1971 Fortunes – Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again
After coasting to success in the British Invasion in 1965, the Fortunes failed to return to the top forty in either the UK or the US for several years. By 1968, almost all the members of the group had left the band.
Original members Rod Allen, Andy Brown, and Barry Pritchard continued to lead the group. Shel Macraes on lead vocals and rhythm guitar and George McAllister on backup vocals and keyboards replaced other members who were gone.
In times to come, perhaps people will most likely recall the Fortunes mostly because of the music they recorded beginning in 1967: the group recorded a series of jingles used in commercials for Coca Cola. After a few early jingles for ongoing campaigns, the Fortunes were used to record the primary jingle for the new 1969 slogan, “It’s the real thing.”
Somebody even patched together pieces of multiple 1969 recordings with some of the television ads to produce a video on YouTube that runs over two minutes long.
Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook, who wrote the group’s hit You’ve Got Your Troubles, I’ve Got Mine, wrote another song that the group successfully released in 1971. Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again reached #15 on the US Hot 100 and proved to be the group’s final top forty single in the US.
The band had two more top ten singles in the UK, but neither even reached the top forty in the US. The group charted nowhere again except for a single they released only in the Netherlands that peaked at #87 in 1987.
Original member Glen Dale left the group in 1966. He formed Glen’s Fortunes in 1991, which eventually morphed into an Elton John tribute band. Glen died in 2019.
Rod and Barry continued to lead a touring group of the Fortunes after other members faded away. Barry left the group in 1995 because of illness. Rod simply replaced any musicians who left the group and continued touring with the band until his death from liver cancer in 2008. There is still an active group touring as the Fortunes, but those four joined the group in 1983, 2007, 2010, and 2018; I believe the word “tribute” might be appropriate again.
A group of session musicians calling themselves Starsound created a recording that mashed up small re-recordings of a stack of older hit records. In the US, the song and the group were both named Stars On 45. The first medley single reached the top of the Hot 100 in 1981. The single ran a little over four minutes and included portions of ten songs.
A 12-inch version of the medley also got released. It ran almost ten minutes and included a cover of a portion of Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again which begins at 7:54.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortunes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortunes_discography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_That_Rainy_Day_Feeling_Again
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