Keenerfans everywhere are mourning the passing of the true “Queen of Soul”. Although Aretha Franklin never sang for the Motown label, her brand was inextricably connected to the Motor City. Like the town she called home, Aretha endured life’s ups and downs, resiliently introducing each new generation to her unique musical gifts. She charted 22 times on the WKNR Music Guide, beginning in March of 1967 with “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” (Video). Her final Keener hit was “Daydreaming” (Video) in February of 1972, but she would continue to be heard on our radios well into the new millennium. President Obama may have captured Aretha’s essence in his Facebook eulogy: “In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. She helped us feel more connected to each other, more hopeful, more human. And sometimes she helped us just forget about everything else and dance.” As we’ll see later, Aretha was at number one on Keener, this week in both 1970 and 1971.
The day Aretha died also marked the 41st anniversary of the passing of Elvis Presley. That event, like the Kennedy Assassination and the day the ’68 Tigers clinched the World Series became a milepost where we stopped to remember where we were and what we were doing. “The King” was just 42 when he left us, but his brand continues to permeate every platform, including identities on both Facebook and Twitter. His estate earned $35 million dollars in 2017 alone. Of the 25 Elvis hits that made their way to the WKNR Music Guide, only “Suspicious Minds” (Video) reached number one.
This week is the 49th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, shortened to simply “Woodstock” by the nearly half million music fans who invaded Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York. The event and the movie that documented it, amplified a number of musical careers, including Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens and The Who. In 1969, WKNR-FM was at the height of it’s “Underground” glory, competing with WABX and what was then called WXYZ-FM as the Progressive Rock Genre was born. Here is a rare 90 minute clip of WKNR-FM, recorded on April 27th, 1969.
It was Woodward Dream Cruise week in Detroit and the 15th anniversary of Keener’s brief rebirth on the original 1310 AM frequency in August of 2003. Despite a power blackout that blanked much of the east coast, including Detroit, we were on the air with Bob Green, Pat St. John, Michael Stevens, Scott Regen and the other great voices who made radio history in Detroit. Recordings of that historic broadcast are collectors’ items.
In August of 1973, George Lucas came to our attention as the director of American Graffiti, a film that set him up to create the Star Wars franchise and polished the stardom of it’s ensemble cast: Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Paul LeMat, Charlie Martin Smith, Harrison Ford, Mackenzie Phillips and Candy Clark. It also introduced a new audience to Robert Weston Smith and his broadcasting altar ego, Wolfman Jack.
Keener #1 hits for the week ending August 18 include:
(1964) House of the Rising Sun, Animals
(1965) You Were On My Mind, We Five
(1966) You Can’t Hurry Love, Supremes
(1967) Society’s Child, Janis Ian
(1968) 1-2-3 Red Light, 1910 Fruit Gum Co
(1969) A Boy Named Sue, Johnny Cash
(1970) Don’t Play That Song, Aretha Franklin
(1971) Spanish Harlem, Aretha Franklin
Our WKNR Music Guide this week comes from the Summer of 1967. It shows Keener at the zenith of its popularity with the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP leading the pack and a Top 13 list that celebrated some great Michigan Music from the likes of Bob Seger, The Temptations and The Fantastic Four. Janis Ian‘s “Society’s Child” had just slipped from the top spot. Janis was 16 years old when Society’s Child became a hit. Here’s video of her performing the tune on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
We’ll leave you with a rare live Aretha Franklin performance, recorded in Amsterdam in 1968. Godspeed, Aretha. Your legacy lives on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFN6-O1NHeM
