https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFjifgfejog
Many, many thanks to MojoWorkinDonosti for posting this great performance on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFjifgfejog
Many, many thanks to MojoWorkinDonosti for posting this great performance on YouTube.
Thanks so much for posting! Kim sounds real good and still has it.
My pleasure, DMG. So glad you enjoyed it. It was a real delight to come across it. There's always been something so wonderful and thrilling about Kim.
Is Ms. Weston missing her top teeth?
Kim, a legendary talent that still has it! I remember she was sure her former husband Mickey Stevenson was going to give her "Dancing In the Streets" to record back in 1964. Now imagine her surprise when it went to Martha & the Vandallas! LOL!
I was there for the video taping of this performance of Kim and Marvin Gaye's brother Frankie Gaye. Yep! Sat right there with Ian Levine on my left and Mrs. Esther Gordy Edwards on my right. Mrs. Edwards was so proud of all the former Motown acts that night. Ian? Well, that is another conversation for another time. LOL!
Yep! It was at the Ponchitrain Hotel. I remember that night so vividly. Speaking of Jean Terrell, Legendary Detroit DJ "Frantic" Ernie Durham asked me to escort Jean down on the elevator to the dressing rooms! LOL! I also got caught in the elevator with Wanda Rogers that night and......I'll leave it at that! LOL! Jean sounded extraordinary that night, she brought the house down in my opinion.
It was too bad they didn't remove the "stuff" backstage like they had planned. I think with better promoting and marketing they could have kept a Motown "thing" going on weekends since several performers were still living in area at the time. Kim Westin was the textbook example of under utilized talent. Did you go both nights?
Kim still out on the road trying to make a living. Good for her as she's 74! Motown really lost their way with so many, Kim being one of them.
It's great to hear Kim Weston still sounding so good.
144man - I so agree! She's always been one of my favorites. Easily.
I remember reading an interview with Kim a few years back when this subject was broached. In that interview she denied that she really ever thought the song was for her. As I recall, she said something like, "Mickey might have thought about it for about five seconds but that was it." So who knows what the real story was? I suppose it ultimately went to Martha because she had charted two big hits by that time while Kim had not. Their voices were similar enough that, with the same arrangement/production, the song would probably have sounded very much the same. Had Kim recorded it, it might have changed the course of her career, but by the same turn, without chart name-recognition, it might have foundered and I suppose Mickey knew it was such a great song that he didn't want to take any chances of its getting lost in the shuffle.
Oh, I wasn't dismissing Kim's vocal talent. In 1964 when Mickey helmed "Dancing in the Street" Kim's powerhouse voice was much stronger, more mature, and less sharp-edged than Martha's was, by a mile — okay, a mile and a half. Still, Martha had charted two big hits: "Come and Get These Memories" and "Heat Wave." At that same time Kim, as I recall, had released only three singles: "Love Me all the Way," "Just Loving You" [[a VERY powerful and sophisticated number which, sadly, went almost nowhere), and "Looking for the Right Guy" [[a piece of fluff which would have fit Mary Wells better and also went almost nowhere). As head of A&R, Mickey probably knew instinctively what would sell, and with Martha riding two big hits, decided to let her do it, even to the exclusion of his own wife. Unfair? Certainly. Good business? Probably.
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