More birthdays today include Richard Tucker, the Metropolitan Opera tenor---my maternal grandmother
played his recording of the Passover seder every year at our Passover seder, and also loved this
he recorded of the sacred commencement to Yom Kippur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu45D-5E0ZA. . . Also today's birthdays include Clem Cattini, drummer for the Tornados . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2pPgni-2B8. . . and, since it's the birthday of Gladys Knight & the Pips's Edward Patten, here's what I still think is
the best record they ever cut, when their Motown producer Norman Whitfield got the same idea for
them that Jerry Wexler at Atlantic got for Aretha Franklin---Whitfield put them back in church. (If
there's another classic Motown chart hit that came this close to classic black storefront church music---
Motown recorded a lot of gospel in its earliest years, none of which made even a dent on the R&B
or pop charts---I haven't heard it yet.) And as much as I love Marvin Gaye's subsequent hit with
the song, this one beats his to a pulp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vx3k4lyOhk