Third Line-up and Journey Into Jazz
In 1978, soon after that album was recorded, Laurel Massé was badly injured in a car accident and was replaced by Cheryl Bentyne. The line-up has remained the same since.
Their next album, Extensions (1979), earned the group their second U.S. popular music success—the disco hit "Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone", written by Alan Paul and Jay Graydon as a tribute to the 1960s CBS television series created by Rod Serling. The track also reached the Top 30 in the UK, where the group continued to make several appearances on popular television shows such as The Two Ronnies.
Extensions also featured a cover of Weather Report's "Birdland", with lyrics by Jon Hendricks. One of the most popular jazz recordings of 1980, "Birdland" brought the group their first Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance, and Janis Siegel was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices for her arrangement of "Birdland".
In 1981, The Manhattan Transfer made music history by becoming the first group to win Grammy awards for both popular and jazz categories in the same year. Boy from New York City and Other Hits (a cover of the 1965 success by The Ad Libs) reached the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 and won them the award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and "Until I Met You (Corner Pocket)" earned them a Grammy for Best Jazz Performance, Duo or Group. Both of these songs appeared on the group's fifth album, Mecca for Moderns.
In 1982, the group won another Grammy, for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group, for its rendition of the classic ode-to-the-road "Route 66". The song was featured on the soundtrack to the Burt Reynolds film Sharky's Machine.
Read more about this topic: The Manhattan Transfer
Famous quotes containing the words journey and/or jazz:
“I have had the accomplishment of something like this at heart ever since I was a boy.... So I feel tonight like the man who is lodging happily in the inn which lies half way along the journey and that in time, with a fresh impulse, we shall go the rest of the journey and sleep at the journey’s end like men with a quiet conscience.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children’s party taken over by the elders.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)