Tag: Atlantic City

Lionel Richie sings the Commodores hit “Brick House” Saturday, March 23, 2019, at the Hard Rock in Atlantic City.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

There was a moment in the Lionel Richie concert Saturday night at the Hard Rock in Atlantic City, just as Lionel was finishing up the final verse of “Endless Love,” where there was a bit of a commotion in the front row.

A gent had gotten down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend while Lionel was singing the song. Now that’s some pretty romantic and memorable planning by that dude, and it didn’t go unnoticed by Lionel. After he finished the song, he stopped the show and made a big deal out of the moment, the happy couple was shown on the big concert screens, and it all seemed unscripted to me from my vantage point. Lionel seemed to not know about the proposal in advance and veteran performer that he is, he rolled it right into the show.

He dedicated the next song to the woman who had just received the rock, which was the 1977 Commodores hit “Brick House.” It’s a great song, and the story behind it was detailed for me by William A. King of the Commodores for “The Vinyl Dialogues Volume III: Stacks of Wax.”

By the mid-1970s, the Commodores had developed a routine for recording albums. Band members would get together in the middle of October and spend about two months choosing and arranging songs, take a couple of weeks off for Christmas, fly to Motown Records in Los Angeles and spend January and February recording, release the album in the spring and tour in support of the album in the summer.

When the band — William A. King, Ronald LaPread, Thomas McClary, Walter Orange, Lionel Richie and Milan Williams — was getting together songs for its fifth studio album, the self-titled “Commodores” in late 1976, members had chosen and arranged eight songs for the album. They needed one more, though.

But everybody was worn out.

“We had done eight songs and we could not choose the ninth song. Everybody was desperate, everybody was tired, didn’t want to see each other anymore, wanted to go home. We had seen each other every day, seven days a week, for two months,” said William A. King, band’s trumpet player. “We decided to just do something quick, because we only had two days left to get the songs prepared before we left for L.A.”

They all agreed to just throw something together quickly. So Walter Orange sat down at the drum kit and started tapping out a beat. Ronald LaPread added the bass, while King and Richie tried to figure out the horns part to go with it. Thomas McClary added in guitar and Milan Williams joined in on keyboards.

“We were just jamming,” said King. “And we finally got a basic track down.”

There were no lyrics to the riff, so it was suggested that King and Orange both head home after the session and try to write some words to go with it. But time was of the essence. The band needed the lyrics the next day if it was going to complete the ninth song for the album before heading to Los Angeles to record.

“At that time we had cassette tapes, so I was playing it over and over and over again. I was just trying to figure out a starting point,” said King. “But I knew it was going to be about a woman.”

But even after getting home that evening and playing the cassette over and over, King was still stuck. It was getting late, and King’s wife, Shirley Hanna-King, was running out of patience.

“She said, ‘Look, why don’t you turn that tape off? You’ve played it a thousand times; don’t you have that melody in your head yet?’” King recalled his wife saying. “I said, ‘No, I don’t, which is why I keep playing it over and over again.’”

But Shirley Hanna-King had heard enough and retired to a different part of the house where she didn’t have to listen to the tape.

Eventually, King himself ran out of steam.

“I fell asleep, literally with the tape on. It just ran out,” said King. “When I woke up, I had a pad of paper and pencil on my chest. I looked at it and it had all these lyrics written on it. I was looking at it thinking, ‘God, those are some good lyrics.’ And then I looked at the handwriting and it was my wife’s handwriting. So I asked her, “Did you write this?’ And she said,

‘Yeah, I had to do something to keep you from playing that tape all night long because we couldn’t get any sleep.’”

King took the lyrics to the next day’s session and presented them to the Commodores.

“Milan Williams said, ‘Man, these are the best lyrics you’ve ever written,’” said King.

Orange had also done some writing the previous evening, and between the two of them, King and Orange combined their lyrics and came up with a song that would be about a woman who was built like “a brick shithouse.”

The song was “Brick House.” But James Carmichael, who was producing the “Commodores” album, still wasn’t sold on it being the ninth and final song for the record.

“Carmichael wasn’t convinced,” said King. “He listened to it and said, ‘Eh, I’m not too sure about this song.’”

But Orange was. So unbeknownst to the other members of the group, he took the assistant engineer into an adjacent studio, had the track put on and then Orange started singing over the track, adding in the lead vocals. He then took the revised track back to Carmichael and the Commodores to hear the results.

“And everybody went, ‘Oh my God, this is really nice.’ That’s actually how the song got on the album, because Walter went in there and did a demo vocal over it, which convinced everybody that the song was worth going on the album,” said King. “It probably would not have even made it onto the album. We would have just done one fewer song on the record.”

“Brick House” would go to No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and No. 4 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1977.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

“Brick House” would be released as a single and go to No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and No. 4 on the U.S. R&B chart.

But it wouldn’t be the only hit single from the “Commodores” album, which was released on March 30, 1977. There would be another single that was even bigger.

Richie had a song that, according to King, he must have rewritten a dozen times once the band had gotten to Los Angeles to record. Richie would go into the bathroom at Motown Records, write the lyrics and bring them back out to the band.

“Either Carmichael or one of the guys would go, ‘Eh, these suck.’ And Lionel would go back into the bathroom,” said King. “We had this thing we used to say: ‘Has anybody seen Richie? Oh, he’s in the bathroom.’ The lyrics for that song were written in the bathroom at Motown Studios in Los Angeles.”

The song was “Easy,” and it would be a smash hit. It got to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart and No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

“Even though we hated his first lyrics, ‘Easy’ was easy,” said King. “From the first time he played it, I thought it was a hit song. And I wasn’t alone. I think everybody in the room thought it was a hit song.”

The “Commodores” album itself was also a big hit for the group. It reached No. 1 on the U.S. R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart and No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart.

If you get a chance to see Lionel Richie, buy the ticket. Richie is still in fine voice, he’s a fabulous entertainer and it’s an evening of hit after hit after hit.

‘Takin’ It to the Streets’ with Michael McDonald on the Atlantic City Boardwalk

By Mike Morsch

On July 9, 2017

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Michael McDonald performed July 8, 2017, at the Tropicana Showroom in Atlantic City.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Michael McDonald closed his show Saturday night at the Tropicana in Atlantic City with “Takin’ It to the Streets,” which made sense.

The song, from a 1976 Doobie Brothers album by the same name, was the first single written by McDonald released from the first album on which he appeared as a member of the Doobie Brothers. The song made it to No. 13 on the U.S. Billboard Pop Singles chart. It’s a great tune and likely holds a special spot for McDonald among his vast library of songs.

McDonald had replaced Tom Johnston, who was sidelined in 1975 with health issues, in the Doobie Brothers, and “Takin’ It to the Streets” – both the song and album itself – was a signal that the band was going in a completely different direction.

The intro to “Takin’ It to the Streets” came to McDonald in his car while driving through Southern California on his way to a gig.

“I just heard that intro in my head and I knew that it had something to do with a gospel kind of feeling track. I couldn’t wait to get to the gig so I could figure out on piano what it was,” said McDonald in a interview in advance of the Atlantic City show. “I set up my piano as fast as I could, plugged everything in and sat there for a moment, looking for the chord that I was hearing my head. I just picked at it long to enough to where the guitar player looked over at me and said, ‘Hey, we gotta start.’ I was lost in looking for this elusive melodic rhythmic thing.”

According to McDonald, the basic song was written in those couple of minutes. He would fine tune it after the gig when he got back to his apartment later that night.

“The rest of the song was pretty simple. It was just trying to figure out what that intro meant and where it was going musically,” he said. “It seemed like kind of a natural social subject at the time because it felt like gospel music and gospel music always has a message. I had been talking to my sister, who was in college at the time, and she was in a social economics class or something. She was a typical college student and thought the weight of the world’s problems were solvable by those as smart as college students. We talked about how in the inner city, the bottom was dropping out for people and they were falling through the cracks. It seemed like it was a natural marriage of ideas and melody.”

The Atlantic City show saw McDonald mix some old with some new. Casino shows are generally short, in the neighborhood of 75 minutes plus an encore. I’ve been told by several artists that’s because the casinos want people back out into the gambling areas spending money rather than sitting in the theater for two or two and a half hours.

I’ve got no beef with that. Everybody – the artists, the venue, the fans – have their own best interests at heart. But in this instance, that may have worked against McDonald a bit.

His set included a handful of songs from his new album, “Wide Open,” which is due out in September. In a short set, though, that may have rubbed some of the diehard Doobie Brothers fans the wrong way. In a totally unscientific poll from a portion of the crowd sitting within earshot, it appeared some of them would have preferred more Doobie Brothers-era material from McDonald.

In fact, McDonald closed the main part of the show with “What A Fool Believes” – a personal Doobie Brothers favorite – after which a portion of crowd left, missing the entire encore and the spirited version of “Takin’ It to the Streets.”

None of that bothered me, though, because this was the first time I had seen McDonald perform live and I wasn’t going anywhere, including out to the slot machines. I like the Tom Johnston Doobie Brothers, I like the Michael McDonald Doobie Brothers and I like the McDonald solo stuff. From what I heard in the new songs, I’ll buy the album when it comes out.

Boz Scaggs joined Michal McDonald on the bill for the Atlantic City show.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Also on the bill with McDonald for this show was Boz Scaggs. And although they didn’t actually perform any songs together during the evening, it’s not breaking news that a show featuring Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald is going to be a great evening of music. How can it not be?

It’s the second time I’ve seen Scaggs in concert, and he didn’t disappoint. He tends to lean toward more bluesy stuff in his live performances, but he’s well aware that those of us of a certain age are there to hear the hits, particularly from his 1976 album “Silk Degrees,” like “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle.”

My personal favorite during the set though was a brilliant version of “Georgia,” also from the “Silk Degrees” album but not one of the four songs released as singles (the other two being “What Can I Say” and “It’s Over”) that charted.

One last note from this show. You’ll notice that I included a photo of McDonald playing the guitar with this piece. McDonald is a piano player by trade, and I would have preferred to use a photo of him at the piano. I use a little point-and-shoot camera with a telephoto lens at concerts that allow non-flash photography. It usually serves its purpose from the vantage point of my seat.

But the camera does struggle with concert lighting at times, and the way McDonald was lit while at the piano located at stage left made those photographs washed out and unusable. When McDonald moved away from the piano for a few songs at the center stage mic, the angle and lighting were a bit better. So what you see is the best shot I could get.

Still, that didn’t take away from an enjoyable evening of music by two of my favorite artists.

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. give a solid gold performance in Atlantic City

By Mike Morsch

On June 12, 2016

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo performed all their hits June 11 at the Tropicana in Atlantic City.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo admit that when one of their songs comes on the radio, they turn it up because they want to hear themselves.

“The problem is that we’re listening for mistakes,” said Davis. “Did he hit that note? He’s flat, what happened there? Even years later, we’re always critiquing. We’re always listening for something instead of just listening to be listening.”

If their show June 11 in Atlantic City is any indication, then they’re the only ones who can detect any of those hiccups. But for those of us who aren’t Marilyn McCoo or Billy Davis Jr., Saturday night’s performance wasn’t only flawless, it was spectacular.

Let me state right up front that if you’re looking for an unbiased review of the show, this isn’t the place. The following will be completely biased based on personal interaction during telephone interviews with Billy and Marilyn and from seeing them perform live for the first time.

(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. are quite simply . . . outstanding in every aspect. Their voices, individually and together, are as good, if not better, than they were in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The 5th Dimension and later as a duo. Their stage presence – storytelling, showmanship, musicianship – are as entertaining and enjoyable as ever. They have surrounded themselves with a group of superb singers whom they call The Next Dimension and a group of highly talented musicians who give a freshness to their classic sound.

And to top it off, when one gets a chance to meet them in person, like The Blonde Accountant and I did Saturday night after the show, they are warm, friendly as as down to earth as any fan could hope.

They are the real deal, both professionally and personally. (See, I told you this was not going to be an unbiased review.)

I’ve had the privilege and pleasure to interview Marilyn and Billy on two occasions: The first was for a chapter in “The Vinyl Dialogues Volume II: Dropping the Needle” on the music and the making of their debut album as a duo, “I Hope We Get to Love in Time” from 1976. That album featured their hit single “You Don’t Have to Be A Star (To Be in My Show).”

(Photo by Mike Morsch)

The second interview was just recently, for an advance story on the Saturday show and about The 5th Dimension’s 1969 album “The Age of Aquarius,” which will be featured in a future volume of The Vinyl Dialogues series.

Saturday’s show included all the hits. I’ve always been big on personally sitting in the audience and hearing my favorite artists sing their hits live, those songs that made up the soundtrack of my life. And Billy and Marilyn obliged by opening the show with “Up, Up and Away” and closing it with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” In between, we were treated to other favorites like “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Wedding Bell Blues.”

“Laura Nyro recorded and released ‘Wedding Bell Blues.’ And she wrote it about a guy named Bill in her life,” said McCoo of the Nyro version that was first recorded in 1966. “The song was a hit in California, but it didn’t do as well across the country. So when we were listening to material for our album (“Age of Aquarius”), Bones (5th Dimension producer Bones Howe) had suggested that I record it because Billy and I were going together at the time. He thought it would be a lark. So we said, ‘Why not? Sure,’ having no idea that it would ever be a single.”

Surprisingly – at least to me – was that the songs that first brought the audience members out of their seats were not those by The 5th Dimension or by Billy and Marilyn as a duo, but covers of other artists’ songs.

Marilyn knocked it out of the park with a solo on “Never My Love,” which was a hit for The Association in 1967; and Billy followed that up with a rousing solo on “McArthur Park,” written by Jimmy Webb (who also wrote “Up, Up and Away”). That’s the “someone left the cake out in the rain song,” and I have to admit, it’s never been a favorite of mine. But the performances on those two songs convinced me – as if I need any more convincing at this point – that Billy and Marilyn could sing names out of a phone book and make it sound spectacular.

The show also featured a musical tribute to the Beatles that combined a video about the civil rights movement that was especially poignant and pertinent in today’s world.

As guests of Marilyn and Billy for the show, The Blonde Accountant and I got the chance to hang around afterwards and meet them. And they were delightful. It was the perfect end to the evening, and we got a chance to get an autograph and have our pictures taken with them. Since I had previously written about the “I Hope We Get to Love in Time” album, that’s the one I got signed.

The concert was a sellout, and rightfully so. Billy and Marilyn hadn’t performed in Atlantic City in several years and their return to the East Coast was welcomed by the fans.

Our summer concert schedule is in full swing. We’ve already seen Boz Scaggs, Art Garfunkel and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. And we’ve got tickets for Peter Frampton, Bob Dylan, Hall & Oates, Steely Dan and Bruce Springsteen to fill out the rest of the summer.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if at the end of the year, when I look back on the shows we’ve seen, that the performance by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. in Atlantic City Saturday night isn’t right at the top of the list.

They are just that good.

Shake, shake, shaking booty with KC and The Sunshine Band

By Mike Morsch

On August 9, 2015

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Harry Wayne Casey – a.k.a. KC of KC and The Sunshine Band – belts out one of his classic dance tunes Aug. 8, 2015, at the Tropicana in Atlantic City.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Once tickets had been secured for the KC and The Sunshine Band show Aug. 8 at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, it occurred to me that I maybe hadn’t put enough thought into the specifics of attending the concert.

In the days leading up to the show, one question loomed large: At this age, could I actually shake my booty for an entire KC concert without pulling a hamstring, throwing out my back or asking a paramedic to sit in the seat next to me with a defibrillator at the ready?

At the height of its popularity in the 1970s, KC and The Sunshine Band was all about dance music. No surprise there for those of us who grew up listing to it. The opening lines to one of the band’s biggest hits are, “Everybody, get on the floor, let’s dance. Don’t fight your feelings, give yourself a chance. Oh shake shake shake, shake shake shake. Shake your booty, shake your booty.”

And there was a time, in the mid- to late-1970s, where dancing all night long wasn’t an issue for me. I graduated from high school in the spring of 1977 and started college at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, in the fall. Between 1975 and 1977, KC and The Sunshine Band had produced four No. 1 hits: “Get Down Tonight,” “That’s the Way (I Like It),” “Shake Your Booty” and “I’m Your Boogie Man”; and a No. 2 single, “Keep It Comin’ Love.”

KC played to an enthusiastic crowd of booty shakers at the Tropicana gig.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

In the middle of Iowa in 1977, there wasn’t much to do other than dance. (For the purposes of this discussion, tractor pulls don’t count because those were sanctioned events that involved competition and judging.)

So KC and The Sunshine Band was right in my wheelhouse in Iowa in 1977. There was a disco only a few blocks from the dorms. I can neither confirm nor deny that alcohol was involved at the time. But I can say this: If I could recall any of my disco shenanigans, I’m certain they’d be among the fondest memories from my first year of college. (Do a little dance, drink a little beer, throw up tonight, throw up tonight baby.)

But that was nearly 40 years ago. Fortunately, Harry Wayne Casey – a.k.a. KC – realizes that some time has passed. Now that’s not to say that KC’s crowds these days are too old to dance. Quite the contrary. It’s just that we all seem to know our limitations.

KC is now 64 years old, a fact that he revealed during the Tropicana show. “For the young people in the audience, think of it like this: I’m your mom’s NSYNC,” he said, to hoots and hollers from the faithful. “This is what Justin Timberlake is going to look like in 30 years.”

From the curtain, it was apparent we were going to dance, because the first song was “Shake Your Booty.” That sets the tone for a KC and The Sunshine Band concert these days, much like it did back in the day. And I know this because KC himself told me as much.

“‘Shake Your Bootie’ was really a song I came up with because I’d see people fighting the urge, wanting to have a good time, just not being themselves,” said KC in an interview a few weeks ago. “I wrote that song after witnessing people fighting having a good time, fighting those feelings, to just get out there and shake your butt, shake your booty. Have a good time, enjoy life because it goes by quickly. That’s what that song is really about.”

It was the second time I had interviewed KC. In the first interview a few years ago, he detailed the making of the band’s second studio album, the 1975 self-titled “KC and The Sunshine Band” for The Vinyl Dialogues. A portion of the most recent interview included KC’s recollections about the making of the group’s 1976 album, “Part 3,” which I hope to include in Volume III of The Vinyl Dialogues series next year.

But the great thing about a KC and The Sunshine Band show now is that although both KC and the audience members are going to do a lot of dancing, it won’t be constant. Neither the star nor the majority of the fans are 21 years old anymore. To help alleviate that, KC has hired some great females dancers for us to watch as we plop our tired booties back into the theater seats for a bit of a rest.

KC also used three costume changes during the evening. And to give the booty shakers even more time to re-energize, he mixed in a few ballads (but only a few) and told a story or two between some songs. It was a perfect pace set by an experienced performer. We danced . . . a lot. But we also had a couple of well-placed timeouts.

It was the first time I had seen KC and The Sunshine Band live, and it was my wife’s idea. We saw KC perform on TV at the Fourth of July celebration this year in Washington, D.C. She mentioned then that it was a concert she would like to see. As a KC fan, certainly I was in complete agreement, despite the fact that she is a product of the 1980s, so her booty is a bit younger than mine and more capable of being able to shake shake shake for an entire concert.

KC has still got it. He has a much fun as the audience at his shows. An entertainer, a performer, a singer, a songwriter, the Boogie Man keeps it real as well. When his voice didn’t perform like he wanted it to at the beginning of “Please Don’t Go” – the band’s fifth No. 1 single that was released in 1979 – he acknowledged after its conclusion that the song got off to “a rough start.” To me, admitting to being human is an endearing quality for a performer.

And those classic dance songs, well, there’s no question in my mind that they’ve transcended the generations and stood the test of time.

If you don’t believe that, then you’d better check your pulse. You may be beyond the help of any paramedics.

The Beach Boys and America: As close to a perfect evening as possible

By Mike Morsch

On April 21, 2015

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys performs at the Borgata in Atlantic City.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

While waiting for the Beach Boys/America concert to start in the ballroom of the Borgata in Atlantic City Saturday evening, April 18, a little old lady came in and sat down beside me.

I don’t think she was from Pasadena. Atlantic City is, after all, a long way from California. (Beach Boys fans will get that joke.)

She was quiet throughout the hourlong set by America – Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley – who sound as good today as they did 40 years ago when they were making their fifth studio album, “Hearts,” which will be featured in “The Vinyl Dialogues Volume II: Dropping the Needle.”

America has always been one of my favorite bands, but this was the first time I had the opportunity to see them live. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe how good these guys are and how much I love their songs. So it’s no surprise to say that I enjoyed their performance.

When America finished its set, closing with “A Horse With No Name,” the first hit single for the band, which was released in 1971, the little old lady turned to me and said, “Was that the Beach Boys? Is that all?”

I explained to her that it was the band America that we had just seen and that the Beach Boys would be coming out next.
“Oh, I wasn’t sure. Those guys didn’t sound like the Beach Boys,” she said.

After the Borgata show, we got to meet Bruce. That’s daughter Kiley, Bruce and the author.

No, they didn’t sound like the Beach Boys to me either. For one thing, they’re younger, a joke that Beach Boys frontman Mike Love made himself later in the show. But Bunnell will tell you that he and Beckley love the Beach Boys, that they did influence America and that members of the two bands have been friends for decades and have performed on the same bill many times over the years.

The Beach Boys and America – they are the fabric of American music – provided much of the soundtrack of my life when I was growing up in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

This was a special concert for me for a couple of other reasons as well. I was accompanied by my oldest daughter, Kiley, who grew up with this music. We have a special bond that is linked in part by Beach Boys music. I did feel somewhat bad stealing her away from her husband on a Saturday night, but only for a little bit. From a selfish standpoint, she’s still my little girl. But as an adult, she’s great to hang with and she appreciates the music.

Dewey Bunnell, left, and Gerry Beckley of the band America sound just as good today as they did in the 1970s.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

It was also a special evening because we were the guests of Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys. Bruce provided a great interview in “The Vinyl Dialogues” detailing his role as producer of David Cassidy’s first two solo albums after Cassidy’s TV show “The Partridge Family” had ended its run. I hope to interview Bruce again for Volume II, this time about a Beach Boys album.

It wasn’t the first time I had met Bruce. In 1986 at a Beach boys concert in Rockford, Illinois, I was part of a media contingent invited to a pre-concert “Beach Party.” Bruce was the only band member to appear at the event, so he was inundated by the media. There is a photo of me standing next to Bruce, pen and reporter’s notebook in hand, and sporting a full head of curly hair.

The Beach Boys themselves – the Mike Love/Bruce Johnston group – still rock. There is still an energy coming from the stage that can make one forget that these guys are in their 70s and that they’ve been doing this for more than 50 years.

For the record, I don’t get into all that offstage Beach Boys hoo-ha. I love Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and that band. And I love Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and that band. I loved that they were all together for a series of 50th anniversary shows a few years ago and that I got to see one of those shows with my daughter.

But for me, it’s only about the music and what it means to me.

We were fortunate to meet Bruce after the show. He was gracious, signed a few autographs – including the photo of him and I from 1986 – posed for a photo and chatted a bit.

“I’ve been coming to Beach Boys concerts since I was three years old,” my daughter said to him.
“Me too,” said Bruce.

It was as close to a perfect evening as it could be.

Oh, and the little old lady? Without saying a word, she just got up and left about two-thirds of the way through the Beach Boys’ set.

Maybe she was headed back to Pasadena after all and wanted to get ahead of the traffic.

Stories behind memorable albums of the 1970s as told by the artists

Tag: Atlantic City

It’s easy to listen to Lionel Richie sing ‘Brick House’ and other hits all night long

‘Takin’ It to the Streets’ with Michael McDonald on the Atlantic City Boardwalk

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. give a solid gold performance in Atlantic City

Shake, shake, shaking booty with KC and The Sunshine Band

The Beach Boys and America: As close to a perfect evening as possible