*A number of significant events happened on March 9th in music history – some positive, some negative, one involving busted teeth, all worth a trip down memory lane.
Here we go, in chronological order:
James Brown’s original band of the 50s and 60s had grown disgruntled by 1970. Upset with their pay and working conditions, the band members – including Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker – took their complaints to the boss and decided to boycott their next gig in Columbus, Georgia until their demands were met. You remember the scene in “Get On Up.”
JB called their bluff. He dispatched his sidekick Bobby Byrd to Cincinnati to recruit brothers William “Bootsy” Collins (bass) and Phelps “Catfish” Collins (rhythm guitar). They fronted a band called The Pacemakers. On March 9, 1970, they were flown back to Georgia on Brown’s Learjet and led on stage in Columbus, along with other replacements, to the complete shock of Brown’s original band, who were still boycotting. The Godfather called his new lineup, The J.B.s. Perhaps you’ve heard their work on “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” “Super Bad,” “Soul Power,” and “Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing,” to name a few.
Here’s Bootsy explaining how he and his brother were recruited by Bobby Byrd, followed by some early performance footage.
Neither Run-D.M.C. nor Aerosmith were fans of their collaboration “Walk This Way” when they went into New York’s Magic Ventures Studios on March 9, 1985 to record it. But the rap trio’s producer Rick Rubin swore it was hot. The rest is history.
Not only was the remake of Aerosmith’s 1975 song the rap group’s biggest hit at the time, it also gave Aerosmith’s long dormant career a pulse and exposed Run-D.M.C. to a lucrative crossover audience.
Run DMC and Aerosmith – Walk This Way – MTV LIVE 1987
How could we have known that the March 9, 1990 release of “House Party,” starring Kid ‘N Play as teens throwing a party while their parents are away, would give “the culture” one of its most iconic dance routines. Ever.
House Party Dance Off
The Notorious B.I.G. had flown to Los Angeles in February 1997 to promote the March 25 release of his second album, “Life After Death.” He gave a radio interview at San Francisco’s KYLD on March 5. He attended the Soul Train Music Awards in L.A. on March 7. He was scheduled to do an interview with us on March 11, which was a Tuesday. He died the previous Sunday, March 9, 1997.
Biggie was gunned down at half past midnight after leaving a Soul Train Music Awards afterparty hosted by Vibe magazine and Quest Records at the Peterson Automotive Museum. He was 24.
Last but not least, Angie Stone and her 30-year-old daughter, Diamond, were at their Lithonia, GA home on March 9, 2015, when, according to reports, Stone started yelling at Diamond to clean her room and mind her kids. Things got physical, and Stone allegedly knocked out Diamond’s two front teeth with a metal stand.
The singer was booked on aggravated assault and released from jail on a $10,000 bond. A year later, on “The Steve Harvey Show,” Stone denied punching out Diamond’s teeth, insisting that her daughter’s chompers were already rotting before the altercation and likely came out from her biting her lip during the fight.
