"Call 224-6440 - that's the happening center, baby!"

I would very much like to find out more about Willie Horton's "Detroit is Happening". It makes almost no sense at all, so I'd love to put it in some sort of context.

A baseball great, whose heart is obviously in the right place but who emphatically cannot sing [[I'm not having a dig at Mr Horton, this is admirable charity work, but his brief burst into song - "I just spoke to the mayor man himself, AND HE SAID IT" - is just astonishing) doing a quasi-cover of "The Happening" to plug some sort of youth initiative? Okay, fine, but what is this actually for? I always thought it was made after the riots as a regeneration effort, a la "I Care About Detroit", but I notice it's actually from 1967, apparently recorded not long after the Supremes' original, BEFORE the riots, inadvertently horribly inappropriate [[unplayably so, I suppose) for the events of that summer - so it presumably couldn't fulfil whatever purpose it was meant for.

But what purpose? Was this meant to be a radio jingle, or sent out to youth clubs or schools, or what? What happened if you actually called 224-6440, as Willie asks us to do eight or nine times during the song [[and got through to "Detroit's youth opportunity programme for summer jobs and reckaration [[sic)" )? Who are those backing singers - surely not the actual Supremes? Why wouldn't Willie Horton let it be used on TCMS7? Who thought this was a good idea? Whose idea was it? Who paid for it?

I'd love to find out more about this record.

...Does anyone know anything about this record, or am I fishing in the dark?

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Originally Posted by radionixon

...Does anyone know anything about this record, or am I fishing in the dark?

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I would like to know where are you from before I answer?

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Originally Posted by marv2

I would like to know where are you from before I answer?

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Attachment 4792
You're not sure whether or not you'd like to know where he is from before you answer [[thus the question mark at the end of your statement)?

Despite this uncertainty, I will divulge from whence Mr. Nixon has come. He was raised in Great Britain [[England, specifically), and still resides there. I hope he doesn't mind my "speaking" for him.

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Originally Posted by robb_k

Attachment 4792
You're not sure whether or not you'd like to know where he is from before you answer [[thus the question mark at the end of your statement)?

Despite this uncertainty, I will divulge from whence Mr. Nixon has come. He was raised in Great Britain [[England, specifically), and still resides there. I hope he doesn't mind my "speaking" for him.

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Thank you Robb! I wanted to know where he was from originally before formulating my answer. My reasoning behind that request is if he were from Detroit or somewhere in the North Central Region and around during the sixties....my answer would be more direct. If not, I would try to preface my response to explain local social and economic conditions during that time in Detroit in order to try to make sense of what facilitated that recording by Willie Horton of the Tigers.