Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)
1966 · V.I.P. 25032 · USA
- Artist
- The Monitors
- Title
- Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)
- Release
- Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam) / Number One in Your Heart
- Year
- 1966
- Label
- V.I.P. # 25032
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Soul, Gospel & Funk · Soul
- Primary theme
- Home Front Perspective / Soldier's Perspective
Annotation
The Detroit soul song "Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)" (V.I.P. Records # 25032 - a sub-label of Berry Gordy's Motown Records). This was a cover of the The Valadiers's 1961 Motown single Greeting (This Is Uncle Sam) (Miracle Records # MI-6), released before the major American presence in Vietnam, and thus probably not directly about that conflict. However, by 1966, when the Monitors released the song, the war and draft was in full-swing - jumping from 3,000 in December 1961 to 239,400 in December 1966, of which a disproportionate number were African-Americans. The track opened the 2003 compilation A Soldier's Sad Story: Vietnam Through the Eyes of Black America 1966-73 (Kent # CDKEND 226). The song featured on the 1970 album Greetings!... We're the Monitors. It hit # 21 on the Billboard R&B chart, and # 100 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. The lead vocalist was Richard Street, who later joined the The Temptations (1971-72).
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
The Monitors were the Motown act whose "Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)" (V.I.P. 25032, 1966) - a remake of the Valadiers' 1961 Motown original - reached #21 R&B/#100 pop as a draftee's-eye Vietnam-era side. Documented lineup: Richard Street (born 5 October 1942, Detroit; died 27 February 2013, Las Vegas), Sandra Fagin, John "Maurice" Fagin and Warren Harris. Street, a school friend of the Temptations' Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin and a Distants alumnus, left to join the Temptations around 1969-71, ending the group; a different lineup briefly recorded for Motorcity in 1990. [Source…