Oddity of the Month
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This 1961 early Motown concert poster from Topeka, Kansas for The Miracles (later Smokey Robinson & The Miracles) has a couple of major goofs. First of all, given the fact that “Shop Around” was Motown’s first Top 10 hit and first million-seller makes it all the crazier that they couldn’t get it right on this poster, calling it “Shoppin’ Around” instead. A cute mistake. But much more egregiously, somebody pulled a file photo of The Marcels instead of the Miracles, and into production the wrong photo went! Nobody knew enough to realize that the Miracles had a female member, and didn’t have any Caucasian members. These artists weren’t unknown quantities… both acts had national Top 10 records earlier in the year, the Marcels having scored a #1 hit with a raucously uptempo version of “Blue Moon” in the spring. Ouch! If nothing else, these mistakes signified the naïve era that pop music was still in at the time. |
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The Miracles (comprising Smokey Robinson, Claudette Rogers/Robinson, Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White and Warren Moore – but none of them are pictured; instead you have The Marcels’ Cornelius “Nini” Harp, Ronald “Bingo” Mundy, Gene Bricker, Richard Knauss and Fred Johnson), supported by Popcorn and the Mohawks Orchestra, in concert with a Dance & Show at the Meadow Acres Ballroom in Topeka, KS on Sunday, Nov. 5, 1961. Check back often to see a fun new oddity here. |
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concert posters from crazy venues, such as roller rinks, high school gyms, grammar school gyms, and even a “tobacco warehouse”! | outrageous artist misspellings, from “Bob Dillon” and “The Beetles” to “Otis Reeding” and “Pink Floydd”! (We kid you not!) | |||||||||||||
lots of crazy statements that were serious at the time but look silly now. For instance: “Please note - ladies must wear skirts” (Paul Revere & The Raiders, Portland, Oregon 1963). | the coolest posters of concerts that were canceled… such as The Rolling Stones’ first-ever (attempted) visit to Liverpool in 1963, and a Bob Dylan show from after his motorcycle accident in 1966. | |||||||||||||
a crazy James Brown concert poster where he listed himself as the headliner and in all three supporting slots as well! | a 1969 Jazz Festival poster with Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Herbie Hancock and… Led Zeppelin??? | two different concert posters at two entirely different venues… by the same well-known R&B artist… on the same night! Did he run back & forth between the two gigs? |
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in 1964, when Beatlemania was new and the lawyers hadn’t clamped down yet, a group of mixed-ethnicity musicians calling themselves “The Tan & Brown Beatles”! (On a very legitimate bill with The Isley Brothers and The Drifters, no less!) | ||||||||||||||
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