The group was founded in Australia in 1975. On their way to their first performance they realized they had yet to settle on a name. As fate would have it, they passed an exit for a town called Little River. It struck a chord and the Little River Band was born.
The rest is music history. Through the 70’s an 80’s, the Little River Band gave us multi-platinum hits like: “Reminiscing,” “Cool Change,” “Lonesome Loser,” “Take It Easy On Me, “Help Is On The Way,” “ It’s a Long Way There” and many more.
In 1982, the group set a record for having six consecutive years of Top 10 hits. In fact, they were the very first band to achieve this remarkable plateau. “Reminiscing” garnered rare status with over 5 million plays on American radio, and “Lady” another mega hit, was close behind with over 4 million plays.
Glenn Frey, of the Eagles, briefly played with the group in Australia in 1988 and dubbed the Little River Band, “the best singing band in the world.” The current members of the group take that accolade to heart each and every time they perform.
They include Wayne Nelson on bass, Chris Marion on keyboards, Bruce Wallace and Colin Whinnery on guitar and Ryan Ricks on drums.
Comments Off on Rollin on The River – The Best of Tina
Get ready for a high energy show like no other as Lori Mitchell-Gay along with a cast of singers, dancers and musicians pay tribute the Queen of Rock’n Roll, the one and only, Tiny Turner.
Originally from Philadelphia, Lori is a talented and versatile singer and performer who has graced stages all over the world. In addition to Tina, she is also well known for her tributes to Diana Ross and Whitney Houston.
Rollin on The River is a crowd pleaser and is currently preparing for a brand residency in Las Vegas.
Want to know what other stars think…
Adam Lambert This is what we want! I love your fire and this is likesecond nature for you.
Graham Russell & Russell Hitchcock met on May 12, 1975, the first day of rehearsals for “Jesus Christ Superstar” in Sydney, Australia; they became instant friends with their common love for The Beatles and, of course, singing.
After the shows’ performances at 10:30, they would play pizza parlors, coffee bars and night clubs with just one guitar and two voices. They quickly gained a reputation for great harmonies and for original songs that Graham was constantly writing. They made a demo on a cassette of two songs, “Love and Other Bruises” and “If You Knew Me” and took it to every record company in Sydney. Everyone turned it down but one — CBS Records — who admired their unique style.
They made a single in one afternoon and it shot to number one on the national charts. Air Supply was born! That same year, they opened for Rod Stewart across Australia and then throughout the U.S. and Canada playing all of the famous huge venues before Rod would take the stage. They found new fans, but did not break the U.S. market.
Back in Australia they had to start again and made a record called Life Support. On this record were some treasures of songs, including “Lost in Love” which went Top 10 in Australia and somehow found its way to music industry executive Clive Davis in New York.
Clive immediately signed Air Supply to Arista Records and in 1980, “Lost in Love” became the fastest selling single in the world, leaping to the top of all of the charts. Now Air Supply was on their way. The second single was “All Out of Love,” and that went up the charts even quicker.
Seven top-five singles later, Air Supply at that time had equaled The Beatles’ run of consecutive top five singles. The albums Lost in Love, The One That You Love, Now & Forever, and The Greatest Hits sold in excess of 20 million copies. “Lost in Love” was named Song of the Year in 1980, and, with the other singles, sold more than 10 million copies.
The trademark sound of Russell Hitchcock’s soaring tenor voice and Graham Russell’s simple yet majestic songs created a unique sound that would forever be known as Air Supply.
However, it is the live shows that always hold audiences captive around the world. They were the first Western group to tour China, Taiwan, and countless other countries that before would not allow pop music across their borders. In 1983 they recorded “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” by Jim Steinman which solidified the group as a permanent force in modern music. This song was released on The Greatest Hits album which soared past 7 million copies.
“Lost in Love”, “All Out of Love”, “The One That You Love”, “Sweet Dreams”, and “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” have each achieved multi-million plays on the radio.
In 1986 the group’s music was still playing endlessly on radio. That same year, Graham was married to actress Jodi Varble from Rochelle, Illinois, who also was his leading lady in the video for “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All.”
Air Supply began to tour with lavish productions in places that no one had been before. In South America and Asia they became a part of everyone’s life. In 1988, Air Supply was asked to participate in Australia’s bicentennial celebration and to play for HRH Prince Charles and HRH Princess Diana, where they learned both were already ardent fans. This engagement would be one of their most treasured moments in their career.
In 1989, they recorded “The Earth Is” album selling over a million copies outside of the U.S. This album was followed by “The Vanishing Race” CD and, with the singles “Goodbye” and “It’s Never Too Late”, again saw multi-platinum success. The following albums, “News from Nowhere”, “Yours Truly”, and “Across the Concrete Sky” all gave their second greatest hits album multi-platinum status as they traveled the world each and every year.
In 2000, a new production company was founded to be devoted to Air Supply’s entire future product, called A Nice Pear, which gave them complete creative control.
In July 2005, their live DVD, “It Was 30 Years Ago Today” celebrated 30 years of success around the world and in that same month, Air Supply smashed attendance records when, in Cuba, at one show they played to 175,000 people. Also 2005 saw the release of “The Singer and the Song”, an acoustic album of many of their big hits which received critical acclaim.
In May 2010, the long-awaited album, “Mumbo Jumbo” –also the duo’s first studio recording in eight years- was released. Recorded at Graham Russell’s home studio near Park City, Utah and at Odds On’s state of the art facilities in Las Vegas with top session musicians and an orchestra, “Mumbo Jumbo” was produced by Russell and engineered by Odds On’s Sean O’Dwyer, whose credits include Pink Floyd, Randy Newman and Blink-182. Among the 14-tracks, released by Odds On’s label, was the first single “Dance With Me,” which earned Air Supply a prominent feature article in Billboard Magazine titled “Still Supplying The Hits After 35 Years.”
Just weeks after composer and vocalist Graham Russell was honored with a BMI Million-Air Certificate recognizing 3 million performances of the duo’s hit “All Out Of Love,” Air Supply’s new song was the #1 most added track on the FMQB AC40 Chart, and also one of the most added on the R&R (Radio and Records) AC Chart and the Mediabase AC chart.
In 2013, the duo was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association’s Hall of Fame. Air Supply celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2015 and continue to delight audiences all over the world.
With his deep bass voice, Turner has sold more than six and a half million records, reached 4.8 billion global streams, and has become a favorite and unforgettable hitmaker on country radio. With timeless songs like “Long Black Train” and “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” Turner’s five No. 1 singles include “Your Man,” of which the official music video surpassed 100 million views. Turner released Your Man Deluxe Edition, celebrating 15 years of Turner’s iconic double Platinum-selling album, as well as the mini documentary “Josh Turner Your Man 15th Anniversary” (Mini Doc). The Double-Platinum-selling “Would You Go With Me,” featured on Your Man Deluxe Edition, experienced a viral surge across TikTok leading to a jump in streaming which landed the classic country tune on Spotify’s US Viral 50 along with Spotify Viral charts in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. The song continues to be a fan favorite, currently posting over a million streams per week and 1.5M global streams weekly. A native of South Carolina, Turner has been nominated for three GMA Dove awards and won his first GMA Dove Award in 2021 for “I Saw The Light” featuring Sonya Isaacs, off his I Serve a Savior album. Turner has received six Inspirational Country Music Awards, and has been nominated for two GRAMMY Awards, five CMA Awards, two ACM Awards, one CMT Award, and seven ACA Awards. Turner released his first Christmas album, King Size Manger, in 2021 and accompany vinyl and DVD in 2022. To support music and arts education, he created The Josh Turner Scholarship Fund For The Arts to help students pursue their studies in these fields. Turner and his wife Jennifer, whom he met as a student at Nashville’s Belmont University, have four sons. For more information, please visit www.joshturner.com
The great ones endure, and Gladys Knight has long been one of the greatest. Very few singers over the last fifty years have matched her unassailable artistry. This seven-time Grammy winner has enjoyed #1 hits in Pop, Gospel, R&B and Adult Contemporary, and has triumphed in film, television and live performance.
Knight, known as the “Empress of Soul,” a longtime Las Vegas resident, returned to the Strip in the late-2000s to the famed Tropicana Hotel for a special engagement that ran in the newly named Gladys Knight Theater, making her the first African-American performer to have a venue named after her in Las Vegas. This followed a successful four-year show run at The Flamingo, which the Las Vegas Review-Journal praised as “the number-one show on the Strip.”
Georgia-born, Knight began performing gospel music at age four in the Mount Mariah Baptist Church. Three years later, she won the grand prize on television’s “Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour,” and the following year, her mother Elizabeth Knight created the group consisting of Gladys, her brother Bubba, her sister Brenda and her cousins William and Elenor Guest. They called themselves The Pips in honor of their cousin/manager, James Pip Woods. In 1959, Brenda and Elenor left the group, replaced by cousin Edward Patten and friend Langston George. The group was renamed Gladys Knight & The Pips, and following George’s departure in 1962, the classic line-up was in place.
The group debuted their first album in 1960, when Knight was just sixteen. With Knight singing lead and The Pips providing lush harmonies and graceful choreography, the group went on to achieve icon status with some of the most memorable songs of the next three decades like“Every Beat of My Heart,” “Letter Full of Tears,” and “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.”
“If I Were Your Woman,”set the stage for another amazing run with Top 10 gold-certified singles like “Neither One of Us” “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination,” “Best Thing to Ever Happen to Me” and the #1 smash “Midnight Train to Georgia” which established the group as the premiere pop/R&B vocal ensemble in the world.
The party kept rolling with hits like “On and On” from the Academy Award nominated soundtrack of Curtis Mayfield’s “Claudine,” the 1974 comedy about love in the inner city. Knight enjoyed another #1 hit in 1985 when she teamed with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Dionne Warwick on “That’s What Friends are For.”
In 1995, Knight earned her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the next year, Gladys Knight & The Pips were inducted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. Knight published an autobiography, “Between Each Line of Pain and Glory” (a line taken from her million selling recording “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”), in 1997, and the next year, she and The Pips were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. In 2004, Knight received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the annual BET Awards ceremony.
A humanitarian and philanthropist, Knight has devoted to various worthy causes, including the American Diabetes Association – for which she is a national spokesperson, the American Cancer Society, the Minority AIDS Project, amFAR and Crisis Intervention, and The Boys and Girls Club. She has been honored by numerous organizations as well, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), B’Nai Brith, and is a recent recipient of BET’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Today, Knight and husband William, along with other members of the family, oversee her busy career from the Las Vegas headquarters of Shakeji, Inc., her personal entertainment corporation. She is a wife, mother, grandmother, greatgrandmother, performer, restaurateur, and businesswoman with a spiritual outlook on her life. Her faith in God has been the driving force behind all of Knight’s endeavors, guiding her through her many successes.
Get ready for a star and show like no other. Here comes Gladys Knight.
