R&B Foundation Honors Green

The Reverend Al Green will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the twelfth annual Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Awards. The event is scheduled for the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, on November 8th. The ceremony was originally scheduled for October 4th, but was bumped after the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Other acts who will be honored include Fontalla Bass, Big Jay McNeely and Dee Dee Sharp in the category of Individual Artists; Sly and the Family Stone and the Emotions as Group Artists; Allen Toussaint and Motown's songwriting/production team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland in the Songwriter/Entrepreneur category.

Louis Jordan will receive the Legacy Tribute, which will be presented by 60 Minutes' Ed Bradley and Ashford and Simpson.

Other presenters for the evening include Mary Wilson, Brenda Russell, Gerald Levert, Richard Roundtree, Paul Shaffer and Betty Wright.

The Rhythm and Blues Foundation was founded in 1988 to provide emergency medical and financial assistance to R&B musicians and legends, and to promote the preservation and history of the genre. This year's ceremony will be the first held at the Apollo.

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Song Stories

“Too Close”

Next | 1998

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'" 

More Song Stories entries »

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