Culture
Catch the Biggest Radio Hits of the ’70s on WOUB-HD Dec. 30
By: Emily Votaw
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Even if you don’t know The Emotions, you mostly certainly would recognize “Best of My Love,” a song that probably plays frequently on your car radio and over the speakers of your favorite location of your favorite regional grocery store chain. The same goes for The Commodores and “Brick House,” “Right Back Where We Started From” and Maxine Nightingale, “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” and Tavares — as well as dozens of other ’70s radio earworms. Perhaps you would’t readily recognize them enough to buy their best of compilation from Family Dollar, but if one of their top hits came on the radio, you’d surely shake your hips, even if involuntarily.
If you’re looking for an opportunity to watch a reunion of some of the best of ’70s hybrid disco-pop radio, look no further than Superstars of ’70s Soul (My Music), which airs on WOUB-HD on Saturday, December 30 at 6 p.m. The special is hosted by none other than Patti LaBelle (of LaBelle, and later Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, responsible for the original disco hit “Lady Marmalade,” but, perhaps more impressively, for providing vocals on lauded American singer-songwriter Laura Nyro’s stunning 1971 album It’s Gonna Take a Miracle,) and features a laundry list of some of the biggest hitmakers of the ’70s.
Executive producer of the feature, TJ Lubinsky, spent the past two years tracking down the whereabouts of these musicians, searching high and low, everywhere from Hawaii, where he found Yvonne Elliman (“If I Can’t Have You,”) to the Netherlands, where he found “flying” George McCrae (“Rock Your Baby”). Some of these musicians haven’t performed since shortly after their heyday, but Lubinsky manages to gather an impressive array of talent for the special.