Six degrees of Kevin Bacon
No doubt you’re aware of the game Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon, whereby everything is supposedly linked to the great man if only you can identify exactly how. We’re going to play that game now, with six stories, each tenuously connected. But where to start? As the game is called Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon, and this is a music-based publication, we will aim to keep a musical theme – and what better way to begin than with an approximation of the game’s title.
Always a trio, The Three Degrees have had many members over the years. Formed in 1963 in Philadelphia by three high schoolers, the group was picked up by producer Richard Barrett who put out their first single in 1965. Over the next five years the line-up would change a lot, but their infectious and pleasing close-harmony singing suggested that a hit single was surely on the horizon. This eventually came in 1970 with the single ‘Maybe’, lifting them to number four on the US R&B chart. That, and the subsequent releases that year, landed them with a cameo in the movie The French Connection. It involved a performance at New York’s Copacabana nightclub, singing Jimmy Webb’s ‘Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon’.
It wasn’t until their move to Philadelphia International Records in 1973 that they really hit the big time, with their third single ‘When Will I See You Again’. Hitting the number one spot in the UK, it was the first time an all-female act had done so for a decade.
The Three Degrees may have gone through many changes of line-up, but Helen Scott, a mid-1963 replacement for one of the high schoolers, is still touring with two new Degrees today.
One of the greatest songwriters of all time, Webb won the Grammy Award for Song Of The Year at just 21 years of age for the song ‘Up, Up And Away’ for the 5th Dimension. He’d have to wait until he was 24 to see the Three Degrees perform his song in The French Connection.
Growing up in a religious family, with his father a Baptist minister, Webb was encouraged to learn the piano and organ as a child. By 12, he was playing alongside his parents in church. Clearly gifted, he would improvise and re-work hymns as well as creating his own. It was hearing Elvis Presley and Glen Campbell on the radio as a teenager that set him on his future course.
Beginning with a role at a small music publisher, Webb soon landed a job as a songwriter with the publishing arm of Motown Records. The first song of his that was recorded was ‘My Christmas Tree’ by The Supremes, who just so happen to be the aforementioned all-female group that held the UK number one spot 10 years before The Three Degrees.
In the same year he won his Grammy, Glenn Campbell re-recorded ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’, a heartbreaking song Webb had written previously for Johnny Rivers. The following year, Campbell would record Webb’s ‘Wichita Lineman’, which would sell over a million copies as a single.
Buoyed up by success, Webb created his own publishing and production company. In what appears just as strange a choice now as it did then, the first record Webb put out was by original Dumbledore himself, Richard Harris. It was an album nobody saw coming, but the single ‘MacArthur Park’ was hugely successful, getting to number two in the US Hot 100 and number four in the UK. Webb and Harris would collaborate on a second album with similar success, and the two men became very close.
Webb’s religious upbringing has instilled a strong work ethic and given him the tools to be an exemplary songwriter, but much of life’s finer details he knew little about. Webb would say about Harris: “Richard was a major figure in my life at a time when I needed someone like him to show me how to smoke a cigarette and drink whisky. It was kind of learning how men really live, and we had the time of our lives.”
An Irish actor of considerable renown, not everyone today connects the two-time Oscar winner for Best Actor to his singing career. He’d come to England from Ireland as a young man, looking to study as a director, but strayed into acting along the way. It wasn’t until his performance in ‘Camelot’ in 1967 that any connection to music was made.
‘Camelot’ was based on a stage musical from...
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The Three Degrees
Always a trio, The Three Degrees have had many members over the years. Formed in 1963 in Philadelphia by three high schoolers, the group was picked up by producer Richard Barrett who put out their first single in 1965. Over the next five years the line-up would change a lot, but their infectious and pleasing close-harmony singing suggested that a hit single was surely on the horizon. This eventually came in 1970 with the single ‘Maybe’, lifting them to number four on the US R&B chart. That, and the subsequent releases that year, landed them with a cameo in the movie The French Connection. It involved a performance at New York’s Copacabana nightclub, singing Jimmy Webb’s ‘Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon’.
It wasn’t until their move to Philadelphia International Records in 1973 that they really hit the big time, with their third single ‘When Will I See You Again’. Hitting the number one spot in the UK, it was the first time an all-female act had done so for a decade.
The Three Degrees may have gone through many changes of line-up, but Helen Scott, a mid-1963 replacement for one of the high schoolers, is still touring with two new Degrees today.
Jimmy Webb
One of the greatest songwriters of all time, Webb won the Grammy Award for Song Of The Year at just 21 years of age for the song ‘Up, Up And Away’ for the 5th Dimension. He’d have to wait until he was 24 to see the Three Degrees perform his song in The French Connection.
Growing up in a religious family, with his father a Baptist minister, Webb was encouraged to learn the piano and organ as a child. By 12, he was playing alongside his parents in church. Clearly gifted, he would improvise and re-work hymns as well as creating his own. It was hearing Elvis Presley and Glen Campbell on the radio as a teenager that set him on his future course.
Beginning with a role at a small music publisher, Webb soon landed a job as a songwriter with the publishing arm of Motown Records. The first song of his that was recorded was ‘My Christmas Tree’ by The Supremes, who just so happen to be the aforementioned all-female group that held the UK number one spot 10 years before The Three Degrees.
In the same year he won his Grammy, Glenn Campbell re-recorded ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’, a heartbreaking song Webb had written previously for Johnny Rivers. The following year, Campbell would record Webb’s ‘Wichita Lineman’, which would sell over a million copies as a single.
Buoyed up by success, Webb created his own publishing and production company. In what appears just as strange a choice now as it did then, the first record Webb put out was by original Dumbledore himself, Richard Harris. It was an album nobody saw coming, but the single ‘MacArthur Park’ was hugely successful, getting to number two in the US Hot 100 and number four in the UK. Webb and Harris would collaborate on a second album with similar success, and the two men became very close.
Webb’s religious upbringing has instilled a strong work ethic and given him the tools to be an exemplary songwriter, but much of life’s finer details he knew little about. Webb would say about Harris: “Richard was a major figure in my life at a time when I needed someone like him to show me how to smoke a cigarette and drink whisky. It was kind of learning how men really live, and we had the time of our lives.”
Richard Harris
An Irish actor of considerable renown, not everyone today connects the two-time Oscar winner for Best Actor to his singing career. He’d come to England from Ireland as a young man, looking to study as a director, but strayed into acting along the way. It wasn’t until his performance in ‘Camelot’ in 1967 that any connection to music was made.
‘Camelot’ was based on a stage musical from...
To read the full article, you’ll need to have a physical copy of the magazine which you can sign up for here for 6 issues delivered to your door from just £16!
https://store.promobile.online/products/pro-mobile-magazine-6-issue-1-year-subscription
You’ll also get full access to this article and the last year of articles, reviews and play lists via the Pro DJ App
