Tag Archive for: #geraldalston

McGregor Hall

TownTalk: Love Of Performing Keeps Alston And Manhattans On Stage

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The smooth, sultry sounds of The Manhattans is a balm for anyone who grew up listening to R&B and Henderson’s own Gerald Alston has helped to create that sound for, well, a few years now.

Alston will perform this Friday evening, Sept. 2 at McGregor Hall alongside Troy May and newcomer Lawrence Newton, with the band East Coast Connection providing the accompaniment.

The concert begins at 8 p.m. Purchase tickets at https://www.mcgregorhall.org/

Alston, now 70, talked with WIZS’s Bill Harris on Wednesday’s Town Talk, and said he is always happy to perform in the place where he got his start.

“Over the years that I’ve been singing, we’ve always been well supported by my hometown,” Alston said. “It’s a joy to me to be able to come home and perform for friends, family and fans.”

Earlier this month, the group celebrated its 60-year anniversary. Although the faces may have changed over those six decades, the sound remains true. Alston joined the group at the young age of 17 and he said his love of singing is what keeps him going. “My love of singing and love of family,” he said.

He became lead singer in 1970 and has never looked back. Concert goers can expect to hear some of the group’s biggest hits – think “Shining Star” and “Kiss and Say Goodbye,” just to name a couple.

“We’ll be adding a couple of songs that we don’t usually do,” but are regional favorites, he hinted.

Over the years, as vinyl albums made way for cassettes, CDs and now streaming platforms, Alston said he and his group have enjoyed how the “old” fans come together with new fans to appreciate the music they create.

“Social media and Internet radio have been our friend,” he readily acknowledged, adding that fans can download particular songs to create their own playlist and don’t have to depend on traditional radio stations or other traditional formats.

If all goes according to plan, the Manhattans will have 35 or 40 shows this year, bouncing back after the COVID-19 pandemic. Their latest single, “Get It Ready,” climbed high on the soul independent charts, and Alston said he expects the group’s touring schedule to continue to pick up speed.

“The point is that we love singing and God has granted us the ability to still be doing it,” he said.

Having said that, however, Alston did suggest that touring the country and the world to perform can be tiring.

They recently did a two-day gig with the O’Jays down in Florida, he said, playing Tampa one night and then Miramar the next. “Believe me, the traveling is what gets you,” he said. “Traveling takes its toll on you at times.” Between early flights and late check-ins, sound checks and finding a spot to eat – and then heading back to the venue for a two-hour show, Alston said it’s not as easy to bounce back at 70 as it was earlier in his career.

As for Friday night’s venue, McGregor Hall, Alston is seriously pumped.

“Mark Hopper… has done a wonderful job,” he said. “McGregor Hall is one of the best venues that we’ve played – the sound is great, the hall is beautiful…and the staff there is top-notch.”

McGregor Hall is on the smaller side of venues where the Manhattans have performed – dwarfed certainly by the Houston Astrodome and the Atlanta Braves Stadium, where the group has performed to crowds of between 30,000 and 40,000.

 

Alston said he prefers the smaller venues because of the closer, more intimate setting they provide – there’s literally less space between the fans and the stage. “I love being close to my fans and the audience,” he said.

But whether in an intimate setting or a cavernous sports arena, the response from the audience is the same. “They give you that energy,” Alston said, “their appreciation for our music and their support” pumps up the performers and makes it all worthwhile.

“At some point, I may slow down with the work,” Alston said, perhaps picking and choosing performances. “But I think I’ll always be singing.”

 

 

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TownTalk: Gerald Alston’s Sound System Helped To Launch His Musical Career

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The way Gerald Alston sees it, the difference in today’s popular R&B music and that of just a few decades ago is clear: the older music tells a story and leaves room for the listener’s imagination. Not so much with today’s R&B.

“There’s no room for imagination,” Alston said of the newer music. “Artists come out and say exactly what they’re doing.”

Alston spoke by phone to WIZS’s Bill Harris on Monday’s Town Talk. And just like the music that he and The Manhattans perform, the Henderson native shared stories about getting his start in music and reminisced about working with many big-time R&B groups.

A lot of today’s hiphop music is based on the foundation laid by R&B greats, he said. The music The Manhattans and so many others are known for “told stories about life that people could identify with,” he said.

Alston has played concerts across the globe – from South Africa and South America to Great Britain and McGregor Hall, right here in Henderson. The group has played for more than two hours to 15,000 concertgoers in South Africa, he said. “They know our music to a T. Those fans sang every song we performed for two and a half hours,” Alston said. “Our music has been passed down to their children and they still honor that – they realize the importance and quality of it.”

The group has evolved over the years, but The Manhattans are still performing and recording. These days, it’s Alston, Troy May and Dave Tyson who comprise the group.

Their newest album of music, The Manhattans featuring Gerald Alston: The Legacy Continues, is available on their website, www.letsjustkissandsaygoodbye.com.

The website name is a nod to the group’s most successful song, but Alston’s association with The Manhattans began a few years before that song was released in 1976. Alston was attending Kittrell College and agreed to let The Manhattans borrow his sound system for a concert there. “I had no idea they were coming,” he said. Well, as he was testing the system out – by singing, of course – in walked the group that he would later be asked to join. He opened the show for them at Kittrell College and a short time later, the manager caught up with him. He had been booked on a flight to Dallas to join the group. The manager had already been in touch with Alston’s parents, who’d signed the contract since Alston was under age.

“I came back to New York and rehearsed for a few weeks and then I started singing with The Manhattans,” he explained.

The Manhattans weren’t the first group that Alston was a part of; he and his cousin, Dwight Fields (son of Johnny Fields, of Blind Boys of Alabama fame) put a group together that lasted through high school.

Alston, 69, remembers those early days well, from the days when he opened for B.B. King and the man got a standing ovation BEFORE he started playing, to meeting the family of the late Sam Cooke after Alston produced a record of Cooke’s songs.

“I had been wanting to do that for a long time,” Alston recalled. Although his idea had been to do one gospel side and one R&B side, it became two separate albums. Cooke’s brother, L.C. Cooke, did the liner notes for the album. “He said, ‘your album is a true tribute album –  you are singing all of his songs the way you feel them, the way you interpret them,” Alston said.

People who listen to music solely through streaming services and not by actually playing a record album or a CD don’t get the same experience, Alston said. Music lovers who still spin vinyl, however, are still out there enjoying the full experience.

“You can go to Great Britain, South Africa, Japan, South America,” he said. “Those fans can tell you literally the year you recorded, the studio, the musicians, the words –  the year you were at Columbia Records, the  engineers –  it’s incredible. There’s so much history on the physical vinyl, it’s good to have.”

TownTalk Interview with Gerald Alston

Hendersonian Gerald Alston Returns To Perform With Grammy-Winning Group The Manhattans

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Legendary Rhythm and Blues group The Manhattans, featuring lead-singer Gerald Alston, will perform at the newly opened McGregor Hall Performing Arts Center in Henderson, N.C., on June 18th at 8 p.m.  Born and raised in Henderson, Alston has been singing with The Manhattans since 1970 and led the group to several chart-topping hits like the Grammy-winning song Shining Star.

The son of the Rev. J.B. Alston and Geraldine Harrison of Henderson, Alston was inspired by music at an early age, singing both gospel and secular music with his group The New Imperials. Along with his musically talented father, Alston’s uncle is the late Gospel-music great Johnny Fields of Henderson, a founding member of the group 5 Blind Boys of Alabama, and his aunt Shirley Alston-Reeves of Henderson is the lead singer of The Shirelles, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group. Along with earning a Grammy for the song Shining Star, Gerald Alston was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2015 after his 45-year career with The Manhattans as well as numerous solo records.

On June 18th, Alston will once-again perform in his hometown of Henderson as the lead singer of The Manhattans. “This concert is expected to be a sold-out show,” said Tommy Deadwyler, executive director of the newly opened McGregor Hall Performing Arts Center in Henderson. “We are thrilled that Henderson’s new performing arts center allows us to host Gerald and his group within his hometown and we know the community is especially excited about this concert.”

ABOUT THE CONCERT: The Manhattans featuring lead-singer and Henderson-native Gerald Alston will perform at McGregor Hall Performing Arts Center (PAC) on June 18th at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale at www.McGregorHall.org, by calling (252) 598-0662 or by visiting the Box Office at 201 Breckenridge Street in Henderson. The 1,000-seat, state-of-the-art McGregor Hall PAC opened in February 2016 as part of Henderson’s revitalized downtown. Media passes available upon request. For interviews and more information, contact McGregor Hall’s Executive Director Tommy Deadwyler at (252) 598-0662 or email him at tommydeadwyler@mcgregorhall.org.