“Dedicated to the One I Love” is The Mamas & the Papas’ 1967 cover of a song written by Lowman Pauling and Ralph Bass. Originally recorded by The “5” Royales in 1957, it later became a hit for The Shirelles, who took it to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. The Mamas & the Papas’ version, from their album "Deliver", became the most commercially successful recording of the song.
Released as a single in 1967, it reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 (held off the top by The Turtles’ “Happy Together”) and also peaked at No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. Michelle Phillips sang the lead on the first verse, the first time she was given the lead vocal in the group instead of Cass Elliot.
On November 18, 1980, Grace Jones slapped BBC host Russell Harty again and again, live on air, because he kept turning his back on her. Harty tried to carry on with the show as if nothing had happened, and the clip has been called one of the most shocking moments in British television ever since.
She was there to sing “Love Is the Drug” from her new album, Warm Leatherette, but by her own admission she hadn’t slept in three days. From the start, Harty treated her like a joke. He made fun of her outfit, her hat and her accent, and told the audience that interviewing her was like “climbing the North Face of the Eiger in high-heeled shoes.” Then he turned his back to introduce his other guests: Patrick Lichfield, the Queen’s cousin and a society photographer, and an 89-year-old perfume maker.
In the video below, Harty is asking the old man about perfume, and Grace has had enough. She says maybe she should just go.
“Don’t go right now unless you really want to,” Harty tells her.
“Well, don’t turn your back! I can’t look at you!”
Then she starts hitting him, one slap after another, while he raises his arms and pleads, “Hold, hold, hold on just a moment!” He asks her to move her chair back and turns straight back to the perfume maker. Grace refuses to be ignored. She cuts in to announce that she’s wearing four different perfumes from the night before, and when the next guest walks out, she asks on live TV whether the Queen’s cousin is “a closet queen.”
Five years later she was a Bond villain opposite Roger Moore, and she became one of the most influential icons in music and fashion. Harty never escaped the clip, and it followed him for the rest of his career. He died in 1988 at just 53.
So who was really in the wrong that night: the star who lost it on live television, or the host who spent the whole show making her feel invisible?
Grace Jones - Pull Up to the Bumper
1982 / Jean-Paul Goude
featuring shots from Godfrey Reggio's experimental documentary Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
⚡️sound on⚡️