By mhc (152.163.194.137 - 152.163.194.137) on Friday, August 23, 2002 - 07:57 pm:

Today on "All Things Considered" there was a 20 minute piece on "Cellarful of Motown", featuring an interview with Harry Weinger, and much acknowledgement of the Funk Brothers. It was great! Earlier this week (Tuesday), Wayne Kramer from The MC5 was on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, giving a lengthy and (as always) fascinating interview, promoting the MC5 documentary and his new CD. I know that the Wayne Kramer interview can be downloaded; not sure about the other one..
Anyway, it was Hog Heaven for Detroit Music fans..

By LTLFTC (12.245.225.79 - 12.245.225.79) on Friday, August 23, 2002 - 08:44 pm:

The "All Things Considered" show from today is avialable to download after 10 P.m. EST tonight. I caught the Wayne Kramer interview the other day-Terry Gross can talk to anybody and sound like she's interested in the subject matter. It's great to hear a show where the guests can talk for like 40 minutes. Anyway, thanks for the heads up; I know where I'll be after ten tonight.
Steve K.

By Bob Olhsson (68.32.101.228 - 68.32.101.228) on Friday, August 23, 2002 - 11:29 pm:

Click this!


http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20020823.atc.15.ram

By Sue (152.163.204.184 - 152.163.204.184) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 12:07 am:

Hey this is particularly for John Lester. Pix of the girl group stamps are now up at
http://www.detnews.com/2002/entertainment/0208/23/c01-568950.htm

By Julian (152.163.213.59 - 152.163.213.59) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 01:04 am:

Wow, that was a cool interview!

By Carl Dixon London (195.153.219.170 - 195.153.219.170) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 05:08 am:

Thanks for the url Bob! What a great listen. Nothing could cheer me up more on a Saturday morning than to listen to this. A nice surprise. Well posted mhc.

Harry you sound delightful. A nice 'handshake' with the UK Northern soul scene!

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7 - 62.254.0.7) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 05:28 am:

Any suggestions as to why I can't get to hear this..? All I get is a "RealPlayer cannot connect to the server" - and I promised John I'd get it for him

By Carl Dixon London (195.153.219.170 - 195.153.219.170) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 05:45 am:

Ritchie - turn your firewall off/unlock it - maybe!!

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7 - 62.254.0.7) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 06:02 am:

Mmmm - tried that, still to no avail. Usually RealPlayer can run quite happily through the Firewall, though a few programs won't - Dreamweaver and eBay's Mr Lister, to name but two frustrating exceptions that I use continually!

By Carl Dixon London (195.153.219.170 - 195.153.219.170) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 06:13 am:

In that case I do not know! When our firewall locks,we get that message. We just unlock it, and it works fine. I am at work and have no problems. I wonder if it is a port configuration problem? I know Quicktime uses different 'ports'! Maybe this realplayer connection has something embedded in its stream.

I will have another think - I am interested in the solution.

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7 - 62.254.0.7) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 06:33 am:

I'm honestly not sure - I actually disabled the Firewall (closed the whole program - which of course is normally running in the background all the time), so it shouldn't even enter the equasion at all.

BTW, Carl - mail me if you have any suggestions, so this doesn't clutter up the temporary board too much :o)

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7 - 62.254.0.7) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 08:17 am:

Ok, folks - with a little off-board help from Carl I got it. Great interview, which I now have as a wav file for the archives. Interesting to hear what HW actually sounds like ;o)

By HW (68.37.217.106 - 68.37.217.106) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 09:31 am:

please tell me how to save as a wav file - I have other RA files I'd like to do that with as well.

P.S. They played the Temps' track when I was recording this segment but somehow they played the Fantastic Four instead on the air -!

By Bob Olhsson (68.32.101.228 - 68.32.101.228) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 09:53 am:

RealAudio streams are usually copy-protected. The only way I know is to stream it out and record it on a DAT machine.

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7 - 62.254.0.7) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 09:55 am:

Harry - I'll contact you off-board with the info.

By David Meikle (62.252.128.6 - 62.252.128.6) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 10:06 am:

Thanks to Bob for the link and to Marshall for bringing it up.

What a great interview!

Thanks in particular for giving such an accurate description of the Northern Soul scene.

Maybe one of these days you guys can visit an all-nighter

By ed.wolfrum (165.247.230.15 - 165.247.230.15) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 10:11 am:

Hello Harry and Bob:

I'll try to find the time today to stream it to DAT and burn a disc for both of you.

Bob, that was a good article in Tape-Op, I would make a few minor corrections to the equipment list however. Also the 8 track shown was not the one that I worked on with John Windt. That was a vertical mount 300 style transport. Did they build another one later?

Pax,

Ed

By P.J. (12.227.35.89 - 12.227.35.89) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 10:21 am:

Harry,
On the program I listened to using the link listed on Soulful Detroit, they played the Originals instead of trhe Temptations.

By P.J. (12.227.35.89 - 12.227.35.89) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 10:23 am:

Harry, smashing interview keep on keepin on

By HW (68.37.217.106 - 68.37.217.106) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 01:25 pm:

David - thank you for the confirmation re the description of the scene. Whew. I was somewhat OK in the moment I had the mic but afterwards I was afraid I'd given it some sort of inappropriate spin from a desk on the east coast of America. Can't wait to get there and boogie to Babs one of these days.

On the Temps' track - right, they played the Originals, my mistake in my other post. Strange, since when we did the interview the host was so keen on the Temps - and the engineer had abosrbed the chorus hook in less than a minute. Who knows how the editing went.

No matter - It's ALL GOOD. NPR reaches the absolutely right receptive audience and I was thrilled to do it . Only wish Paul Nixon and Brenda Holloway could have been there. I will see if I can get NPR to make me a copy of the show so I can give one especially to Ms. Holloway. They were so kind to her.

BTW - I've got an Apple computer using the new beta version of RealPlayer for Mac OS X and it plays like a new CD.

By John Lester (213.1.137.168 - 213.1.137.168) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 03:28 pm:

Sue

There's a guy in Londontown who is singing your praises........

Wonderful....in fact, it seemed to go really well for the girls and there were just so many. I see there's talk of a tour..can you imagine a bill of the Velvelettes, Vandellas, Supremes, Marvelettes, Shirelles, Ronettes, Crystals, Angels........it's like all your christmas's coming at the same time.

I don't suppose there are any pictures of the pyjama party - I bet the ladies had a whale of a time at that!!

By Sue (205.188.208.135 - 205.188.208.135) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 03:35 pm:

John,
There might be pix of the pj party, I'll have to think. Rosalind of the Vandellas had a digital camera she was snapping all weekend -- I have to get her to send a few copies of pix of me, so I'm going to steer her to this spot as well. I'm getting the pix I took developed right now.

The ladies did order me to take notes at the pajama party of all their stories, so I may try to turn a longer story around for someone.

PS I talked to the artist who did the stamps, and when I asked him which stamp was his favorite, he pointed to the Velvelettes first.p.s.
Yeah they're talking about a late fall show at the casino in Connecticut.

By Bob Olhsson (68.32.101.228 - 68.32.101.228) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 03:54 pm:

Ed,

There were at least two home made 8-track recorders. Tape-Op printed what I told them but some of it was hard to make out and I didn't work in those rooms until after they went 16 track. I plan to send a letter to the editor making corrections so any help anybody can give would be appreciated.

I wish I knew who took the pictures and exactly when. Don Gooch, who supplied them, thought it might be John Windt but John says it wasn't him.

By John Lester (213.1.132.83 - 213.1.132.83) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 07:19 pm:

Thank you Sue....and just to let you know your story has gone all round the world! The URL was the most posted link on all the boards these past few days.

Fame...........yet again!

LOL

PS I think the Velvelettes stamps came out the best too.....but then I would!!!

By SisDetroit (67.26.15.10 - 67.26.15.10) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 08:12 pm:

HW - Great going.

SUE - Great job! I envy you. I'm looking for a job. Do you need a valet? :o)
Sis

By Sue (205.188.208.135 - 205.188.208.135) on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 08:45 pm:

John,
What boards was that URL on?

Writerly fame is one thing; I almost put it aside when a fan (a young guy, too) outside the Cleveland hotel asked if I was one of the Angels. I wanted to be, for his sake!

A couple other times when I was traipsing around with the girls I was asked if I was a singer. The girls adopted me for the two days, so for a time, I was ...

p.s. Sis, boy could I have used an assistant! I'll tell you, if they get a tour together they're going to need someone to keep all those ladies together, at least two or three road managers I'd say. One for the hair, one for the gowns, etc ...

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7 - 62.254.0.7) on Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 05:00 am:

Hi Sue

Talking of mistaken glory... When I'd just started working for Granada TV in the seventies, I was nabbed by a pair of young autograph-hunters when I stepped outside the studios. Obviously inspired by my chosen mode of dress - jeans, tee-shirt, black leather bomber jacket and shades, one eagerly asked me to sign her book.

"Who do you think I am?" I asked with a smile.

The girl grinned and said, "c'mon, mister - I know you're the Fonz."

The other girl laughed and shook her head. "Don't be stupid. He's not Fonzie...." At first I applauded her common sense. Then she totally blew it. "He can't be the Fonz - he's FAR too old!"

I'd just turned 23 at the time, and Henry Winkler was even then probably the oldest "teenager" on TV. Happy Days?

By John Lester (213.122.203.213 - 213.122.203.213) on Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 07:50 am:

Sue

These are the boards who got the information quicker than me!!!!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/motown/?yguid=35687208

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/legendaryladiesofmotown/?yguid=35687208

http://boards.motown.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marthareevesthemotowndiva/?yguid=35687208

That was just 4 of them.

It occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't post these URL's here. So please delete if necessary - I do post the soulful detroit site URL on those sites.

Sue..did you get to talk to Kathy of the Marvelettes at all? I didn't know that she was recovering from being unwell. I hope you are able to pass on the good wishes of all of us from this site.

And you talking about helpers reminds me....... you also need someone to do all the things that you can't give a job name too. Like errrr.....find a UK plug for using on US made heated rollers, buy a new hair dryer in the middle of the night, repair a broken shoe heel, picking up feathers from EVERYWHERE, satisfying a hunger need when the hotel restaurant is closed!! LOLOL! For me, the thrill is being part of the team and sharing in all the fun together.

By Sue (205.188.208.135 - 205.188.208.135) on Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 02:10 pm:

John,
I did get to talk to Katherine of the Marvelettes, yep. She was there with a daughter and grandson. I asked the grandson if he could sing any of his grandmother's songs? Nope!

The most touching moment was during the Rock Hall of Fame jam session; all the "girls" ended up onstage backing each other up on vocals, so you'd have a Ronette, a Crystal and a Dixie Cup singing backup for the Cookies, etc.

At one point Katherine's daughter helped her onstage and even got a chair for her -- Katherine didn't sit but stood up, singing, with the others. I could tell her daughter wanted her mom up there as part of the action, even if there would be no Marvelettes mini-concert.

Later that night Katherine asked ME if I was having a good time -- it was work for me, having to run off and file stories via laptop, but a lot of fun as well.

By Sue (205.188.208.135 - 205.188.208.135) on Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 02:16 pm:

hey y'all:

This is really cool -- not only are the Motor City Rhythm and Blues Pioneers -- Joe Weaver, Stanley Mitchell and Kenny Martin, with RJ Spangler's Rhythm Rockers -- playing at Laborfest on Monday, Sept. 2 on Wayne State University's athletic field, but now Nathaniel Mayer has been added to the bill!!

The concert takes place after the Labor Day parade -- it starts at about noon and goes to 3:30 p.m. It's free, paid for by our friends at the UAW. The Latin Counts are also on the bill, as well as some folk singers and a union choir.
As everybody on this site knows, the R&B Pioneers are worth seeing, and Nathaniel Mayer was a big hit at the R&B Reunion show. Spread the word ...

By soulboy (213.105.242.198 - 213.105.242.198) on Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 06:20 pm:

I am really glad harry W credited the 'funk bothers' during the interview. In the past many people intentionaly or otherwise did their best to conceal the real truth behind the music.
Well done Harry!!

By Tony B. (195.92.168.173 - 195.92.168.173) on Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 07:37 pm:

Click me for a free Windows real audio to wav file recorder