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Showing posts from April, 2023

"He's considered the genius of our time ... How 'bout a hand for Little Stevie Wonder!"

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  The Regal Theatre at 47th Street and South Parkway during the week of April 19-25, 1963. (Getty Images) From April 19 th to April 25 th , 1963 – literally 60 years ago this week – the Motortown Revue moved into Chicago’s legendary Regal Theatre at 47 th Street and South Parkway (now Martin Luther King Drive), where some of the Motown label’s most popular artists had a week-long engagement, doing five shows a day in the 3,000-seat theatre. Audiences that week got the full Motown experience, with performances from Mary Wells, The Contours, the Marvelettes, Marv Johnson, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, MC Bill Murray (not the actor/comedian!), Choker Campbell and His Orchestra and a 12-year-old wunderkind who the label signed the previous year, Little Stevie Wonder. The Regal, along with the nearby Tivoli Theatre (at 63rd Street and Cottage Grove), was the last of the Chicago movie palaces to offer stage shows with their movies. An...