1977 interview with Miami R&B legend Betty Wright; Clean up Woman; Miami Groove

1977 WCIX-TV interview with Miami R&B singing legend Betty Wright on her recollections of the Miami music scene, and the artists who performed at the Sir John Hotel in Miami.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-thfb6BFwo

The long-since destroyed Sir John Hotel discussed in the clip was located in downtown Miami on N.W. 6th Street & N.W. 3rd Avenue, and was only a few blocks from the old Channel 4 WTVJ-TV studio that was at 316 N. Miami Avenue.

C.T. Taylor, mentioned in the clip by Betty Wright as a music DJ at WMBM-AM, was hired in 1968 by Channel 4 news director and anchor Ralph Renick to become the first African-American on-air news reporter in Miami.

That fateful year was the year of the Liberty City riots in Miami during the Republican National Convention over on Miami Beach at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
(In 1972, it hosted both national party conventions.)

Taylor's extensive knowledge of the area and its personalities, people's trust of him, and his nightly fact-filled, context-heavy reporting from the scene during the riots, gave WTVJ a huge reporting advantage over their local news competitors and the three TV networks of the time.
His insightful reports sometimes appeared on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

For most of my childhood growing-up in Miami, Taylor and Renick were each among the best-known and most widely-respected men in all of South Florida.
They had credibility earned thru merit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Wright
http://www.youtube.com/user/wolfsonarchive




Betty Wright Clean up Woman (LIVE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ssMVL9I1Q




Betty Wright - Miami Groove
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azb8MtVzCO4