Month: August 2022

1974 Bobby Womack – I’m Lookin’ For A Love 

The five Womack brothers began singing together in church in the early fifties. They recorded their first single (Buffalo Bill) as Curtis Womack and the Womack Brothers, in 1954. Curtis and Bobby continued trading off lead vocals and impressed Sam Cooke with their talent. Sam promised to work with them once he got his own record label in place, and in 1960, he signed the group to a recording contract.

The group recorded a few gospel singles, including Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray. While the single didn’t sell very well, everything changed after Sam convinced the group to switch to secular music instead. 

The band changed their name to The Valentinos and recorded a pop version of Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray, a single which featured the lyrics Lookin’ For A Love. 

Their single reached #8 on the R&B chart and #72 on the Hot 100 in 1962.

Several more singles followed, the most notable of which was It’s All Over Now, a song written by Bobby and his sister-in-law Shirley. The Rolling Stones quickly covered the song, and their single reached #26 on the Hot 100 in 1964.

Bobby left the group and began a solo career in 1965. Because he married Sam Cooke’s widow, many disk jockeys refused to play his records, and by 1968, he had settled into a career as a studio musician.

The J. Geils Band started recording singles in 1969. Their first visit to the Hot 100 came in 1971 with their cover version of Lookin’ For A Love. The single peaked at only #39, but it provided them an entry point to their career.

Bobby returned to recording and finally began reaching the R&B top ten in 1972. He then reached the Hot 100 top ten in 1974 with a solo re-recording of Lookin’ For A Love. Bobby produced the single himself at Muscle Shoals with the remaining Valentinos providing background vocals on his recording.

After reaching the top of the R&B chart with that single, Bobby had more than a half-dozen top forty singles on the R&B chart. He never reached the top forty on the Hot 100 again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valentinos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Womack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lookin%27_for_a_Love

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1973 Sly and the Family Stone – If You Want Me To Stay 

In spite of some problems caused by drugs, Sly and the Family Stone managed to release a successful album in 1971 that included the #1 hit Family Affair. Sly played nearly all the instruments on the album and used extensive overdubs to get the finished product he wanted.

Disagreements over royalty shares and other problems led several members to leave the band, but Sly had no trouble replacing them.

It would be 1973 before the band’s next album, Fresh. While the album did not sell that well, many consider it to be a pivotal album in the evolution of funk.

The first single from the album, If You Want Me To Stay, reached #23 on the Hot 100 and #15 on the R&B chart.

The band reached #32 on the Hot 100 with one more single in 1974, after which they never charted in the top forty again.

In January 1975, the band booked Radio City Music Hall in New York City for a concert. The audience only filled about an eighth of the seats, leaving the band with insufficient funds to even fly home again. The band fell apart after that failure, and Sly continued on as a solo performer. By 2011, his drug problems had resulted in Sly being homeless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_and_the_Family_Stone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_and_the_Family_Stone_discography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Want_Me_to_Stay

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1972 Bee Gees – My World / Run To Me

Most bands are lucky to have even one successful career. The Bee Gees have had at least three (without even counting their early days in Australia!)

The band started recording hits in England in 1967. By the time the dust settled in 1969, the group had notched two top ten singles in the US and the UK and two more chart-topping singles in the UK. Disagreements over which sides of their singles would be the a-side ended when Robin left the band and pursued a solo career.

Barry and Maurice continued as a duo. They filmed a television special and released a not very successful album. Both projects shared the name Cucumber Castle. 

Robin released some solo records that didn’t do too well and then returned to the band. They started their new career with a new album and immediately hit #3 on the Hot 100 near the end of 1970 with the song Lonely Days. The next year, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart reached #1 on the Hot 100, and in 1972 the band had two medium hits that both continued the Country feel that had followed the band since Robin left.

The first single that year became My World. Barry and Robin co-wrote the song and Robin sang lead vocals.

The single reached #16 on both the Hot 100 and the UK charts.

Work on a new album began shortly after that release. They released To Whom It May Concern in November. Run To Me became the lead single; all three brothers have a writing credit on the song and Barry sang lead vocals.

The single again took them up to #16 on the Hot 100 and also reached the top ten in the UK.

 

The Bee Gees continued recording albums, but almost nobody paid them any attention for several years. The group relocated to Miami and recorded a new album there in 1975.

Disco wasn’t yet what it would soon grow into, but their single of Jive Talkin took them to #1 in the US and #5 in the UK. Their next major career had only just begun! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Gees_discography#1970s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_World_(Bee_Gees_song)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_to_Me_(Bee_Gees_song)

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1971 Henry Mancini – Theme From Love Story 

Erich Segal wrote a screenplay for a film entitled Love Story. His publisher insisted he adapt the screenplay into a novel that they published in February 1970. It became a runaway bestseller, ranking as the number one novel for 1970.

Francis Lai wrote the music for the film, including the song heard over the opening and closing credits. They entitled that song Theme from Love Story and hired Carl Sigman to write lyrics. He turned in the first set of lyrics, mirroring the storyline of the film. The company refused to use the lyrics because they felt they were too depressing (after all, the film was about a college co-ed who dies at the end of the story). 

Instead of using the lyrics, the company moved ahead with the release of a soundtrack album with the instrumental.

Henry Mancini played piano on an instrumental version of the song that was released as a single a few weeks before the film’s release at Christmas. 

In January, a single version of the song from the film’s soundtrack came out credited to Francis.

Meanwhile, Carl struggled to come up with lyrics for the song. When he got home from being told his lyrics were unacceptable, he became angry about being asked for a rewrite. He calmed down the next day, and paced around his living room. He turned to his wife and asked her, “Where do I begin?” That, of course, turned into the first line of the song, and the lyrics then came pouring out.

Andy Williams recorded a single version of the song with the new lyrics that first reached the charts in February 1971.

All three versions of the song charted, but with very different results.

The original instrumental from Francis Lai reached #31 on the Hot 100 and #21 on the Adult Contemporary chart. That single qualified him as a one-hit-wonder.

Henry Mancini’s single, the first one released, reached #13 on the Hot 100 and #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It became his last top forty single on the Hot 100.

Andy’s single reached #9 on the Hot 100, number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and #4 in the UK. It would be Andy’s last top ten single until his Christmas record It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year began reappearing on the Hot 100 top ten in 2018. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(Where_Do_I_Begin%3F)_Love_Story
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Mancini#Discography

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1970 Wilson Pickett – Engine Number 9 

Roger Miller wrote and recorded the song Engine Engine Number 9 in 1965. His single reached #7 on the Hot 100 (and number two on the Adult Contemporary and Country charts).

That’s not the song I had in mind for today.

Wilson Pickett had recently been recording music in Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and Miami in the late sixties. Perhaps as a change of pace, he relocated to Philidelphia and recorded the 1970 album Wilson Pickett In Philidelphia with songwriters/producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

 The duo wrote a song with almost the same title as Roger’s old hit: Engine Number 9. Wilson Pickett included a six-minute version of the song on the album. Perhaps to avoid confusion with Roger’s hit, people often referred to Wilson’s version as Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9.

The song ran over six minutes on the album and had to be cut down to less than three minutes for its release as a single. The record reached #14 on the Hot 100 and #3 on the R&B chart.

A second song from the album, Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You, reached #17 on the Hot 100 and peaked at #2 on the R&B chart. While that may not be too different from his previous single, it earned Wilson a gold record.

Wilson returned to Muscle Shoals for his next album, which generated a gold single that reached the top of the R&B chart, Don’t Knock My Love – Part I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Pickett

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1969 The Rugbys – You, I 

Louisville, Kentucky, became an active home to several bands in the mid-sixties. In 1965, five local musicians who had possibly been members of The Misfits and/or The Oxfords formed a new band. They started wearing rugby shirts on stage and changed their name to The Rugbys. The band issued two singles in 1968.

The first single featured a song written by Doug Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet, Walking the Streets Tonight.

The band’s guitar player, Steve McNicol, wrote both sides of their second single, Stay With Me and You, I. While they failed to find much traction with Stay With Me except on local charts, the band felt the b-side of their second single had some promise.

The band got the single re-released with a focus on the b-side, and the single reached the top of the charts on the two local radio stations. That caught the attention of Shelby Singleton, who owned the Amazon Record label in Nashville (no relation to the Amazon Internet company!) Shelby signed the band to a recording contract and distributed the single nationally.

Some promotions followed that helped push the single to #24 on the Hot 100 in 1969. 

The band toured in the Midwest and Northeast. They supported several different bands, including the Grand Funk Railroad, the James Gang, and Bob Seger.

Their record label then seemed to lose interest in the band. They issued another single, Wendegahl the Warlock, which was far more progressive. Perhaps t00 progressive for the time; it failed to even reach the Hot 100.

After recording and releasing the album Hot Cargo, the band appears to have simply fallen by the wayside. 

CDs that included their recordings appeared as recently as 2007.

https://garagehangover.com/rugbys/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rugbys

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1968 Engelbert Humperdinck – A Man Without Love 

Italian songwriters Daniele Pace, Mario Panzeri, and Roberto Livraghi wrote the Italian song Quando m’innamoro in 1968. Anna Identici and The Sandpipers each performed the song at that year’s Sanremo Music Festival, where the song finished in sixth place.

Barry Mason wrote the English lyrics for the song, which he named A Man Without Love. The song became the title song of Englebert Humperdink’s third album. The single reached #2 in the UK but stalled at only #19 on the Hot 100. As you might expect based on similar results for his three most recent singles, that recording reached #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

The Italian version by the Sandpipers only reached #33. They translated the song into various other languages and it reached the top ten in over a dozen other countries.

Englebert had one more single reach #16 near the end of 1969. After that, he was shut out of the US Hot 100 top forty until After the Lovin reached the top ten on the Hot 100 in 1976. After that, he failed to reach the top forty on the US Hot 100 again, although a few more hits charted on the Adult Contemporary chart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelbert_Humperdinck_(singer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelbert_Humperdinck_discography#Singles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quando_m%27innamoro

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1967 Four Tops – You Keep Running Away 

If you had to name the group that sang on the largest number of hits on Motown Records, you might name one of the label’s most famous artists.

You’d be wrong.

It’s probably The Andantes. They probably sang on more than 20,000 recordings! 

Marlene Barrow, Louvain Demps, and Jackie Hicks were the members of the group that sang background vocals for nearly anything Motown recorded beginning in 1962. Their vocals punched up number one records by Mary Wells, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, and Diana Ross.

You’ve also heard them on songs by Brenda Holloway, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, The Marvelettes, The Temptations, and even Stevie Wonder.

The group added high harmony to 16 singles by the Four Tops, including 1967’s You Keep Running Away. The single only reached #19 on the Hot 100 but managed to rise to the top ten on the R&B chart.

The team of Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote and/or produced many of the Four Top singles through 1967. After they left over disagreements about compensation, the Four Tops struggled to reach the top ten again – it took until 1972.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Tops
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Tops_discography#Singles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Keep_Running_Away
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andantes

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1966 Mamas and Papas – Look Through My Window 

John Phillips, his second wife Michelle Phillips, and Denny Doherty had been members of an assortment of folk groups in 1964 and 1965. They teamed up with Cass Elliot and formed the Magic Cyrcle. It didn’t take too long to ditch that name; based on the names members of Hell’s Angels called themselves, they renamed the group The Mamas and The Papas.

Barry McGuire arranged an audition for the group with Lou Adler, and they signed a five-year contract for two albums a year with Dunhill Records.

Their first single in 1965 failed to chart, but the next two singles off their first album reached #1 and #4 on the Hot 100.

Work began on their second album, but Michelle’s affair with Gene Clark of the Byrds led to her being fired and replaced by Jill Gibson. John wrote the song I Saw Her Again Last Night about the affair and the single reached #5 on the Hot 100.

Michelle returned to the band two months after they fired her, and they toured the East Coast before starting work on their third album.

Cass was still single, but pregnant with her daughter. At that time, revealing the pregnancy in public was unthinkable, so the band did their best to hide the secret. As an in-joke, they called the album Deliver. 

John wrote the first single for the album when John and Michelle were in a trial separation. Unknown to each other at the time, they were each living in New York City, not too far from each other.

Expectations were high for the single after the group’s previous successes. Things did not work out well.

The single actually peaked at only #24 in the US in 1966 and it failed to even reach the top forty in the UK (where it stalled at #53).

This so spooked John that he insisted their next single be another release from their second album. Words of Love returned the group to the top five on the Hot 100, but again missed the top forty in the UK.

It turns out that John totally misjudged their third album’s potential: the next single from Deliver, Dedicated To The One I Love, reached #2 in both the US and the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mamas_%26_the_Papas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliver_(The_Mamas_%26_The_Papas_album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mamas_%26_the_Papas_discography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Through_My_Window

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1965 Roger Miller – Kansas City Star 

Roger Miller lived in Fort Worth, Texas, for the first year of his life. His father then died, and when his mother proved unable to support her three sons during the depression, she sent Roger to live with an aunt and uncle on their farm in Oklahoma. 

Roger’s cousin was married to actor/singer Sheb Wooley. Sheb taught Roger to play chords on a guitar and bought him his first fiddle. Roger stole a guitar when he was 17, but turned himself in for the crime. To avoid jail, he enlisted in the Army.

Near the end of his army days, they stationed Roger near Atlanta. He played fiddle in the Circle A Wranglers, a military group started by Faron Young.

When he left the military, Roger moved to Nashville and tried to start a career in music. An audition with Chet Atkins did not work out, so he worked as a bellhop in a local hotel (and became known as the singing bellhop). He found work as a fiddle player in Minnie Pearl’s band and co-wrote a few songs with George Jones. 

After writing several other songs that became hits for other country artists, Roger finally signed a contract with Chet at RCA Victor. He wrote and recorded the song You Don’t Want My Love. The song is better known by its first line, “In the summertime.” 

The record only reached #14 on the Country chart in 1960 and didn’t reach the Hot 100 at all, so I was somewhat surprised that I could sing along with the record when I searched it out. 

It turns out that the song did chart eventually – by Andy Williams. His single reached #64 in 1961 and he no doubt sang it on his show a few times.

Roger got tired of writing songs for other musicians, tired of his first wife (they divorced), and tired of Nashville. He moved to California and tried to start a career as an actor. 

Shelby Singleton started Smash Records as a subsidiary of Mercury Records in 1961. When Roger got low on money in 1964, he signed a contract with Smash Records; they paid him a bonus of $1,600 to record sixteen songs. The deal worked out to everybody’s benefit: Dang Me reached the top of the Country chart, Chug-A-Lug got to #3, and both records reached the top ten on the Hot 100.

In 1965, King of the Road became the most successful record of his career,

Roger released six more singles in 1966. Five of them reached the top ten on the Country chart and three reached the top ten on the Hot 100.

His fifth single that year was another song he wrote himself, Kansas City Star. The record was either funny or satirical depending on your point of view, but I can’t help but smile when I hear it. The single peaked at #7 on the Country chart and #31 on the Hot 100.

On the strength of his string of hits, Roger earned his own half-hour television show on NBC. The show lasted 17 weeks, from September to December 1966.

Ironically, none of his new singles did well while the show was active, but he reached the top forty again the next Spring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Miller
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Miller_discography#1950s_and_1960s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kansas_City_Star#Country_song

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