Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006)
This song was composed by Pickett and Steve Cropper at the historic Lorraine
Motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King, Jr. would later be murdered in April
1968. Pickett’s first hit on Atlantic Records, it reached #1 on the R&B charts and
peaked at #21 on the pop charts.
William Clarence ‘Billy’ Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993)
Billy Eckstine was a singer and bandleader of the swing era. His 1948
recording of "I Apologize" was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award
in 1999.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Jackie Gleason enjoyed lending his
name to a series of best-selling "mood music" albums with jazz overtones
for Capitol Records. He felt there was a market for romantic instrumentals
and his goal was to make "musical wallpaper that should never be intrusive,
but conducive”.
Gleason’s first album, Music for Lovers Only, still holds the record for the
album longest in the Billboard Top Ten Charts (153 weeks), and his first ten
albums all sold over one million copies. At one point, Gleason held the record
for charting the most number-one albums on the Billboard 200 without charting
any hits on the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Gleason could
not read or write music; he was said to have conceived melodies in his head
and described them vocally to assistants.
Orchestra conducted by Jackie Gleason, Trumpet solo by Bobby Hackett
Brian Douglas Wilson
Wilson co-wrote over twenty-five top forty hits as co-founder of The
Beach Boys, including such hits as “Good Vibrations” in 1966 and
“Surfin’ USA” in 1963.
