Georgie Woods....The Guy With The Goods!

From: RBM News
By: Craig Moerer

Born in Georgia on Friday, May 11, 1927, George Woods (known to everyone as Georgie) was a top R&B jock and became a true legend in every sense of the word. Georgie passed away June 18, 2005.

At 25, Woods received his first broadcast job (12 midnight to 1 am) at WWRL (1600 on AM) in New York, New York. As Georgie would say, “so nice, they had to name it twice.” That job lasted only a short time. “Maybe three months,” Georgie Woods laughed. “I went to WHAT (Philadelphia) on January 7, 1953.” WHAT Radio, at that time, was owned by Billy & Dolly Banks. The City of Brotherly Love would be his broadcast home for the rest of his half-century career.

In 1955, Georgie Woods moved to the station that most would remember as his broadcast home, WDAS, owned by the late Max M. Leon. In 1957, Woods led the nation by breaking a new record by former gospel singer (The Soul Stirrers) Sam Cooke. The song was “You Send Me.”

A few years later, George nicknamed Jerry Butler “The Ice Man” because he was “so cool on stage.” In 1962, Georgie Woods started playing on WDAS a “new” group called “The Beatles.” The song was “Please, Please Me” on the African-American owned label, Vee-Jay (the same label Butler recorded for).

Two years down the road, in 1964, Woods coined the phrase “blue-eyed soul” referring to The Righteous Brothers. Six years later, the term got heavy use for the Osmond Brothers’ hit, “One Bad Apple,” when the group sounded very similar to the Jackson 5.

George at that time was known as “Georgie Woods, the man with the goods.” Later, when “the man” took on a different meaning, he became “the guy with the goods.”

One day in 1964, Georgie and WDAS management had a dispute, and the next day he was back on the aire at WHAT Radio. The Banks family welcomed Georgie Woods, a superstar in the Philly market, back with open arms. Woods recalled, “I stayed there for several years until just after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.” In the spring of 1968, Georgie Woods returned to WDAS where he would stay until the fall of 1990 when he again returned to WHAT.

Former Operations Manager for WDAS, Gerry Wilkinson thinks back to 1978 -- “It was about this time that George’s show turned from music to a talk show. George comes across as your average Joe, but he’s brilliant. He can talk with you about anything and he always did his homework.”

At that time, in the late seventies, the ratings for music stations switched from AM to FM. While WDAS-FM numbers were climbing (the number one music station, general market, in Philadelphia by 1980), WDAS AM’s ratings were tumbling. “Management thought that a talk format for George would do the trick,” said Wilkinson, and it did. Georgie Woods saw his talk-show ARB numbers double. Before leaving WDAS, Woods would end up the AM station’s Program Director.

In the fall of 1979, the WDAS stations were sold to Unity Broadcasting of Pennsylvania (owners of the “National Black Network”). Bob Klein, WDAS’ General Manager for 3 decades retired and his assistant, W. Cody Anderson, took over the reigns as GM. Ten years later, Cody purchased WHAT (Bob Klein was a consultant for Anderson) and Georgie Woods moved back to radio 1340, WHAT on Monday, September 10, 1990.

George was on 10 am to 1 pm following Mary Mason who returned to WHAT just the week before from WCAU. He left WHAT in 1994 and started playing music again on WPGR, Geator Gold radio when Jerry Blavat owned the station. But Woods wasn’t just a radio personality; he also hosted his own dance party TV show for several stations in town, first starting with Channel 17, WPHL-TV in 1966. A couple years later, the program moved over to WIBF-TV, Channel 29. It lasted for another several years after Taft Broadcasting took over, re-naming the call letters, WTAF-TV.

During the late sixties, Georgie Woods ran for Philadelphia City Council and won, only to have it taken away from him in a recount. However, it wasn’t just a run for political office; it also meant no radio income for the best part of a year. He had to go off the air because if he remained, the radio station would have been required to give free equal time to his political opponent even though George was just playing music.

However, Woods was an activist much earlier, and was very much involved in the civil rights movement. George was one of the first broadcasters to have the controversial Malcolm X appear on his program. During the hectic sixties, he led 21 buses of area residents southward to March with Dr. Martin Luther King in Alabama and later Washington, DC.

One of the bus captains on that trip was a young 23-year old college student from Cheney State College, Ed Bradley (of 60 Minutes fame). Bradley had previously met Woods when Georgie visited the mostly black school. Georgie Woods allowed Bradley to “hang around” the station and run errands. Later, Bradley was doing news for WDAS until 1967 when he moved to New York City.

A few years ago, Bradley said, “I remember the first time I heard Georgie Woods on the air as a teenager…. I heard him say same time tomorrow and I set up the radio the next day at the same time and waited to listen to Georgie Woods…. Many years later I went to work there…. It was my first experience in broadcasting. I cut my eyeteeth as a journalist at WDAS and I think in many ways if WDAS hadn't been there for me, I wouldn't be on 60 Minutes today.”

Georgie also hosted so-called “Freedom Shows” at Philadelphia’s Uptown and Nixon Theaters to raise money for civil rights activities. George became well known hosting great shows at the Uptown -- on one show one could see: Stevie Wonder, Martha and the Vandellas, Deon Jackson, the Monitors, Tammi Terrell, The Artistics, The Poets and more.

On Wednesday, July 21, 1993, the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network dedicated a mural featuring Georgie Woods. It’s located at 5531 Germantown Avenue (at the corner of Germantown and School House Lane). Just a few months before, on Friday, May 14 th, the City of Philadelphia proclaimed “Georgie Woods Day” to honor the broadcast legend.

Georgie Woods was also very supportive to the Philadelphia community. For decades, every year WDAS and their air personalities would collect donations of thousands of turkeys for the city’s poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas time. George was part of the WDAS Charities organization, which put on charity shows to aid the area.

Many people in the city have credited Georgie Woods and WDAS with directly being responsible for preventing rioting in the streets of our city after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Woods and WDAS constantly reminded our residents of Dr. King's non-violent philosophy and aired his speeches. In 1969, George and WDAS urged the population of the area to turn in their guns. Many hundreds did so and Woods was credited with making Philadelphia a safer place to live.

Gerry Wilkinson said, “I vividly remember George’s morning drive program. He had his signature cowbells (long before Dr. Don Rose) and just acted crazy.” Jerry Wells, Production Manager for WDAS, thinks back to his early days at the station a quarter century ago. He says: “George once told me, you gotta do whatever you have to so that at the end of the day, people remember you, even if it means acting like a nut.”

“George loved to sing the old spiritual, Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep every morning. It was always done differently, sometimes in harmony, depending on who was around the studio at the time. It was the best part of the show for George was the star, not the records” Wilkinson remembers.

In the 1960s, he would sometimes stop the music for hours on WDAS to talk about the civil-rights movement and the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., recalled Joe "Butterball" Tamburro, the station's former general manager.
"He had the ear of the African-American community. Whenever there was an injustice, we would talk about the issues rather than play music," Tamburro said.

Gerry also recalls: “I remember the era and ‘solid’ was in common usage. One morning, George said ‘salad’ instead of solid. He immediately came back with ‘potato salad.’ Somehow, it stuck and became part of the show. I was in the air studio one morning when Broadway Eddie (of Broadway Eddie’s in Camden) was there. He said to George that Woods should make a recording called ‘Potato Salad.’ He did and it became a top ten record at the station. Eddie produced it and writing credits were given to both Eddie and George and arranged by Vince Montana (of Philadelphia International fame). I clearly remember one of the rap lines, ‘don’t eat chicken on Sunday! It'll put a hole in your soul!’”

Almost two decades later, in 1988, Georgie Woods marketed his own line of Potato Chips through a South Philly company, C & S, Inc., which claimed to sell over 3 million bags a year. Whether there is any connection to the “Potato Salad” craze of two decades before is subject to debate.

Georgie Woods, The Guy With the Goods, died in the early morning of Saturday, June 18th, in Boynton Beach, Fla., where he had lived since 1996.

Guitarist For All Seasons....Carlos Santana!

From: AMG
By: William Ruhlmann

Born: Devadip Carlos Santana on July 20, 1947 in Autlan De Navarro, Mexico

Mexican-born American guitarist Carlos Santana is best known as the leader of the band that bears his last name, which has toured and recorded successfully since the late '60s. He has also recorded a series of exploratory solo albums and collaborations with other musicians that expand upon his basic musical style.

Carlos Santana grew up in Mexico, the son of a father who was a mariachi violinist. He took up the violin at five, but at eight switched to the guitar. The family moved to Tijuana, where he began playing in clubs and bars. In the early '60s, the family moved to San Francisco. Santana at first remained in Tijuana, but he later joined them and attended Mission High School, graduating in June 1965. In 1966, he was one of the founders of the Santana Blues Band. Despite the name, the group was at first a collective; it was required to name a nominal leader due to a provision of the musicians union. The name was eventually shortened to Santana and the band debuted at the Fillmore West theater in San Francisco on June 16, 1968. That September, Carlos played guitar at a concert held at the Fillmore West by Al Kooper to record a follow-up to the Super Session album that had featured him with Mike Bloomfield and Steve Stills. The result was The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, which marked Santana's recording debut.

Meanwhile, Santana was signed to Columbia Records and recorded a self-titled debut album. At this point, the group was a sextet consisting of Carlos (guitar), Gregg Rolie (keyboards and vocals), David Brown (bass), Michael Shrieve (drums), Jose "Chepito" Areas (percussion), and Michael Carabello (percussion). Santana toured the U.S. prior to the release of the album, including a notable appearance at the celebrated Woodstock festival in August 1969 that was filmed and recorded. Santana was released the same month, and it became a massive hit, as did its follow-ups Abraxas (1970) and Santana III (1971). After completing recording and touring activities in connection with Santana III, the original Santana band broke up.

Carlos retained rights to the group's name and he proceeded to lead a band called Santana from then on, though it consisted of himself and a constantly changing collection of hired musicians. His first recording after the breakup of the original group was a live show performed in Hawaii with singer and drummer Buddy Miles, released in June 1972 as Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live! Consistent with the success of the Santana band, the album reached the Top Ten and eventually went platinum. Following the release of the Santana band album Caravanserai (1972), Carlos formed a duo with John McLaughlin, guitarist for the Mahavishnu Orchestra. The two shared a spiritual leader in guru Sri Chinmoy, who bestowed upon Carlos the name Devadip, meaning "the eye, the lamp, and the light of God." Devadip Carlos Santana and Mahavishnu John McLaughlin's duo album Love Devotion Surrender was released in June 1973. It reached the Top 20 and eventually went gold. After releasing another Santana band project, Welcome, Carlos next teamed up with another religious disciple, Turiya Alice Coltrane, widow of John Coltrane, for a third duo album. Their collaboration, Illuminations, was released in September 1974; it spent two months in the charts, peaking in the bottom quarter of the Top 100.

Carlos focused on the Santana band for most of the rest of the 1970s, releasing a series of gold or platinum albums: Borboletta (1974), Amigos (1975), Festival (1976), Moonflower (1977), and Inner Secrets (1978). In February 1979, he finally released his first real solo album, the half-live, half-studio Oneness/Silver Dreams -- Golden Reality, actually credited to Devadip. Like Illuminations, it spent a couple of months in the charts and peaked in the bottom quarter of the Top 100. After another gold Santana band album, Marathon (1979), he returned to solo work with the double-LP jazz collection The Swing of Delight in August 1980. Featuring such guests as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Ron Carter, it sold a little better than his previous solo album. Two more Santana band albums, Zebop! (1981) and Shango (1982), followed before Carlos released a more pop-oriented solo effort, Havana Moon, in April 1983. Featuring Willie Nelson, Booker T. Jones, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the album reached the Top 40, actually a better showing than the next Santana band album, Beyond Appearances (1985). In 1986, Carlos undertook his first musical score, writing music for the Ritchie Valens film biography La Bamba. He then made another Santana band album, Freedom (1987), and followed it in October 1987 with a solo album, Blues for Salvador. The album did not sell well, but the title track won Carlos his first Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. After a final Santana band album for Columbia Records, Spirits Dancing in the Flesh (1990), Carlos left the label and signed to Polydor, which gave him his own custom label, Guts and Grace. The first Santana band album for the new company, Milagro, was followed by what was projected to be a series of releases of tapes from Carlos' own collection of his favorite musicians, Live Forever: Sacred Sources 1, featuring Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and John Coltrane. Then came a Santana band live album (Sacred Fire - Live in South America, 1993) and in September 1994, Carlos released Santana Brothers, a trio album also featuring his brother Jorge Santana and their nephew, Carlos Hernandez. It charted briefly and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

Carlos spent almost five years away from recording, not returning until June 1999 when he issued Supernatural on Arista Records. The Santana band album featured many tracks co-written by guest stars such as Rob Thomas of matchbox 20, Eric Clapton, Lauryn Hill, and others. Paced by the number one singles "Smooth" and "Maria Maria," the album became the biggest hit of Santana's career, selling upwards of ten million copies. It also won Santana eight Grammy Awards.