1974 Albert Hammond – I’m A Train

1974 Albert Hammond – I’m A Train 

World War II caused the Hammond family to relocate from Gibralter to London, where Albert Hammond was born. The family returned to Gibralter after the war ended, and Albert grew up there. He joined the Diamond Boys as a singer in 1960 and remained with the group when they moved to Madrid.

Albert co-founded Family Dogg with several other Spanish musicians. They had a top ten hit in the UK in 1969. One of the other group members was Mike Hazlewood; Albert and Mike began writing songs together.

Leapy Lee reached #16 on the Hot 100 in 1968 with Little Arrows, the first song written by the pair that broke into the US Hot 100. 

Two years later, Roger Greenaway and Tony Burrows took another song written by Albert and Mike into the Hot 100, Gimme Dat Ding. The British television show The Pipkins used the song on their show, and they released the single using that name for the artists.

Albert began recording his own records as early as 1963, but never reached the charts until the release of the Down By The River. The single only reached #38 on the Hot 100 in 1972 before falling off the chart.

A few months later, It Never Rains In Southern California reached #5 on the Hot 100 and #2 on the Adult Contemporary (AC) chart. 

Albert and Mike wrote the song I’m A Train in the sixties and a group called Les Troubadours released the song as La Chaîne. The British group Colors of Love released the English version in 1968, but did not become a big hit.

Albert released the song as his follow-up single to his big hit, and it reached #31 on the Hot 100 and #15 on the AC chart in late 1974.

Albert and Mike wrote songs for many other artists through 1974, after which Albert began writing songs by himself or with other co-writers. Perhaps the most successful of those songs was One Moment in Time, which Whitney Houston recorded as the theme song fom the 1988 Summer Olympics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hammond
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hammond_discography#Singles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_a_Train

I have collected older articles about Lost or Forgotten Oldies in my books.

Please visit my author page on Amazon where I sell my paperbacks, eBooks, and audiobooks.

You can even read the books for free if you have Kindle Unlimited!