Monday, October 14, 2013

Rick Dees Among Those To Be Inducted Into NC Music HOF

Rick Dees
Longtime radio personality Rick Dees is  one of eight inductees who will be honored Thursday Oct. 17 in Kannapolis, as the N.C. Music Hall of Fame enshrines a new set of music legends with roots in or connections to North Carolina.

According to the Charlotte Observer, the fifth annual semiformal event will be at Restaurant Forty Six and The Gem Theatre in Kannapolis. Limited VIP tickets include a cocktail reception and inductee meet-and-greet before guests and inductees walk the red carpet from the restaurant to the theater.

Event organizers expect hundreds to attend.

The event will include live music by some of this year’s inductees, all of whom were either born or raised in North Carolina. Aside from Dees, Tony Brown, The Catalinas and Willie Weeks are expected to attend; others have not been confirmed, according to organizers.

Since the 1980s, Dees has broadcast more than 2,000 countdowns. Raised in Greensboro, the 63-year-old has been named Billboard’s Radio Personality of the Year 10 years in a row. He has been inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame.

Dees entered the international entertainment arena in the late 1970s, when he wrote and recorded “Disco Duck,” which sold 6 million copies, earned a People’s Choice Award and the BMI Award for record sales in one year.

Alicia Bridges
The 2013 N.C. Music Hall of Fame inductees:
  • Grady Tate, jazz drummer on the “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” was born in Durham.
  • Rick Dees, a longtime radio personality known for the novelty song “Disco Duck,” was raised in Greensboro.
  • Willie Weeks, bass guitarist for Eric Clapton and others, was born in Salemburg.
  • Tony Brown, a musician and country record producer who worked with George Strait, Reba McIntyre, Vince Gill and Jimmy Buffet, was born in Greensboro but grew up in Walkertown.
  • John P. Kee, a gospel recording artist and pastor of New Life Community Church in Charlotte, was born in Durham.
  • Alicia Bridges, known for her hit “I Love the Nightlife,” was born Charlotte but grew up in Lawndale.
  • The Catalinas, R&B/beach recording artists known for the songs “Summertime’s Calling Me” and “Your Haven’t the Right,” have original members from Charlotte and Statesville.
  • Country recording artist Del Reeves, known for the song “Girl on the Billboard,” was born in Sparta. He died in 2007.

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