Richard Gilbert “Dick” Griffey, record producer and promoter, died.

GM – LIF – Today’s American Champion, I had great respect for because we both had something in common back in the day of “Disco” and dance music. Don Cornelius who told me that I was too late in reaching my dream of hosting a dance show because he was ahead of me and today’s champion who was the talent coordinator for “Soul Train”.

I last saw him in Wisconsin at The Playboy Club in Lake Geneva where I was the DJ and program director. Lest tell you his story – He was born November 16, 1938 in Nashville, Tennessee. As a teenager, he performed as a drummer in local clubs. After briefly attending Tennessee State University, he enlisted in the United States Navy where he served as a medic.

In the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, California where he served as a talent coordinator for the television show “Soul Train.” In 1977, he founded SOLAR Records (Sounds of Los Angeles Records). There he produced a long list of acts, including Shalamar, The Whispers, Lakeside, and Midnight Star. Enjoy!

Remember – "Ultimately, I think he finished things he accomplished. His legacy isn't as well known. But I, for one, wouldn't feel right if I didn't sing the praises for the talent he was." – Brandon K. Hardison - President MaddLadd Productions

Today in our History – September 24, 2010 - Richard Gilbert “Dick” Griffey, record producer and promoter, died.

With infectious, irresistible invitations to the dance-floor such as "And The Beat Goes On" by the Whispers, "A Night To Remember" by Shalamar and "Midas Touch" by Midnight Star, Sound of Los Angeles Records – commonly abbreviated to Solar – the West Coast label founded by Dick Griffey, provided the sunny, soulful soundtrack for much of the Eighties on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the U.S., Solar artists became mainstays of the R&B charts, but in the UK - Shalamar in particular were a bona fide crossover act, becoming regulars on Top of the Pops, on which one of their number, Jeffrey Daniel, first demonstrated the backslide or moonwalk moves he later taught Michael Jackson, and influenced Paul Weller in his Style Council soul-boy days. Griffey could be ruthless with his roster, but he also had a great eye and ear for talent, and an uncanny ability to pick singles for his groups.

Griffey was the first to hire the writing-production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and nurtured the career of several other talented songwriters/producers including Leon Sylvers III and Reggie and Vincent Calloway, as well as the partnership of Antonio "LA" Reid and Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, two of the architects of the New Jack Swing genre.

Indeed, Solar's classy, sophisticated sound bridged the gap between disco and New Jack Swing, while Griffey was a more militant figure than his African-American antecedents, the Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr, and Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff of Philadelphia International Records.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1938, Griffey played drums in a local band as a teenager. In the mid-1950s he enlisted in the Navy and became a medical corpsman. In the early 1960s he relocated to Los Angeles and began showing his business acumen while running Guys and Dolls, a nightclub he co-owned with an old school friend, the former New York Knicks basketball player Dick Barnett.

There, Griffey booked the likes of Ike and Tina Turner and Isaac Hayes, but soon started looking for new challenges and became a fully-fledged concert promoter for big names such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, The Jacksons and Stevie Wonder. In parallel, he managed the quintet the Whispers, and acted as talent coordinator on the U.S. TV show Soul Train, devised and presented by Don Cornelius.

In 1975 Cornelius and Griffey started Soul Train Records and in 1977 they scored a Transatlantic Top 30 hit with "Uptown festival", a disco medley of Motown classics by a session group billed as Shalamar. But Cornelius had little faith in the venture and sold his share to Griffey, who renamed the label Solar. He set about creating a performing line-up of Shalamar around Jeffrey Daniel and Jody Watley, two of Soul Train's most popular dancers.

Following other short-lived tenures, the lead vocalist Howard Hewett completed the classic Shalamar line-up. Between 1980 and 1983, the trio had an impressive run of nine singles in the UK Top 30, including "I Owe You One", "I Can Make You Feel Good", "There It Is", "Friends", "Dead Giveaway" and "Over And Over".

Yet, for all the support he gave the ANC and the tough talking he did about the exploitation of African-Americans by the "white" music industry, the stocky, gruff-voiced Griffey seemed keener to reinvest Shalamar's considerable overseas royalties into building his empire and a $4m headquarters in the heart of Hollywood rather than pay Daniel and Watley – whom he considered "replaceable dancers" – their due, and used the divide-and-conquer routine to keep Hewett on side for one more album after the departure of the other two principals in 1984.

The Shalamar brand actually survived Hewett's subsequent exit and lasted until 1990, though the solo successes of Hewett, and especially Watley, proved that Griffey occasionally made the wrong call. Hewett and Daniel reunited as Shalamar in 1999 and toured Britain earlier this year, with Carolyn – one of Griffey's two daughters by his second wife, the vocalist Carrie Lucas – taking Watley's place.

However, Griffey did stick with most of his artists. His long-standing belief in The Whispers was rewarded when "And The Beat Goes On", a track he co-produced, topped the US R&B charts in 1980. Griffey also signed the group Lakeside – whose "Fantastic Voyage" was a U.S. R&B No 1 in 1981 – the all-girl funk band Klymaxx and the electro-funk outfit Midnight Star, Solar's third most successful act in Britain with tracks like "Operator" and "Headlines".

The label closed down in 1995 after releasing another notable first, the soundtrack to the 1992 thriller Deep Cover, whose theme song featured Snoop Dogg's debut recording with Dr Dre. Griffey spent the last 15 years trading in commodities and funding various charities in the US and West Africa. He died of complications arising from quadruple-bypass surgery.

In the early 1990s, Griffey had a hand in launching the rap label Death Row Records, which was co-founded by ex-N.W.A star Dr. Dre and one-time bodyguard Suge Knight. It was Griffey's SOLAR studios in which portions of Dr. Dre's seminal album, The Chronic, was recorded. However, in July 1997, Griffey along with one-time N.W.A associate and rapper Tracy "The D.O.C." Curry sued Death Row claiming they were "pushed out" of their share in ownership and profits from the record label by Knight and Dre.

Griffey died at the age of 71 on September 24, 2010, at a rehabilitation center in Canoga Park, Los Angeles, where he had been recuperating after undergoing quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery. Research more about this great American Champion and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!