored by people, students. Overall, the neighborhood caters to a younger crowd, clubs can range from large, multi-level establishments, to smaller one-room clubs located in upper levels of buildings. In more recent times some of the venues with known Yakuza connections have closed. Around Roppongi crossing are a number of clubs which feature foreign performers, there are a number of both foreign- and Japanese-operated bars catering to different crowds. Recently, Roppongi has enjoyed a reputation for its organized events such as art festivals and billiard tournaments, pub crawls, robot exhibitions, beauty pageants.
Restaurants in Roppongi vary from upscale Japanese fare to popular international restaurants, in the past, Roppongi had a reputation as an area with high Yakuza presence, whether as customers at Roppongi establishments, conducting business, or managing or owning clubs and bars in the area
Rock music
It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues and blues and country music. Rock music drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers.
The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll.
Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegums classic period ran from 1967 to 1972. A second wave of bubblegum started two years and ran until 1977 when disco took over and punk rock emerged, the genre was predominantly a singles phenomenon rather than an album-oriented one. Because many acts were manufactured in the studio using session musicians, singer Tommy Roe, had the most bubblegum hits of any artist during this period, notably 1969s Dizzy. The songs typically have singalong choruses, seemingly childlike themes and a contrived innocence, bubblegum songs are defined as having a catchy melody, simple chords, simple harmonies, dancy beats, repetitive riffs or hooks and a vocally-multiplied refrain. The song lyrics often feature themes of love and personal happiness, with references to sunshine, platonic love, colors, nonsense words. They are notable for their frequent reference to food, including sugar, butterscotch, jelly. Cross-marketing with cereal and bubblegum manufacturers strengthened the link between bubblegum songs and confectionery, cardboard records by The Archies, The Banana Splits, The Jackson 5, The Monkees, Bobby Sherman and the Pussycats, H. R.
Producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz have claimed credit for coining the term pop, saying that when they discussed their target audience, they decided it was teenagers. And at the time we used to be chewing bubblegum, and my partner and I used to look at it and laugh and say, Ah, the term was seized upon by Buddah Records label executive Neil Bogart. Music writer and bubblegum historian Bill Pitzonka confirmed the claim, telling Goldmine magazine and Katz really crystallized it when they came up with the term themselves and that nice little analogy. And Neil Bogart, being the person he was, just crammed it down the throats of people. Thats really the point at which bubblegum took off, a breeding ground for the genre has been found in the field of 1960s garage rock, the songs of which shared an overriding simplicity with bubblegum. Garage and bubblegum groups were both generally singles acts, between those two camps emerged Florida group The Royal Guardsmen, who scored a US No.2 hit in 1966 with their novelty hit Snoopy Vs.
The Red Baron, and The Fifth Estate, whose 1967 song Ding-Dong, the Witch Is Dead reached No.11 in the US. Although the band began as a prefabricated, fictional rock group concocted to sell records and TV advertising time, in May 1968, The Ohio Express scored a No.4 hit with Yummy Yummy Yummy. The song was released as an Ohio Express single without Levines knowledge, two follow-ups, Down at Lulus and Chewy Chewy, charted – both featuring vocals by Levine, and neither featuring any members of Ohio Express. The real Ohio Express toured, supporting The Who and Hermans Hermits, with bassist Dean Kastran performing the vocals for the hits and Katz scored on Bell Records in early 1969 with Gimme Gimme Good Lovin by another manufactured band, Crazy Elephant. The dominance of the Kasenetz–Katz team was challenged in 1969 by music publisher Don Kirshner and Hanky Pankys co-author, a battered and resentful Kirshner envisioned a manufactured group over which he could have permanent and total control, Filmations cartoon band The Archies, based on the Archie Comics characters
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