by Ella Washington and Roscoe Shelton, as well as singles by Roscoe Robinson, Ivory Joe Hunter, Sam Baker, and many other artists. Beginning in 1971, Richbourg split his production activities between his own newly created labels (Seventy Seven and Sound Plus), while still doing occasional work for Sound Stage 7. As well, he continued to managing and producing Joe Simon, who had moved to Spring Records. As Simon's manager, it was Richbourg who recommended that Simon try working with a series of different producers after 1971, and Simon was rewarded with two more #1 R&B singles: 1972's "Power of Love", and 1975's "Get Down, Get Down (Get on the Floor)". Other notable artists produced by Richbourg during the 1970s included Jackey Beavers and Ann Sexton. In 1972, John R. signed Charles Smith and Jeff Cooper to his Seventy Seven label and their producer Dewey Vandiver; they gave him the biggest hit on the Seventy Seven label, "Ashes To Ashes", which sold approximately 350,000 records. In 1976 and 1977, Sexton charted on the lower rungs of the R&B charts with two Richbourg productions, including "I'm His Wife (You're Just A Friend)". These would be Richbourg's last hit records as a producer, though he continued recording and producing R&B, soul and gospel acts to the end of his life. Richbourg retained the rights to virtually all the recordings he produced over the years. Various compilations of Richbourg-produced material have been issued in recent years, much of it concentrating on the discs he produced for the Rich and Sound Stage 7 labels. The final years WLAC continued with its block programming (divided program) schedule, featuring news, feature programs, and some country and pop music in the daytime hours (when its signal only reached Middle Tennessee), and the beloved R&B shows after 8 p.m., when the clear-channel signal settled into the atmosphere, enabling the station to be heard throughout much of the North American continent and Caribbean islands, until about 1972. At that time, WLAC owners Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee brought in for the first time outside management, which instituted a Top 40 format in the daytime. More importantly for Richbourg and the others, though, the new bosses began to pressure them to start including songs from that playlist in their programs. In actuality, this was probably a ploy to nudge Richbourg (and Nobles) into retirement, as the program director obviously