Southern Black Catholic With a Broken Heart
Checked my recent search engine hits and found the following:
25/12/2004 22:48:26 %22i had a dream%22 remix %22martin luther%22 billy (Google)
I don't know Billy, but I know Paul and Andy, and the OMD album The Pacific Age (now apparently out of print). Track 6 on this album is entitled "Southern," and features some Martin Luther King speeches (including his last speech) with an OMD musical background.
Why King? Why not? Those English guys spent a lot of time singing about Southern blacks, including "88 Seconds in Greensboro" on Crush, which refers to this incident:
JESSICA SAVITCH
It could be called a dark Southern tale: right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists in a gun battle in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 88 seconds, five are left dead. Tonight on FRONTLINE, an inside story behind those 88 seconds in Greensboro.
Six Klansmen and American Nazis went on trial for the Greensboro killings two years ago. They were acquitted by an all-white jury. The jury was persuaded that they had fired in self-defense at the Communist demonstrators who were also armed.
Once I found that link, I pursued the Wiki about the last years of the star reporter on that Frontline episode:
Critics and old-school broadcasters felt that [Jessica Savitch] lacked the experience for national network news; David Brinkley is said to have called her "the dumbest woman I have ever met" in public. But audiences loved her, and she soon became one of the most popular NBC anchors.
As her career skyrocketed however, her unstable personal life became increasingly messy.
She continued an on-again, off-again affair with Ron Kershaw, a reporter who reportedly gave her beatings that even NBC's make-up artists couldn't conceal. After breaking up with Kershaw, Jessica was married twice; once to elderly millionaire Mel Korn, then to her gynecologist, Donald Payne, who committed suicide.
Rumors and allegations were spread about her bizarre behavior on and off the set; screaming rants, cocaine binges, and promiscuity have been alleged. By 1983 Connie Chung had replaced her on the Saturday edition of NBC Nightly News, and "Frontline" had nearly eliminated her on-screen appearances.
The most bizarre incident in her career was a one-minute prime-time news update on the night of October 3, 1983. Savitch's delivery of the news report was slurred and incoherent. Savitch told her bosses that her teleprompter had gone out, but her agent claimed that she was on medication for a head injury.
On the evening of Sunday, October 23, 1983, Savitch had a date with Martin Fischbein, Vice President of the New York Post. They drove from her apartment in New York City to the small village of New Hope, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. They drove home with Fischbein behind the wheel and Jessica in the back seat with her dog, Chewy. Either ignoring or not seeing the "No Vehicles" signs in the pouring rain, Fischbein drove out of the wrong exit and up the towpath of the old Delaware Canal. He veered too far to the left and the car went over the edge into the shallow water. The station wagon fell about 15 feet and landed upside-down, sinking into deep mud which sealed the doors shut, trapping the occupants inside as the water poured in. The wreck was discovered by a local resident at about 11:30 that night....
88 seconds...60 seconds...the difference is 28 seconds. (Sorry, not 27.)
Back on topic...OMD has an official website. Here's an excerpt from their biography that discusses the "Crush"/"Pacific Age" period:
Producer Stephen Hague was drafted in for the 1985 album 'Crush' and the subsequent 1986 album 'The Pacific Age'. Hague managed to give the songs on both albums a polished edge, while retaining an essential energy that was vital to the songs. Singles such as 'So In Love' and '(Forever) Live & Die' drew on OMD's flair for writing engaging melodies, while demonstrating that they were taking much more of a traditionalist approach to song production.
This period also saw the band touring extensively in North America and finally achieving the chart success that had eluded them for so long in the USA. 'If You Leave', specifically written for the John Hughes movie 'Pretty In Pink', was a huge success globally (although strangely not in the UK). However, the consistent schedule of touring took a toll on the band both professionally as well as personally and 'Dreaming', released in 1988, was to be the last single written by Humphreys and McCluskey.
OMD ended an era in 1989 with the departure of Humphreys, Holmes and Cooper leaving Andy McCluskey to forge ahead under the OMD banner....
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