THE GREATEST LOVE

Normally I would not have considered writing about this song, except for the fact that Story of Songs has a fan. "The Greatest Love of All" is her favorite song, which she's mentioned to me, Twice. She'd like for us to do a story on this. The fact that she's from France sort of had something to with it as well. Now that we live in the age of Obama and we want people from other countries to like us. I suppose you could say this is my feeble attempt at that concept.

It's actually an interesting story. It was written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed and recorded by George Benson in 1977 for a Muhammad Ali biopic called “The Greatest.” The movie did not do well. We found out that it's not easy to play yourself in a movie. Even a charismatic figure like Muhammad couldn't do it. I guess it does take talent to act. The song, however, did reasonably well. It went to number two in the R&B charts.

Linda Creed was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 26, but kept on writing while fighting it. She helped write several of The Stylistics greatest songs, including "Bet You by Golly Wow" and "You are Everything." Her favorite song that she wrote, however, was "The Greatest Love of All." About a month after getting radical mastectomy, she was hired to write a song. That's when she wrote it. Linda was concerned about losing her life and leaving her one year old daughter at a young age. The lyrics reflect this concern.

Almost ten years later, Whitney Houston wanted to record “The Greatest Love of All” for her first album. Clive Davis, the founder of Arista records, didn't want her to do it. Michael Masser eventually persuaded Clive to let her. It turned out to be a good thing because Whitney Houston's version became a real hit in 1986. It was number one on Billboards music chart for three weeks. In fact Whitney's first tour was called the Greatest Love tour. Sadly, Linda was not around at the time. She died weeks before the song reached number one after a ten year battle with breast cancer.

In 1987, Gordon Lightfoot filed a lawsuit naming Michael Masser, among others. The lawsuit claimed that Michael stole part of the melody from his song "If You could read my mind". The case was settled out of court. Michael publicly apologized. Interestingly enough, Gordon didn't file a lawsuit when George Benson recorded it.

The video to the song has Whitney singing in an auditorium. There is a little girl there with other kids and I imagine that little girl turns into Whitney because at one point they walk towards each other and merge as one. It's a powerful song and Whitney has a powerful voice. At the end, Whitney walks over to an older lady that looks a bit like Dionne Warwick and they hug. That would've been a good move if she is Dionne Warwick, because they are cousins. “Greatest Love of All” has become a standard song for auditions and for good reason. Whitney's voice is a measure by which other singers compare their voices.

MORE WOODSTOCK

>So given that it was the Woodstock Festival's fortieth anniversary weekend, I checked out to see if any station had something about it. It turns out The History Channel had a program called “Woodstock Now and Then.” There were a few things I learned. One being that doctors came in to treat the “wounded”. For free. Which was nice of the doctors. Another thing was that the Army helped out as well. They transported people with helicopters. In fact, it would've been hard for the concert to go on without their help. It was a terrific gesture on their part given the fact that most of the people and performers were against the Vietnam war.

iv> There were two deaths that occurred. One of them was drug related, which makes sense, while the other was a real tragedy. Someone driving a tractor ran over a person covered by a blanket. Just thinking about that is horrible. I don't know what happened as a result of that, but on last weeks blog I mentioned that something like Woodstock wouldn't happen now because the promotors would be afraid of too many lawsuits. Well it turns out that the promoters were sued quite a bit. Even back then. Around eighty lawsuits. One of the lawsuits was because a cow wasn't giving out enough milk, presumably because of the stress of the concert.

WOODSTOCK FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY

This week marks the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. It's no surprise that Rolling Stone magazine listed it as one of the 50 moments that changed the history of Rock and Roll. And this was for several good reasons. The main one, of course, was the caliber of the artists who performed. From The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana and Jimi Hendrix, to name just a few.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. Not even close. The promoters told the city, in order to get a permit, that they were expecting no more than fifty thousand people. And that was considered a lot. Fifty thousand people attending a concert was unheard of back then. They sold 186,000 tickets at seventeen dollars a pop. That's around seventy five dollars today if you adjust for inflation. In the end, almost half a million people showed up. If I do my math correctly, that's almost ten times more than fifty thousand, which they thought was too much already. Traffic jams were twenty miles long.

The promoters wanted the best acts around and were willing to pay for it. So they told they agents they wanted the acts no matter what. They signed some acts for twice as much as they usually got. Jefferson Airplane, which was the top acid Rock band at the time, usually got around $5,000 to $6,000. They signed for $12,000. Once they signed, it became easier to sign other artists. Supposedly the only reporter around was a New York Times reporter. They were the only ones that thought this was a worthy news event. The newspaper wanted the event reported as a disaster. But the reporter, to his credit, refused to do so. Instead, the reporter did the story on what was actually going on. There were two deaths that occurred as well as two births. Incredibly for the amount of people who showed up and the conditions they lived in those three days, there were no violent crimes reported.

Can something like this happen now? I seriously doubt it. I can just imagine the lawsuits as a result of something like this. It truly is sad for the U.S. If you ask me. Not that I would go if something like this did occur. But I can still dream.

Canned Head played "Going Up the Country", the video of which I think distills the essence of the concert. The carefree attitude, the cameraderie, the zonked out kids, the dancing and of course the music. Oh yeah, and don't forget the nuns.

ELVIS TRIBUTE AT THE PARK

I admit having a fondness for tribute bands and artists. And this is for several reasons. The main one being that they are generally good musicians who love the artists they give tribute to. Among others, I've seen The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors and the David Lee Roth version of Van Halen. Needless to say , there's a slim to none chance I would see them in person. So a tribute band is usually the best and only way to experience them live. And frankly they've all been terrific. It's amazing how similar they look and sound. Besides, it's hard to beat the price, which is usually free where I live. I guess it's one of the perks of living in SoCal.

This last one I've gone to was an Elvis tribute. I know Elvis impersonators are a cliche and a joke. And for good reason. You can't get any cornier than the Flying Elvi. Which are officially sanctioned by Elvis Enterprises. Fortunately, and to quote Mr. Larry David, the Elvis impersonator was "pretty pretty good." He didn't take himself seriously and was funny to boot. Probably funnier than the real Elvis. He spent a great deal of time with the audience and would mostly go after the older ladies, which was fun. He sung a good deal of the hits. There was one song from one of his movies that I've never heard before that was really good. It was a bluesy number that I wish I could remember. I wish I knew his real name so that I could recommend him. All I remember is that his first name was Richard and spends a great deal of his time in Vegas.

One of the songs he played was "Heartbreak Hotel". The song has a really interesting story. Elvis was only 21 years old when he recorded it. This was the first single he recorded for RCA. Sun Records sold Elvis's contract for $40,000. The idea for the song came to Thomas Durden when he read a newspaper article about a person who killed himself in a hotel room. The suicide note said, "I walk a lonely street." The song was recorded in the hallway to get that echo sound . When the RCA executives heard the song, they hated it and didn't want to release it. It was released anyway and the song was number one for eight weeks. “Heartbreak Hotel” has become such a big part of the American culture that there's even a hotel named after it in Memphis. You can't say that about that many songs. Maybe just Hotel California. If you ever get a chance to see an Elvis impersonator, by all means go. It just might surprise you.