"It's what's in the grooves that counts" - David Ruffin - "Walk Away From Love" -only one of my favorite 10 songs ever; ABBA - "S.O.S."; Ruffin's version of "I Want You Back"

sevensman YouTube Channel: David Ruffin - "Walk Away From Love" on "Soul Train" with Don Cornelius. (1975) Uploaded July 20, 2010. http://youtu.be/APlXHfhbiVw

Truly, a perfect three-minute song.
So much immense talent, so much towering ego, so many inner demons...  and that crazy amazing emotive voice that never failed to get your attention.
That June day in 1991 that I heard on the radio that David Ruffin had died, I actually cried.

As for the video at the top of this post, I remember the Saturday morning that I first saw him performing this song on Soul Train in 1975, when I was fourteen-years old.
That was back when the show aired in South Florida on the then-independent Channel 6, WCIX-TV, down on Brickell Avenue, back when, pre-Radio Mambi, WAQI, that street also was the home of Storer Broadcasting's WGBS-AM 710, the then-number one sports radio station in South Florida, with its 50,000 Watts booming from that beautiful brick building on the corner known as the 710 Building.
  
As ridiculous as some of Soul Train's conventions could sometimes be, especially its not always so well-disguised lip-syncing, I watched that show religiously every Saturday morning.
Some posts on Miami TV and Radio of that era will be forthcoming in the new year

Below, David Ruffin as he appeared and sang the song on ABC-TV's American Bandstand with Dick Clark on the November 16, 1975 telecast:


David Ruffin - Walk Away From Love (Amer by sagelion13

Also appearing on that show - a band from Sweden that you may've heard of.
ABBA did a killer version of "S.O.S" as you can see from Shay's video.


2Shaymcn YouTube Channel: ABBA - "S.O.S." on ABC-TV's "American Bandstand " with Dick Clark, November 1975. Uploaded January 20, 2012. http://youtu.be/6OOrleE6wfc



MrManuel822 YouTube Channel video: David Ruffin - I want You Back (1971). Uploaded on February 13, 2012. http://youtu.be/WGBdb8ganDY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ruffin

http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/memories_music_radio_new

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