The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After
TOM CLAY
“WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE/
ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND JOHN”
(H. David, B. Bacharach, D. Holley)
Mowest 5002
No.8 August 14, 1971
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Tom Clay was a substitute DJ, with a three-week assignment at L.A’s KGBS. Using his own funds, he
created a narrative collage that combined snatches of speeches by John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and
Martin Luther King, Jr., with sound effects and recordings of little children attempting to define terms
nebulous terms like “prejudice.” Gene Page arranged the period piece, and the Blackberries (the line-up, at
this point, in their career: Oma Drake, Jessie Smith, and Clydie King) supplied the vocal backdrop.
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Tom told Zoo magazine that the hope was to “get across the idea that what we need now is love … we’re up
to our armpits in hate and war and killing.” The children’s redeeming voices were added as an after
thought. The tone of the initial tape was negative. “There was no hope in it,” he told the magazine, “so I
added some little girls at the beginning and the end, giving their definitions of hate, bigotry, and segregation.
Not knowing about such things, they symbolized children everywhere:’
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Clay spun the disk on his radio program; though he had no plan to ever issue the piece as a record. All that
changed when Motown mastermind Berry Gordy, Jr., heard the DJ’s sociopolitical statement, and soon
issued a shaved version on Gordy’s Mowest label. The timing was right, and Clay found himself with a
national audience.
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Asked about the recording’s success, Clay said at the time, “Nothing’s really changed. Right now I’m
drawing $65 a week in unemployment, and they tell me that in a few weeks I could be a millionaire. Well, I
did go to Martioni’s restaurant in Hollywood and blew $23 on a meal for two, which is kind of extravagant
for me, but the money thing doesn’t really excite me.
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“I’m not looking for money. It isn’t what I want, I’ve had it. I’ve had my big Cadillac. My Lincoln. I’ve made
my $50,000 a year, and I’ve made $10 a year. I’ve paid my dues, and I can look in the mirror and say with
total honesty that I don’t give a damn about becoming a millionaire.
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“I suppose what I want, what every other human being wants . . . to be wanted and appreciated and loved,
and money can’t love me.”
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Follow-ups such as “Whatever Happened To,” a rambling reminiscence about sugar sandwiches wolfed
when young, sold little.
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Clay was relieved of his duties at WJBK in Detroit, when it was learned that he had accepted $6,000 from
several independent record companies to push their music.
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