Sam by Olivia Newton-John (MCA, 1977)

Olivia Newton-John passed away on Monday. She was one of the most prominent female pop stars of the 70s and early 80s, but most of her records are rarely heard today outside of a dental office. She was the queen of the Adult Contemporary charts during the Me decade and at one time nabbed seven straight #1 hits. This single, the third release from her 1976 album, Don’t Stop Believin’ (good name for a crappy wedding song request), would be her ninth Soft Rock chart-topper. She was also quite literally at the crossroads of her career, and she needed to choose the right path. She came through the Country door back in 1971 with a Dylan cover and survived the first wave of Pop disco from 1974 to 1975. And while she could have easily sung this track on Hee Haw or American Bandstand, she was definitely overdue for a change.

It’s also not like she was burning up the pop charts anymore, either. Even though she already racked up ten Top 40 hits with this one as her eleventh, she hadn’t been in the Top 10 in almost two years. Sam will get to #20 (and #40 on the Country charts), which will be her best showing since 1975’s Something Better To Do, which climbed to #13. The next time we would see and hear from her would be in the Spring of 1978 in Grease, when she traded her ponytail for a perm and her saddle shoes for pumps. We all know that story. Thankfully she made the pivot before her music declined, and Sandra Dee went out on a high note with one of her most delicate ballads of that era.

Written by produced John Farrar along with his Shadows’ cohort Hank Marvin and Don Black, this billowy waltz fits Liv’s sensitive and reassuring voice like a glove. The arrangement here is critical as Farrar knows precisely when to enact the proper orchestral drama each time Olivia’s vocal yearnings need a boost. I would have changed my name to Sam had someone offered a hand like hers to me. In fact, it was around this time as a kid that I found out I had a second cousin named Sam and went to visit him. Family that’s the same age as you can be like a built-in friend, and I associate this song with my one and only trip to see him.

There’s also a rumor that the creators of the classic sitcom, Cheers, were inspired by Olivia Newton-John when they were creating the look of the character Diane Chambers and used this single as a jumping-off point to detail her backstory, including calling Ted Danson’s character, Sam.

Don’t believe me?

 

 

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by adrianqiana on August 10, 2022  •  Permalink
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Stir It Up by Johnny Nash (Epic, 1973)

[Ed. Note – I try to keep this blog alive by paying tribute to those 70s stars who pass away. This week, we lost four. So it might take me a while to catch up. But there’s no guarantee I will.]

Houston, TX native Johnny Nash had been hitting the charts since the late 60s, and his first Top 40 hit, A Very Special Love, would reach #23 in early 1958. Fourteen years later, he would spend a month at the top with I Can See Clearly Now. It became his signature song and the one that 99.9% have referenced during his passing this week. That this song would be the most popular in the country when the Watergate scandal was erupting, and a temporary peace agreement with North Vietnam was being preferred was not a coincidence. However, Johnny’s musical legacy cannot and should not be boiled down to a sunny three-minute pop song because he was influential in a bigger way. He helped to bring reggae into the mainstream.

Now I know what you’re thinking, but before you finish saying Clapton, let me steer you towards Johnny’s 1968 Top 5 smash, Hold Me Tight. Go ahead and listen, then I’ll continue.

Actually, let me start three years before that when Johnny hit the R&B Top 5 with a single called Let’s Move & Groove (Together). It was released on his own record label, JoDa Records, which he started with his manager Danny Sims. The song only reached #88 on the Hot 100, and as the label struggled, he and Danny decided to move to Kingston, Jamaica. They figured that they could record singers down there and break them in America. What happened instead was that Johnny got deep into the rocksteady scene. He was introduced to Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and the rest of the Wailers, immediately signing them to a publishing deal. Starting up a new record label, JAD, he recorded Hold Me Tight backed by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, and it became a huge single. Let me reiterate – a Black entrepreneur exposed the Pop world to a new sound via an independent record label based in Jamaica.

For the next four years, JAD would release singles by Bob Marley to the world, but with limited distribution resources, many did not hear these songs. But Island Records did, and promptly signed him and the Wailers in 1972. It didn’t hurt that Johnny’s new album featured four of Bob’s compositions, including Stir It Up, which would peak at #12 in the Spring of 1973. The Wailers had recorded it six years previous to Johnny and would re-record it for their Island Records debut, Catch A Fire.

So the next time you listen to Legend or hear No Woman, No Cry playing in your local head shop, take time to thank Johnny Nash, the man who helped bring reggae to America.

Also, Clapton is a racist.

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by adrianqiana on October 8, 2020  •  Permalink
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Lucille by Kenny Rogers (United Artists, 1977)

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Kenny Rogers had a decades-long career of success in music as well as a notable acting career in TV and movies and a well-known fried chicken franchise. None of that might have been possible if it weren’t for this single. This 45 was the catalyst for launching Kenny’s career as a solo artist and crossing him over to the Pop charts not just in this States but internationally.

As a singer, Kenny joined the New Christy Minstrels in the mid-60s but found that their vibe wasn’t as hip as Kenny was going for. So he and a few other members started their own band, mixing psychedelic rock, pop, and Country. Calling themselves The First Edition, they had some big hits in the late 60s, and early 70s, such as Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) and Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town. The band’s name was changed to Kenny Rogers & the First Edition but the hits started to dry up as they moved through the 70s. By 1975, the group was doing anything to stay afloat, including an appearance in a made-for-TV movie called The Dream Makers. But after many lineups changes and failed recordings, poor finances drove the group to split.

Now tasked with starting a new life as a solo singer, Kenny released his debut in early 1976, Love Lifted Me. It did nothing on the Pop charts but scored Kenny a Top 20 Country hit, which was enough to give him another recording shot. And that shot blew everything open for him.

The second single release from Kenny Rogers was a song written by country songwriting legend Hal Bynum and Roger Bowling, who’d go on to co-write Coward Of The County. It’s the story of a guy who finds a drunk woman at a Toledo saloon ready to have a good time and down a bottle of whiskey naked with the first taker. Just before our singer was about to get freaky deeky, the lady’s husband comes into the bar and confronts her while the singer craps his pants. But rather than a physical confrontation, he calmly stands there and tells his wife that he and their four kids got a shitload of farming to do and that her timing sucks. Taking that as a cue, she and the singer quickly leave and get a motel room because that devil on his shoulder is telling him in detail all that nasty stuff that they are about to do. But the image of a broken man and his sorrowful words pop up as an angel on his other shoulder telling him it wouldn’t be right to defile this woman, at least not until the divorce papers and/or the corn gets shucked. This makes me come to the conclusion that they should have made a cartoon video of this song with Looney Tunes characters in it. Elmer is the singer. Daffy is the spurned husband. Bugs could have dressed up as Lucille.

Lucille was the first of Kenny’s twenty-one #1 Country hits, and it would hit #5 on the Pop charts. For a kid who never listened to Country, I definitely heard this one a lot back then. It would also go to #1 in Canada and the UK as well as Top 10 in Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand. Kenny not only opened the door to a new wave of Country Pop cross over, but he also held it open for others such as Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, and Dottie West until it closed around 1984.

Kenny passed away this weekend, but as he sang in another of his famous songs, “the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.”

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by adrianqiana on March 23, 2020  •  Permalink
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My Best Friend’s Girl by The Cars (Elektra, 1978)

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The Cars debut album released in 1978 is about as perfect a first impression that you could make as an artist. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker, every song on that album is a killer and it brought them instant fame and success, becoming a bridge from 70s arena rock to 80s New Wave. Not bad for a band that had only been together for two years.

Actually, the musical partnership of Rik Ocasek and Benjamin Orr started more than a decade before when they met in Cleveland, OH in the mid-60s. It was only through perseverance, an eventual move to Boston and lots of luck that together they found the right group of guys to play Ric’s songs. Although Orr sang lead vocals on their first hit, Just What I Needed, Ric was the true frontman of the group, a tall lanky guy in black leather and shades. His whole demeanor suggested that he didn’t give a shit, which made him infinitely cool. Without raising the temperature of his voice, he communicated his feelings deeper than any trained singer could slide his vocal tones around syllables unusually emphasized, sounding less nasally than Dylan, less dramatic than Bowie.  He could make the simplest phrases sound totally hip and the dumbest ideas sound tons of fun.

Case in point: You’ve got your nuclear boots and your drip dry glove. Ok, Ric help me out. Was your ex-girlfriend an extra in The China Syndrome? I’m not sure what that means but I’m not sure I’d break up with a girl with those items in their wardrobe.

Also, suede blue eyes. That sounds so much cooler than blue suede. Maybe she was an Elvis fan. Maybe she was hooked on a feeling.

This single peaked #35 during the last week of 1978 unable to surpass Foreigner or Styx, but able to open the door for bans like the Talking Heads who were debuting at #40 with Take Me To The River as well as open the door to countless synth pop-rock bands in the 80s.

 

 

 

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by adrianqiana on September 16, 2019  •  Permalink
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Baby Hold On by Eddie Money (Columbia, 1978)

 

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1977 was not the best year for a straight-up rock artist to breakthrough with a new career, what with the advent of punk tearing down everything around them, crudely poking fun at the wealthy dinosaurs of music who got rich off the counterculture. Also, the disco tsunami was about to inundate the mainstream for the next two years until we had to metaphorically and physically blow it up.

But here was Edward Mahoney recording in Los Angeles in July of 1977, immune to any potential trends, just trying to get a little success in a fickle industry, hoping to validate his choice not to follow in the family footsteps of career policeman. Eddie heard another call and moved to the West Coast in the late 60s. He toiled for nearly a decade before changing his name and securing a recording contract with Columbia after Bill Graham heard him perform. Even with Bill as his manager and a debut album packed with solid pop-rockers that Eddie wrote or co-wrote as well as a Miracles cover, popularity was no sure thing. Eddie said I’m gonna take you to the top.

The first single, Baby Hold On, was released at the height of Bee Gees mania, and it began to climb the Hot 100 charts during the week when the Brothers Gibb had written 4 of the Top 5 songs. It entered the Top 40 on April 8, 1978, when the Gibbs owned half of the Top 10. Their hold was strong but not enough to keep Eddie down and by the time he peaked at #11 in early June, Money had turned his own dreams into reality. You know, the future’s lookin’ brighter.

Eddie ended up with 11 Top 40 hits stretching his success into the mid-90s. He was also inducted into Long Island Music Hall Of Fame in 2008. Baby Hold On was a flip on the Doris Day song Que Sera Sera whereas she tells her beau who knows what will happen, Eddie assures his doubting lover to trust him, that the future is in their hands. His fans held on and trusted Eddie and he rewarded them with a lifetime of great music.

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by adrianqiana on September 16, 2019  •  Permalink
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Muskrat Love by Captain & Tennille (A&M, 1976)

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Daryl “Captain” Dragon recently passed away. As a duo with Toni Tennille, they racked up 9 Top 40 songs between 1975-1980, 7 were Top Ten hits, 2 were #1. They created smiley upbeat keyboard-driven pop songs and some mellow key-party ballads during a cynically and uncertain economic post-Watergate economy. But the song that they are remembered most for is Muskrat Love. It didn’t have to be that way. Many feel that this song is a crime against humanity. If you were alive in 1976 then you are implicit in this crime. Let’s list the other suspects:

Willis Alan Ramsey – This song was written and recorded by Ramsey in 1972, under its original title Muskrat Candlelight. I don’t definitively know what inspired him to write this, but I assume he was high as shit watching a Deputy Dawg cartoon marathon and just happened to have a guitar in his hand. Take a listen:

OK not bad for a post-hippie singer-songwriter campfire jingle-jangle about a couple of freaky water rodents, probably a backlash from of all those Jesus is Love mu-mu wearing wannabes Willis encountered at those Dallas, Texas open mic nights. He has had his songs covered by Waylon Jennings, Jimmy Buffet and Widespread Panic to name a few and he’s still going today so the song could have stayed quiet with him as an album track and all would have been fine. That takes me to my next suspects:

America – These guys were on a roll with a string of hits – A Horse With No Name, I Need You, Ventura Highway. They must have been getting pretty cocky with their success because they heard Willis’ song and thought, “Hey that’s good. But it’s missing some that Beckley-Peek-Bunnell three-part harmony magic.” (spoiler alert – it wasn’t) Retitled Muskrat Love, America released it as the first single from their album, Hat Trick and it tanked. They should have seen this as divine intervention.

In order to save their career, they had to bring in the guy who produced Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road. Had America not recorded this at all, the following suspect would have never heard it playing on the radio:

Toni Tennille – I’m not going to pick on Toni too much. She was a fine singer and the only honorary “Beach Girl” in the Beach Boys. She just had a momentary lapse of reason when she heard this and said to her partner Daryl, “We should add this into our nightclub setlist.” This was in 1973, so it’s her fault for not picking from the other classics and standards already written from the past decades. I guess I can understand that as they climbed the ladder to pop stardom they wanted something in their act to stick out. But someone should have stopped this, such as:

The Crowd at the Smokehouse Restaurant in Encino, CA – This was where Toni & Daryl perfected their nightclub act. I don’t know what C&T’s live version of Muskrat sounded like, but for anyone who clapped after they performed it, you are all enablers. This was their cry for help and you ignored it. Which brings me to:

Daryl Dragon – At any time, he could have said “Fuck this. I’m not recording this shit.”  throwing an E-Mu synth at the wall to emphasize his point. Or maybe Toni had a Svengali-like hold on him where if she touched him on the shoulder, it rendered him speechless.

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It’s also possible that he couldn’t take it anymore – the idiotic vanilla variety show, the stupid itchy captain’s hat, the bulldogs shitting everywhere – and he just snapped and said, ” You wanna get crazy? Let’s get crazy. How about I take my Mini-Moog and make it sound like the muskrats are bangin’ in a storm drain? Then we’ll press the 45s so that sound loops over and over as the record fades but the sound never ends. HAHAHAHAHA!” [cue lightning strike]

Again it could have been just forgotten as an album cut. They had already released 2 hit singles. Why not just leave it alone? Which leads to me to my final subject:

Herb Alpert – This is all his fault. He had the winning touchdown in his hands and dropped it, so to speak. He had a chance to change the song’s trajectory forever, so direct your ire at him.

Thinking that Muskrat Candlelight had a good melody but some dumb ass lyrics, Herb wrote new words to the song, changed the title to Sun Down and had his wife Lani Hall record and release it.

Why was this not a hit? It was on A&M Records. Herb, that’s your label. Whatever happened to payola? No need to grow a conscience now. Finish the job. Don’t you think we all wish we could go back in time and disrupt the night that got Hitler’s mom got pregnant with him?

Ok maybe it’s not the same thing, but I’m also not letting Herb off the hook, because which record label allowed C&T to release Muskrat as the 3rd single from Song Of Joy, hmm? That’s right. A&M Records. You had the power to stop it again Herb, but you let it happen. We all just bought the Pet Rock. You knew we were vulnerable. How could you?

I like to imagine a world without Muskrat Love.  Everything would be different. Maybe Captain & Tennille would have taken more risks in the 80s and had some New Wave-styled hits and Metropolis-inspired videos on MTV. Maybe Kurt Cobain asks Daryl to produce In Utero and he sits in with Kurt and a newly reunited Nirvana on the album’s 20th-anniversary tour. Maybe they discover a musician named Richard Hall and change his name to Moby, who in turn inducts them into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the ‘Godparents’ of modern EDM, followed by a 7-minute electronic version of Love Will Keep Us Together with Daft Punk and Sheryl Crow, Daryl’s 3rd wife. The polar ice caps stop melting and CO2 emissions are at their lowest recorded levels. No one has ever heard of Columbine High School outside of Colorado and this post ceases to exist because I’m too busy curing cancer. That’s the world I want to live in.

Bonus: In 1975 Neil Sedaka hits #1 with Laughter in the Rain on Rocket Records, owned by Elton John who sings backup on Neil Sedaka‘s Bad Blood which is replaced at #1 by Island Girl from Elton John whose #2 song Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me featured backing vocals from Toni Tennille, who with the Captain hit #1 with Love Will Keep Us Together while I’m Not In Love was in the Top 10 by 10cc, who played on the original recording of Love Will Keep Us Together by Neil Sedaka.

OK here it is if you wanna hear it:

 

 

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Breakdown By Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (Shelter, 1978)

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Tom Petty is a rock and roll legend. That should not be understated. He is considered the leader of the heartland rock movement and an American icon. Their blue-collar stick-it-to-the-man punk energy may have mellowed over time, but his lyrics and attitude have always been straight forward, getting right to the heart of their intention. Tom & the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, the first year they were eligible.

Interestingly the first people to embrace him were not the US; they were the British. TPH had 2 Top 40 hits in the UK (Anything That’s Rock N Roll, American Girl)  before having any success in their native homeland. Of course, once they had some fortunes Stateside, they began to break out in a big way. And it all started with their first failed single which refused to die – Breakdown.

Breakdown was the first single released from The Heartbreakers’ self-titled debut in late 1976. It had a simmering mysterious quality to it due partly to Benmont Tench’s soulful keyboards and Mike Campbell’s melancholy downwards lick on the guitar over a steady, taking-my-time drum beat. Building up with Tom’s lo-fi verses crescendoing into a snarling chorus with label mate, Phil Seymour on back up vocals. Then it drops back down to a more confidently sung verse, like Ali going back to his corner before another round. Tom hits the chorus hard again before slithering away like a snake that finished his meal with ‘go ahead and give it to me’ seemingly a dare to his partner. And who doesn’t dig that fake intro? But…

It flopped. So did the subsequent 2 singles they released, even as they garnered status overseas. But as the band kept touring in the UK and in the US, Shelter Records decided to re-release the 45 in the Fall of 1977. The song’s chart run on the Hot 100 was a testament to Tom’s never say die energy, so let me lay it out for you.

November 5th, 1977 – The song debuts on the Hot 100 at #90, one spot below (Love Is) Thicker Than Water by Andy Gibb and one spot above Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by Santa Esmeralda, both of which would peak higher than Breakdown. The #1 song was You Light Up My Life by Debby Boone. We needed Tom more than ever!

November 12th, 1977 – Breakdown jumps 10 spots to #80. Runaround Sue by Leif Garrett debuts at #79. It, too, would peak higher.

November 19th, 1977 – Breakdown jumps another 10 places to #70. Leif jumps 20 spots. Also, I Honestly Love You by Olivia Newton-John, a former #1 from 1974 has been re-released and sits at #63.

November 26th, 1977 – Happy Thanksgiving. But not for Tom who only moves 5 notches to #65 as the song loses its bullet. Meanwhile, future Wilbury, Jeff Lynne, leapfrogs Tom with the new ELO single Turn To Stone, now at #63, up 18 spots.

Now, this is where stuff gets real…

December 3rd, 1977 – Breakdown falls 35 spots to #100. What the hell happened? How did radio and those who held an interest in the song just give up? Leif Garrett not only enters the Top 40 but sits on top of Tom with another former hit, Surfin’ USA at #99. That’s right, folks. On this day we preferred two Leif Garrett cover songs to our American icon – Tom Petty.

So let’s recap: In early December 1977, The British love Tom Petty. The US loves Leif Garrett. That’s not a world I ever want to live in again.

Now that the song was on its way off the charts, it would be very difficult for it to ever become a Top 40 hit or just a well-known single. Remember this was the label’s second attempt to have a hit with this song. Maybe Tom and the band won’t even get a chance at a 2nd album. Would Shelter or ABC records drop them?

Thankfully they never had to go down that road. Through word of mouth and constant touring, miraculously the song rebounded. [I’m imagining a lot of cool parents or hip uncles and aunts buying the single or album for their kids/nephews during that Christmas.] And over the next 11 weeks, within the time span of 2 different Bee Gees #1 songs, it moved up 60 spots to finally hit #40 and Casey Kasem called the band’s name on February 18, 1978, its 16th week on the chart. It eventually became the only Top 40 song for the band in the 70s, even though they released 3 albums during that decade. [Don’t Do Me Like That peaked in February 1980 at #10.] Tom and Breakdown did not back down and it was the first of 16 Top 40 hits for him, with and without his band.

Success never comes easy. Careers like Tom’s don’t happen overnight. You gotta want it. And you gotta get lucky. Even though this would be the first of many struggles for Tom in the music industry, Tom wanted it. Tom got lucky. And as music fans, we should all be appreciative of that world because we are all better for it.

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by adrianqiana on October 10, 2017  •  Permalink
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Billy, Don’t Be A Hero by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods (ABC, 1974)

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The Vietnam War and our troops were on everybody’s minds during the early 70s. Even though we had started to withdraw troops in ’71, it felt like the war was never going to end. That anxiety was kicked back up when in early ’74, the Paris Accord was rejected and the war was restarted by the Viet Cong to regain the territory it had previously lost. No one knew what to expect. Would we have to send troops back?

Protests to the war had been happening since the late ’60s and musicians were a big part of the movement voicing their displeasure to our involvement in Vietnam, from Barry McGuire’s Eve Of Destruction and Country Joe & the Fish’s Feel Like I’m Fixin to Die rag at Woodstock to War by Edwin Starr and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On. Protest songs had become so mainstream in the 70s that in 1974, they even came from an unlikely source – a 7 piece band from Cincinnati, OH who had previously toured with the Osmonds: Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods.

If you get this song and The Night Chicago Died mixed up, don’t worry,  you’re not going crazy. The songs were both on the charts at the same time and had a very similar feel. Both were recorded by the group Paper Lace and written by the same two songwriters, Mitch Murray and Pete Callander. This song obviously hit a nerve around the world as the Paper Lace version hit #1 in Britain and Australia and Bo’s hit #1 here, where it spent 2 weeks at the top in June 1974 and in Canada.

Now, this is the part where I break this song down. Because even though this was released during our Vietnam troop occupation, there’s no way these guys are talking about modern war. (Remember these are the songwriters who said Daddy was a cop on the east side of Chicago – that’s right, he patrolled Lake Michigan)

Let’s break out the fifes and figure out what’s going on:

The marching band came down along Main Street
The soldier blues fell in behind.
I looked across and there I saw Billy
Waiting to go and join the line.

Ok, so we hit upon one key to the success of this song. The singer is an impartial third party, so he’s not giving his opinion whether he’s for or against the war (even though the chorus suggests otherwise). The soldier blues probably refers to the armies in the civil war who would march through town and folks would just join them rather than the good old days of being drafted.

And with her head upon his shoulder
His young and lovely fiancée.
From where I stood I saw she was cryin’
And through her tears I heard her say,

We’ll assume he knows they’re getting married somehow. But how is he close enough to see her cry and hear her speak? Wasn’t he across the street a few words ago? Feels like Bo might be getting ready to make some moves.

“Billy, don’t be a hero. Don’t be a fool with your life
Billy, don’t be a hero. Come back and make me your wife”

I don’t know if this was real or I dreamed it: there’s a scene on the Muppet Show and Billy Joel is the guest star. He dressed up as a sub sandwich and Kermit tries to keep him out of a sketch by saying, “Billy don’t be a hero.” Anyone?

And as he started to go, she said, “Billy keep your head low.
Billy, don’t be a hero. Come back to me”

Keep your head low? That’s awful advice, for any war. Do bullets only travel upwards? Can someone not bomb a trench?

The soldier blues were trapped on a hillside.
The battle ragin’ all around.
The sergeant cried, “We’ve gotta hang on, boys.
We gotta hold this piece of ground.”

Wow, that’s a soft commander…but so inspirational. Hey you guys, we’re down 3 points with two minutes to go. Hang on boys. Hang on. I didn’t know John Wooten was in the Army.

“I need a volunteer to ride out and bring us back some extra men”

A volunteer? Did they draw straws? One potato two potato? And if you need extra men, why are you sending someone out? Now you’re down another guy. Always bring extra men. The dip always runs out at this dude’s party before all the guests arrive.

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Definitely not Billy’s sergeant

And Billy’s hand was up in a moment forgetting all the words she said.

Maybe there’s a reason he ‘forgot’ those words like he was feeling trapped by his poor advice-giving future wife, who told him he could work in her dad’s paint store for the rest of his life. Or he was thinking about a $5 footlong…..

I heard his fiancée got a letter that told how Billy died that day.
The letter said that he was a hero.
She should be proud he died that way.
I heard she threw the letter away.

A letter? That’s all she gets? No body?  How does she know he really died? You get a letter and go, Oh well, guess he’s dead. I’d toss that bullshit in the garbage too.

Wait a minute. Oh my God, I just figured it out. It’s the back story of Mad Men. Don Draper is based on this song. Billy just Dick Whitman’d his fiancee. Now it all makes sense. And that makes the singer, Pete Campbell.

I guess the song I need to break down next is I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing….

 
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by adrianqiana on September 18, 2017  •  Permalink
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New York Groove by Ace Frehley (Casablanca, 1979)

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I heard this song the other day and I remembered a dream I had in the Spring of 2003 that I was in New York getting ready to tape my first HBO special as a comedian. I walk out on stage to welcome the crowd and I can hear “I’m back, back in the New York grooooove…” playing behind me pumping up the crowd. What a great moment!. It’s amazing that after all these years that dream of mine is still as vivid as ever. Mind you I am not a comedian. I’ve never even approached telling jokes at an open mike night nor do I want to. I guess this song lends itself to some big comeback stage soundtrack (though who’s we’ve yet to know).

The song comes from one of the biggest shameless cash grabs from a record label that was famous for them. Kiss was one of the first successful groups on the Casablanca Records label and by 1978 the company knew that they had very little time to take every last dollar from a Kiss fan before they realized they were essentially buying the same album over and over again. (They had already released 6 studio albums in 4 years, including a reissue of their first 3, 2 live albums and a greatest hits collection) So they decided to not just put out another single or double album. They were going to release a quadruple album, disguised as 4 single albums, one for each of the band’s respective egos. All four were for certified platinum, but don’t let that fool you; they were not hits. Casablanca refused any buybacks of the LPs, so who knows where those extra albums are buried. Also, the fans woke up and started to realize that the music was stinking worse than the inside of one of Paul’s mile-high platform boots after a 2-hour show. Only one album of the four yielded a hit and it was Ace’s. Boy, I bet that pissed Gene Simmons off.

New York Groove was written by former Argent guitarist Russ Ballard, who had left that band in 1974 to become a successful songwriter in the 70s & 80s. Besides this song, he was responsible for many Top 40 hits including the only US Top 40 hits for the ladies in ABBA – Frida’s I Know There’s Something Going On and Agnetha’s Can’t Shake Loose, but also a comeback hit for Santana in 1981, the Journey sound-a-like, Winning. (Poor Russ was never able to score a solo hit of his own.)

Groove had already been a UK Top 10 in 1975 for the glam rock band, Hello. Space Ace probably figured that if anyone wearing make-up should sing that song, it should be him, especially since he was from New York, the Bronx specifically. And he rode this little stomper up to its peak of #13 in February of 1979. When Kiss went ‘disco’ later that Summer and stunned their fans, the reality was that there wasn’t too far a leap from this track to I Was Made For Lovin’ You.

Postscript: Casablanca was closed within 4 years of this ‘peak’, but by that time Ace had moved on Frehley’s Comet and the Kiss make-up had come off.  But many times since then, the band all got together to fill their coffers and boost their 401Ks, doing what they do best, bilking rocking the dollars out of their fans’ pockets.

 

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by adrianqiana on September 3, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by adrianqiana on September 3, 2017

https://70spop.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/new-york-groove-by-ace-frehley-casablanca-1979/

Walking In Rhythm by The Blackbyrds (Fantasy, 1975)

The Blackbyrds were a 5 piece band formed by jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd at Howard University in Washington DC who hand-picked music majors as an experiment of sorts to see how they could learn to play and support themselves and learn about the music industry. As their teacher, mentor, and producer, Byrd guided the band through 6 successful LPs between 1974 – 1977 on the Fantasy label. George Duke produced their final LP Better Days in 1980. Their soulful jazz fusion sound has been sampled countless times in addition to being very influential to the early 80s Brit-funk movement.

Their biggest single, Walking In Rhythm, was released in early 1975. Written by their guitarist Barney Perry, it was a Top 10 pop, soul, and adult contemporary hit as well as a #23 on the UK charts.

And damn if it’s not the cheeriest thing you are gonna hear today? It even has a little ‘ham n eggs’ flute solo in the middle. (Which other decade is gonna give you that?) The song has a simple message – a guy is trying to get home to his ‘baby’ – that’s it. The timing of this release couldn’t have been better as most of our Vietnam troops were finally coming back to the States. How many of those soldiers heard a song like this, clutched it to their heart, and held onto it until their long Stateside hug.

I have always had visions on hearing this song standing in the garden room of a house with huge windows as the morning sunlight shines through. Then stepping into a backyard with a freshly cut lawn smelling the sweet magnolia as it’s in bloom. That actually happened as a kid, or I dreamed it.

Another thing – what is this singer walking in rhythm to? I guess ‘his song,’ but what song? What if it was Angie Baby or Billy Don’t Be A Hero? Would it matter? Ask a Blackbyrd and find out…

 

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by adrianqiana on August 30, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by adrianqiana on August 30, 2017

https://70spop.wordpress.com/2017/08/30/walking-in-rhythm-by-the-blackbyrds-fantasy-1975/

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