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Don Covay
Donald James Randolph (March 24, 1936 – January 31, 2015), better known by the stage name Don Covay, was an American R&B, rock and roll, and soul singer-songwriter most active from the 1950s to the 1970s. His most successful recordings include " Mercy, Mercy" (1964), " See-Saw" (1965), and "It's Better to Have (and Don't Need)" (1974). He also wrote " Pony Time", a US number 1 hit for Chubby Checker, and " Chain of Fools", a Grammy-winning song for Aretha Franklin. He received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1994. Writing in the ''Washington Post'' after his death, Terence McArdle said, "Mr. Covay’s career traversed nearly the entire spectrum of rhythm-and-blues music, from doo-wop to funk." Early life Covay was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina. His father, a Baptist preacher, died when Covay was eight. He resettled in Washington, D.C., with his mother Helen Zimmerman Randolph and his siblings in the early 1950s and initially sang in the Che ...
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Orangeburg, South Carolina
Orangeburg, also known as ''The Burg'', is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population of the city was 13,964 according to the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. The city is located 37 miles southeast of Columbia, South Carolina, Columbia, on the north fork of the Edisto River. Two historically black colleges and universities, historically black institutions of higher education are located in Orangeburg: Claflin University (a liberal arts college) and South Carolina State University (a public university). History 18th century European settlement in this area started in 1704 when George Sterling set up a post here for fur trade with Native Americans. To encourage settlement, the General Assembly of the Province of South Carolina in 1730 organized the area as a township, naming it Orangeburg for William IV, Prince of Orange, William IV, Prince of Orange, the son-in-law of Ki ...
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Rhythm And Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was starting to become more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting i ...
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Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the mid-20th century. It deemphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. It uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, and dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths. Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first be ...
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Doo-wop
Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables (such as "doo-wop") is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was commercially viable until the early 1960s and continued to influence performers in other genres. Origins Doo-wop has complex musical, social, and commercial origins. Musical precedents Doo-wop's style is a mixture of p ...
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Rhythm-and-blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... ith aheavy, insistent beat" was starting to become more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in t ...
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The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area and has a national audience. As of 2023, the ''Post'' had 130,000 print subscribers and 2.5 million digital subscribers, both of which were the List of newspapers in the United States, third-largest among U.S. newspapers after ''The New York Times'' and ''The Wall Street Journal''. The ''Post'' was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. In 1933, financier Eugene Meyer (financier), Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy and revived its health and reputation; this work was continued by his successors Katharine Graham, Katharine and Phil Graham, Meyer's daughter and son-in-law, respectively, who bought out several rival publications. The ''Post ...
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Rhythm And Blues Foundation
The Rhythm and Blues Foundation is an independent American nonprofit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of rhythm and blues music. The idea for the foundation came in 1987 during discussions about royalties with entertainer Ruth Brown, entertainment attorney Howell Begle, and Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records. Ertegun provided a $1.5 million donation, and the foundation was officially established in 1988 in Washington, D.C., and in 2005 moved its offices to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The foundation provides financial support, medical assistance and educational outreach through various grants and programs to support R&B and Motown artists from the 1940s through the 1970s. The Rhythm and Blues Foundation has also produced their Annual event the Pioneer Awards since the 1980s, then under the Direction of Suzan Jenkins, Executive Director. It also administered the Doc Pomus Financial Assistance Program, The Motown/Universal Music Group Fund ...
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Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Honored as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Soul", she was twice named by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine as the Rolling Stone's 200 Greatest Singers of All Time, greatest singer of all time. As a child, Franklin was noticed for her Gospel music, gospel singing at New Bethel Baptist Church (Detroit, Michigan), New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister. At the age of 18, she was signed as a recording artist for Columbia Records. While her career did not immediately flourish, Franklin found acclaim and commercial success once she signed with Atlantic Records in 1966. She recorded albums such as ''I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You'' (1967), ''Lady Soul'' (1968), ''Spirit in the Dark'' (1970), ''Young, Gifted and Black'' (1972), ''Amazing Grace (Aretha Franklin album), Amazing Grace'' (1972), and ''Sp ...
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Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious and significant awards in the music industry in the United States, and thus the show is frequently called "music's biggest night". The trophy depicts a gilded gramophone, and the original idea was to call them the "Gramophone Awards". The Grammys are the first of the Big Three networks' major music awards held annually, and are considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards with the Academy Awards (for films), the Emmy Awards (for television), and the Tony Awards (for theater). The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4, 1959, to honor the musical accomplishments of performers for the year 1958. After the 2011 ceremony, the Recording Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The 67th Ann ...
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Chain Of Fools
A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. A chain may consist of two or more links. Chains can be classified by their design, which can be dictated by their use: * Those designed for lifting, such as when used with a hoist; for pulling; or for securing, such as with a bicycle lock, have links that are torus-shaped, which make the chain flexible in two dimensions (the fixed third dimension being a chain's length). Small chains serving as jewellery are a mostly decorative analogue of such types. * Those designed for transferring power in machines have links designed to mesh with the teeth of the sprockets of the machine, and are flexible in only one dimension. They are known as roller chains, though there are also non-roller chains such as block chains. Two distinct chains can ...
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Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song " The Twist", and the pony dance style with the 1961 cover of the song " Pony Time". His biggest UK hit, " Let's Twist Again", was released one year later (in 1962). That year, he also popularized the song " Limbo Rock", a previous-year instrumental hit by the Champs to which he added lyrics and its trademark Limbo dance. He also introduced other dance styles such as The Fly. In September 2008, "The Twist" topped ''Billboard''s list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1960, an honor it maintained in an August 2013 update of the list. In 2014, Checker was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, and he was selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2025. Early life Check ...
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Pony Time
"Pony Time" is a song written by Don Covay and John Berry (a member of Covay's earlier vocal group, "the Rainbows"), and originally recorded in 1960 by Covay with his group "the Goodtimers". It achieved greater success when it was recorded by Chubby Checker the following year, becoming his second US No.1 (after his 1960 single " The Twist"). Chubby Checker's recording of "Pony Time" was also a No.1 hit on the R&B charts. In Canada it reached No. 5. The "Boogety Shoe" phrase was used in Barry Mann's hit song " Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)" (1961). The lyrics reverse the Gee and Haw commands. In use by horsemen for centuries, gee was right and haw was left. Beside being used to command horse teams, Gee and Haw was used a lot in naming geographic features, like stream branches. Chart positions In popular culture A reference to the new dance style is mentioned in the song "Back to the Hop" (1961) by Danny and the Juniors, and the song was featured in the 1988 fil ...
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