Tag: RFTS (Page 5 of 12)

Chart Week: February 16, 1980
Song: “We Don’t Talk Anymore” – Cliff Richard
Chart Position: #32, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in January.

I’m guessing most, if not all, of my readers have no memory of Cliff Richard.

That’s kind of crazy, because he was one of the most popular singers in the world for a long, long time. He’s sold over 250 million records around the world in his prolific career. In the UK he had 14 number ones and a staggering 69 top 10 hits; only Elvis and the Beatles sold more records in Richard’s homeland.[1] While his success was more modest in the US, Richard still racked up nine Top 40 hits here.

He spread out his American success pretty efficiently. As Casey noted in this countdown, Richard was the first artist to hit the US Top 40 in the 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. That came via one Top 40 hit in both the ‘50s and ’60s, two in the ‘70s – including this track which first hit in late 1979 – and then five more in 1980 and 1981 before he basically disappeared from American radio.[2]

While his highest charting track in the US was 1975’s “Devil Woman,” which hit #6, this was his biggest international hit. It cracked the top ten on pretty much every pop chart around the world, and hit #1 in at least nine counties.[3]

I’ve always loved it, from way back when I (likely) first heard it on KJAS in Jackson, MO. It has a groovy bass line. The synthesizers have a proto-New Wave quality to them. The chorus is catchy-as-hell. It’s hard not to get swept away by the track’s pleasant bounce.

When I was a kid, I mostly paid attention to the chorus and thought it was about a couple that were still together but had grown apart. Thus, I assumed was Richard singing about the realization that a relationship had changed. Maybe the couple was still traveling in the same direction, but they were doing so on different paths.

As I got older, I realized the entire song is more about him bemoaning the loss of a love that came about because of the choice of his lover.

Even with those two different views of the song, I’ve never completely understood what the title line means, “It’s so funny, how we don’t talk anymore.” I can’t decide if it’s a sarcastic statement, an incredulous statement, or a “Huh, that’s kind of weird,” statement.

I don’t think it helps that the song sounds so damn happy. Can Richard really be singing about heartbreak when the song makes you smile and want to bounce around?

I’m probably overanalyzing a song that was meant to be more pleasing to the ear than profound.

Besides, I’ve always been a melody-first guy, and this song is loaded with melody. Which is more than enough to make up for any lyrical inconsistencies or questions. This is pop music in its purest, most pleasing form. If Leo Sayer got a 7, this has to be an 8/10.

I will again share two videos for this track, because, as with Kansas, they are both amazing. The first is the official video, which for some strange reason was the sixth video aired on MTV. It is certainly something.

I’ll follow that up with a lip-synced performance from November 10, 1979 on the (West) German show Starparade. His outfit! His moves! The spinning with the camera! And the absolute stones to stand there, holding his index finger in the air over the intro as he prepares to sing. It’s as if he’s saying, “Yes, this is my song and it is number one!” For some reason I imagine him saying that with a German accent since he was on a German show, which makes it even more fun.

Chart Week: February 5, 1977
Song: “Carry On Wayward Son” – Kansas
Chart Position: #36, 7th week on the chart, debut week on Top 40. Peaked at #11 for two weeks in April.

The world is a much smaller place today than when my generation was growing up. Thanks to cable/satellite TV, the Internet, and social media networks, trends spread to the hinterlands almost as soon as they pop up in the cultural centers of the world. Hell, the next dumb-but-invasive, week-long TikTok trend is as likely to come from an unknown person in the middle of nowhere as an influencer in New York or LA.

But when we were kids, things moved to the center much slower. Punk, Rap and Hip Hop, New Wave, and other new sounds got their American starts on the coasts and gradually trickled into the Midwest and South.

Because of this, bands from the flyover states had to battle preconceived notions held by not only the listening public, but also by record labels.

Take Kansas, for example. They were from Topeka. Their music fit squarely into the progressive, arena rock sound that was big in the mid/late 1970s. But because of where they were from, people struggled to believe they should be categorized with bands like Boston, Styx, and Journey.

As Casey related in this countdown, when people heard the name “Kansas,” they expected a “Bluegrass band that wore overalls and chewed on a piece of straw.”

As a native Kansan, this offends me. Bluegrass was Appalachian music, made by and for Hillbillys. Kansas is not Hillbilly territory; its flatlands are the home of dirt farming Hicks. These are important distinctions.

Kansas’ label wasn’t immune to these harmful stereotypes. Kirshner Records tried to push the band as an “All-American, Bicentennial band,” according to Casey. I’m not really sure what that meant. Maybe closer to the Beach Boys than Led Zeppelin? I’m not sure you can get more American than this song, though, which sounds like it should be played in a big, 100% steel car made in Michigan that gets about 10 miles per gallon with the windows cranked down and the 8-track player cranked up.

Anyway, Kansas overcame that awful prejudice and were one of the biggest bands in the world for a brief spell. While this was not their biggest hit – “Dust In The Wind” peaked at #6 – it is their most enduring. Twice in the 1990s “Carry On Wayward Son” ended a calendar year as the most-played song on US classic rock stations. I hear it pretty regularly on SiriusXM, and if my daughters are in the car with me, I get a lot of eye rolls when I turn the volume up and start playing drums or keyboards on the steering wheel.

I do that because this is a kick ass song. Everything about it is amazing.

It has a perfect blend of vocals. In each verse, Steve Walsh sounds like he’s singing a ballad. But on the chorus, when Robby Steinhardt joins him, they transform it into a howling rocker. Walsh absolutely soars on the big notes. He’s not quite Brad Delp, but he’d certainly Delp-adjacent. He could fucking sing, and he sings the absolute hell out of this song.

Opening with an a cappella chorus then going straight into a breakdown and guitar solo was brilliant, and very prog-rock. Including solos by two different guitarists plus an organ solo also screams 1970s. It doesn’t quite have the “movement” feel that, say, Boston’s “Foreplay/Longtime” has, but the distinct sections give the song a majesty that sets it aside from standard radio fare.[1] Those parts keep pushing and pushing and pushing until the sudden wind down and closing riff. Every element makes you want to sing along while playing the air instrument of your choice.

The lyrics are pretty great, too. Guitarist Kerry Livgren wrote them as a note of encouragement to himself as he drifted in his search for a spiritual home. They are exactly how I would expect someone of his age, in that time, to speak about their journey. I always think of the people my parents hung out with in their grad school/post-graduate years when we lived in small college towns. While some of the lyrics seem overtly religious, they are never preachy nor pretentious. It never sounds like a Christian rock song – Livgren did not intend it to be – so even if that kind of thing normally grates on you, I can’t imagine this song would bother you.[2] Above any spiritual references, it is a song about never letting obstacles keep you from your goals. Or Ad astra per aspera, as some might say.

Not all the songs that were big hits in the late 1970s arena rock era hold up well. This one does. 10/10

I’ll include two videos for the song. First, the official video, so you get the entire song in all its glory. And can check out some of the looks the band rocked. Second is their magnificent 1978 Canada Jam performance. There is A LOT going on in that video.

Chart Week: January 26, 1985
Song: “Do What You Do” – Jermaine Jackson
Chart Position: #19, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 the week of January 5.

How do you define a single? That dilemma has long frustrated people who track the popularity of music. Over the years Billboard magazine has used a variety of definitions for how to classify individual songs on its different charts. In the current, streaming age, for example, just about every track can be considered a single the moment an album is released. In the past, the definition was much more stringent when separating singles from album tracks.

This Jermaine Jackson song opens a door for us to look at how singles were categorized in the 1980s.

There’s nothing all that special about “Do What You Do.” It was the second biggest pop single of Jermaine’s solo career, and spent three weeks atop the Adult Contemporary chart. I guess that made it special to him.

What is more interesting is this track’s B-side, “Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True),” a duet with brother Michael. When Casey mentioned that was the B-side for “Do What You Do” on a January 1985 countdown, I was confused: I remembered hearing it a lot on the radio in the summer of 1984.

My mind was not playing tricks on me. “Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True)” was indeed a pretty big radio hit in June 1984. But thanks to a conflict between the brothers’ record companies and Billboard rules, it never registered on the country’s biggest pop chart.

Michael was signed to Epic Records, Jermaine to Arista. While Michael was cleared to record the track for his brother’s album, the labels were unable to reach an agreement on how to share credit for it as a single pressing. So Epic blocked it. I would imagine this pissed off a lot of people at Arista, who were likely thrilled at the prospect of poaching a little of Michael’s magic. However, radio DJ’s across the country still inserted the track into playlists, knowing their listeners were clamoring for new MJ material. They played the hell out of it, in fact.

At the time, Billboard did not include songs on the Hot 100 that had not been released as official singles. When an album track or B-side began getting heavy airplay, labels had to scramble to press it as a single if they wanted to get Hot 100 recognition.[1]

There were still ways to track “TMIND(TGTBT)”’s popularity. Radio and Records magazine published its own singles chart that was based exclusively on radio airplay. On that chart, the Jackson brothers hit #6 in June 1984. And Billboard had a Hot Dance Club Play chart that tracked, well, what dance clubs were playing. Only in the hot dance clubs, obviously. “TMIND(TGTBT)” was #1 there for three weeks.

Despite that commercial success, if you pull up old Billboard Hot 100 charts or listen to old AT40’s, it’s as if it never existed. Crazy.

I’m not a big fan of “Do What You Do.” It’s a sleepy, saccharine, soulless, and totally generic mid–80s ballad. It’s made worse by Jermaine’s vocals, which sound mailed-in. I wonder if he was going for something along the lines of Michael’s “She’s Out of My Life.” The problem is that as sappy as that song was, Michael’s emotion was completely genuine, ending with him breaking down as he sang the closing lines. I don’t sense any real heartbreak in Jermaine’s delivery. I think it would have sounded better if someone like Peabo Bryson or Freddie Jackson had sang it. 3/10

As for the B-side, I know I dug it when I was a kid, and I enjoyed listening to it a few times this week. It definitely leans way into the sound Quincy Jones and Michael created for Thriller. Replacement-level Thriller, to be fair, but the sound is still there. Even today, hearing those pseudo-Thriller vibes gets me pumped. That’s probably just memories of being excited to hear new Michael Jackson music a few months after the final Thriller single fell off the charts. It doesn’t hurt that the best part of the song is when Michael sings. He just has so much more personality and urgency in his voice than Jermaine does. I also hear a little New Wave influence; something about the synthesizers reminds me of The Fixx. 7/10

Chart Week: January 12, 1985
Song: “The Boys of Summer” – Don Henley
Chart Position: #16, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 the week of February 9.

You might wonder why I spend a few hours each week listening to re-broadcasts of a 40-ish year-old radio show that features songs I can listen to literally whenever I want. The biggest reason is for the times I hear a piece of music trivia that had eluded me all of these years. For example, this story behind Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.”

Until last week, I did not know that Mike Campbell, certified genius guitar player and Tom Petty’s sidekick in The Heartbreakers, wrote “The Boys of Summer.”

Campbell was messing around with a LinnDrum machine in 1983 when he came upon a rhythm he liked. He added synthesizers and guitar and quickly recorded a demo that he presented to Petty and producer Jimmy Iovine. Petty was underwhelmed, thinking it didn’t fit the sound he wanted for his next album. Iovine said it sounded like jazz, which seems like a savage diss to me. Still, the producer suggested Campbell reach out to another client, Don Henley, who was working on his second solo album.

Campbell tweaked the chorus, called Henley, and played the demo for him. The next day the former Eagle called back with lyrics he wrote while driving around. Henley’s most famous line, about seeing a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, was based on a real moment. He had seen a Cadillac Seville, which he viewed as the “status symbol of the right-wing, upper-middle-class, American bourgeoisie,” with a Grateful Dead sticker slapped on its bumper. He viewed that as a symbol of how his generation had sold out. (Henley has always held strong opinions on pretty much everything.)

Originally they planned on Henley singing over Campbell’s demo. However, after adding overdubs and mixing the song, they realized Henley’s voice would sound better in a slightly different key. Which meant Campbell would have to scrap his demo and re-record the entire song. Although that was a pain, it was a wise choice. As he laid down the new version, he improvised a simple solo over the song’s outro. That solo isn’t complex or showy in any way, but it is the perfect final statement.

A few months later, as “The Boys of Summer” turned into a hit, Campbell and Petty were in the studio working on the Southern Accents album. They had just wrapped up recording “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” and took a cassette of the session out to a car to listen to it. When Campbell flipped the radio on, “The Boys of Summer” was playing.

Petty chuckled and said, “You know, you were really lucky with that one. I wish I would have had the presence of mind not to let it get away.”

That seems a little too cutesy for me, but it’s a story Campbell has told many times. I’m sure Petty thought it was a great song. But I’m also confident that he stuck with his initial impression: it didn’t sound like a Heartbreakers track to him.

As for my rating, it is hard to ignore nearly 40 years of history with this song. The moment it comes on, when I hear Campbell’s first guitar notes and that opening synth line, I instantly think about the past. There is a wistful, universal feel to the song. We are all always looking back in one way or another. Campbell and Henley perfectly captured that urge. The hazy synths mimic the haziness of our memories. There are little touches, both musically and lyrically, that speak to how memories pop up and grab us when we least expect them. And I’ve always loved the urgency in Henley’s voice.

Although a thoroughly middle-of-the-road song, it sounds a lot less dated than the other Dad Rock that rose in the late ‘80s. We might not have The War on Drugs if not for this song, and the album it came from, Building the Perfect Beast.

It won a Grammy for Best Male Vocal Performance and was selected as the Video of the Year at the 1985 MTV VMA’s. Those were legit wins. This is a classic.

D’s Grade: 9/10

One spot above “The Boys of Summer” was Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” You would be correct if I you guessed that I skip it any time I hear a January 1985 countdown. I suppose that’s one way the current charts are better than the old ones: rather than linger for a few weeks after the holidays, the classic Christmas songs that now crack the Top 10 each December disappear with our trees and decorations.

Good news for my readers who enjoy these posts: After my normal, end-of-the-year lull, I suddenly have a bunch of these stacked up for the next month or so.

Chart Week: January 10, 1981
Song: “More Than I Can Say” – Leo Sayer
Chart Position: #10, 16th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for five weeks.

(I will be adding an element to these posts moving forward. I’m going to copy my man Tom Breihan and rate each song using his 10-point scale.)

One of the only bummers for my holiday break was that the iHeart Radio Classic American Top 40 station did not air its annual marathon of year-end countdowns. That has, over the past three years, become a traditional for me. I could spend the last hours of the old year and the first hours of the new year taking down Christmas decorations, reading, and otherwise wasting time as Casey ticked off the biggest hits of my childhood in the background.

New Year’s weekend I kept feeling like I was missing something as I did those tasks in silence. Strangely, this song kept popping up in my head.

Last Sunday I turned on the KCMO weekly replay and caught part of the second half of the top hits of 1981 countdown. Second song I heard? “More Than I Can Say” by Leo Sayer at #28. Obviously the Music Gods meant for me to write about it!

This song has an interesting history. It was written by Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison, both members of Buddy Holly’s band The Crickets, in 1959. They composed it a few weeks after Holly died in the infamous The Day The Music Died plane crash.

The Crickets carried on without Holly, putting out albums periodically until as recently as 2005. Their original version of “More Than I Can Say” was the band’s closest thing to a hit in the States in their post-Holly era, peaking at #42 on the R&B chart.[1]

Bobby Vee was one of several artists recruited to replace Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper on tour following their deaths. He recorded a cover of “More Than I Can Say” in 1961 that peaked at #61.

Surviving setlists show that the Beatles played this often in 1961 and 1962, mostly in their Hamburg days, although they never put their version onto wax.

In the mid 1970s, Leo Sayer went on an unlikely hot streak. Out of nowhere, he scored six Top 40 hits, including back-to-back Number Ones with “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” and “When I Need You.” By 1980, though, he had failed to hit the US Top 40 with nine straight records.

As he prepared to record his Living in a Fantasy album, he sought an old song to cover. One day he saw a TV commercial for a Bobby Vee greatest hits collection. The ad included a snippet of “More Than I Can Say.” Sayer knew that was the song he was looking for. He ran out to buy the album, hit the studio, and immediately cut his own version. Smart decision. His recording raced up the charts and spent five weeks at number two, stuck behind Kenny Rogers’ “Lady” for four weeks and John Lennon’s “(Just Like) Starting Over” for one week as the calendar flipped from 1980 to 1981.

There isn’t much difference in the three recorded versions of this song. I do like how Sayer’s take is both immediately recognizable and still pulls in the sound of its time. There’s the slightest country tinge to the song, balanced by some solid, smooth-as-hell, Christopher Cross-esque Yacht Rock vibes. In fact, the music is the best part of the song. There’s a hint of disco funk in the bass. Not enough to make the song danceable, but enough to propel the song along. Sayer’s vocals aren’t remarkable in any way, and it feels like he’s gliding without investing any true emotion into his effort. In fact, the best vocal parts are the backing harmonies over the guitar break and the final section.

Still, there’s something about it that makes me feel warm when I hear it. That’s probably just the heat of nostalgia, taking me back to the holiday season of 1980. But I like it a lot more than his other songs.

The video is kind of great. The use of a green screen probably blew people’s minds back then. And Leo’s look of red shoes, yellow pants, pink blazer, and White Man Afro was truly aspirational.

D’s Grade: 7/10

Chart Week: December 10, 1977
Song: “Here You Come Again” – Dolly Parton
Chart Position: #12, 9th week on the chart. Peaked at #3 for two weeks in January, 1978.

This edition features another musician origin story.[1] I really like this one; hope you do, too.

It is a tiny miracle that anyone becomes a recording star. There are, what, thousands of people out there with the same dream? Tens of thousands? You have to put together enough songs to earn gigs, find management, get signed to a recording/distribution contract, record an album, and then fight the hundreds of other new songs and albums that come out each week for the attention of the listening public. If everything lines up perfectly, maybe you have one, minor hit. But to become an artist that is universally known and beloved, and that sticks around for nearly 60 years? That takes a special kind of magic.

Talent isn’t always the determining factor in breaking through. Sometimes a champion must be willing to put their reputation on the line to launch a budding artist towards success.

That’s exactly what happened with Dolly Parton.

Parton moved to Nashville immediately after finishing high school. While quickly finding success as a songwriter, she failed to get interest from record companies as a singer. That is until country superstar Porter Wagoner heard her voice. In 1967 he added her to his weekly TV program and traveling road show. Despite Wagoner’s mentorship, record labels still weren’t willing to give Parton a recording deal. In fact, country legend Chet Atkins, who ran RCA Victor, flat out told Wagoner that Parton “…can not sing. No one is going to want to listen to her.”

Wagoner was persistent and certain that Parton was a star-in-waiting. After several failed efforts to convince Atkins, he came up with a unique offer: sign Parton, and if the label lost money on her, RCA Victor could take those losses out of the royalties owed to Wagoner.

Seeing little risk, Atkins gave in. That was a smart move. The company made a profit off of Parton’s music in year one. Since many of her earliest hits were duets with Wagoner, he made out ok as well.

1977 was the year that Parton became a cross-over superstar. She had her own nationally syndicated variety show. I remember it well since it aired on the TV station my mom worked at in Cape Girardeau, MO. Here You Come Again album topped the country album chart and peaked at number 20 on the pop chart. The title track, a wonderful song that still charms me, made it to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1980 she starred in and sang the theme for the movie 9 to 5. A couple years later, she and Kenny Rogers hit #1 on the pop chart with their duet “Islands in the Stream.” In 1992, Whitney Houston covered Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” and turned it into one of the biggest selling singles in the history of music. Somewhere in that run Dolly became an absolute American treasure.

Whether you like country music in general, or her music in particular, it’s impossible to deny her infectious, force of nature personality. She’s broken ground for women in the music industry in countless ways. She’s been outspoken without being churlish or divisive. She’s used her name and money to do a ton of good for people who need help. As I type this I realize as big of a star as Dolly is, she probably has never got the proper amount of credit for her impact on both the music world and the real world.

It was Dolly’s talent and immense drive that turned her into a star. But it was Porter Wagoner’s persistence and support that helped make it possible.

Chart Week: November 6, 1976
Song: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” – Gordon Lightfoot
Chart Position: #3, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for two weeks.

This entry is cheating a little bit, as I’ve written about this song before. However, I heard not one but two countdowns last weekend that included it, so I take that as a sign from the Music Gods that they want me to share it again.

I first heard it on the weekly Sunday countdown, which was from this week in 1980. On that show, Casey shared it as an extra with some historical trivia. A little later in the day I heard this 1976 countdown, during which “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was approaching its chart peak.

During the 1980 show Casey related the events of the actual sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Other than it being the fifth anniversary of the wreck, I’m not sure why he decided to drop a four-year-old song in the midst of the countdown. He told the audience that the day the EF sank – November 11 – was an especially deadly day in Great Lakes shipping history. A storm hit the lakes on November 11, 1930 and sunk five ships, killing 67 people. The biggest natural disaster to ever hit the lakes, 1913’s Big Blow, was in full-force on November 11. Its final toll was at least 12 ships and 254 people. He shared these facts in his usual jolly tone. Maybe he was just really into shipwrecks.

One reason I’ve shared this song before is because the former music teacher at St P used to play it for her students every year around the anniversary of the ship’s loss. The song had always been stuck in my head because of its unforgettable, haunting main guitar riff. But as the girls learned about the song, I read up about it while also paying attention to the lyrics. It floors me that Lightfoot could build such a magnificent narrative arc around a shipwreck. I especially love his sixth verse, where he describes each of the Great Lakes. Turning it into a pop hit was pretty amazing.

I’ve always thought it was cool that weird, old Mrs. K taught her kids about this song. I never knew why she did that. Was she from the Great Lakes and/or grew up around shipping? Did she just love the song when it was out? Regardless, she put it in my girls’ heads and brought it back to mine.

Chart Week: November 2, 1985
Song: “And We Danced” – The Hooters
Chart Position: #23, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #21 the week of October 26.

(Fear not, music trivia fans! After a long dry spell, I’ve got three, maybe four, of these posts queued up for the next couple weeks.)

“Who the fuck are The Hooters?”

Those were Bob Geldof’s comments in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine after promoter Bill Graham forced him to include the band on the Philadelphia stage of Live Aid.

For Graham, one of the most powerful people in music, it was an opportunity to showcase a band that seemed poised to break out in front of perhaps the biggest-ever worldwide audience for a concert. Being a local band from Philly gave their presence a nice little hook.

I would imagine much of the worldwide TV audience understood Geldof’s comments, though. Unless you were from Philadelphia, you probably had no idea who The Hooters were, and would have wondered why they were sprinkled in between Queen, The Who, Paul McCartney, Hall & Oates, Duran Duran, Madonna and other legendary or of-the-moment artists.

The Hooters did have a pretty good run for a few months. They hit the top 40 three times with tracks off their Nervous Night album, and a fourth song – ironically their most-played song on Spotify – just missed the top 40.[1]

While the effect of the Live Aid performance on their career is debatable, there is no doubt their name helped them stand out. The band used a Melodica keyboard harmonica as part of their unique sound. They called that instrument a Hooter. I guess after enough beer or weed or whatever, you can talk yourself into thinking that’s a great thing to name your new band after. I remember hearing that explanation often on MTV and the radio during their brief moment of popularity. But I guarantee a lot of teenage dipshits listened to the band solely because they thought they were named after tits. I remember there was tons of giggling about the name on my Little League team in the summer of ’85.

I bet a lot of people still giggle when they hear the band’s name. That’s a shame. Nervous Night was a decent album. Today it sounds very dated because of the production, but the singles remain pretty solid. And The Hooters at least made an attempt to sound different from standard pop of their era, blending elements of ska, reggae, and folk into their sound, and building it as much on mandolins and the Hooter as traditional guitar and drums.

“And We Danced” is a prototypical mid–80s pop-rock song, though. Those big, crashing guitars up front; the driving beat; the shouted-out vocals. Every stereotypical element of being a teenager in the 80’s seems wrapped up inside of this track. I’m still shocked it was never used in a movie or show that took place around prom night, with The Hooters banging this out on stage while hundreds of kids lose their minds on the dance floor.[2]

This could blend in with dozens of other songs not terribly different from it. But because it was performed by The Hooters, the band with perhaps the silliest name of a very silly decade, it has achieved some measure of timelessness.

Well piss. I swear that I’ve posted this about three different times over the past two days. Obviously I’m losing it.

Chart Week: August 25, 1984
Song: “Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us” – Ollie and Jerry
Chart Position: #34, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of August 4.

I love musical origin stories. Especially ones where a lucky break launched an otherwise anonymous performer towards success. For every artist like Michael Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston, or Mariah Carey, who each possessed talent that made stardom seem inevitable, the charts are loaded with dozens of artists and bands that required a perfect combination of factors to have their moment. Ollie Brown is one of those artists.

In the late 1960s Brown carved out a reputation as a top-notch studio drummer, even though he was not yet 20. He seemed destined to remain a part of the Los Angeles scene until one night when the music gods gave him a monumental break.

Marvin Gaye was in LA preparing to perform on a telethon. As he rehearsed with the studio’s house band, he grew frustrated with the drummer, who just could not grasp the rhythms that Gaye wanted. Casey Kasem described the drummer as a member of “the local musicians union.” I take that to mean old white guy. This dude could probably lay down any rhythm that came from the pop standards world, maybe even hack through some jazzy beats. But he was decidedly not connected to what was coming out of Motown in the late ‘60s.

Sensing Gaye’s irritation, a member of the telethon staff pointed out a local drummer that was hanging out backstage, and suggested he get a chance to sit in. That young man, of course, was Ollie Brown. Brown slipped into the drum kit and immediately supplied the beats Marvin needed.

Also backstage was one of Brown’s childhood friends, Ray Parker Jr. Ray was not yet a star, but he just happened to be standing with Stevie Wonder, with whom he had worked previously. Parker was proud of his friend for performing so well, and made a mental note when Wonder also expressed his approval.

Fast forward a couple years. Stevie Wonder was looking for a new drummer to join him on his tour and asked friends for suggestions. Ray Parker Jr. reminded him of Ollie Brown’s performance in support of Marvin Gaye.

That was all Wonder needed. He hired Brown to play drums while he opened for The Rolling Stones, and then kept him on as his studio drummer for recordings he made after that tour.[1] A few years after that, Brown joined the Stones for most of their late ‘70s tours.

Thank goodness Ollie Brown got that break from Marvin Gaye. Otherwise he may have remained an anonymous studio drummer in LA, and we would never have gotten this wonderful song, which makes me happy every time I hear it. Although generally a pretty straight-forward pop/R&B track, those little scratches and computer voices made it one of the first songs with a strong hip hop influence to crack the Top 40. Breakin’ was an awesome movie, by the way.

(Below the video, check out the wonderful clip I found from American Bandstand where Ollie and Jerry talk about their careers and how this song was written.)

Chart Week: August 1, 1981
Song: “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” – The Tubes
Chart Position: #37, 7th week on the chart. Peaked at #35 for two weeks.

The Tubes will collect residual checks until they die for one song: “She’s a Beauty,” their #10 smash from the summer of 1983. It is an absolute classic of its era; any list of best songs of the 1980s would be incomplete without it. If you listen to 80’s on 8 on SiriusXM or your local retro station very often, you are guaranteed to hear it a couple times each week. Nearly 40 years after its release, it still immediately reminds me of hanging out with friends at the YMCA day camp pool while Q–104 or ZZ–99 blared out over cheap speakers.

Most folks would consider The Tubes One Hit Wonders. For years I would have argued against that, submitting that they also had a cool song called “Talk To Ya Later.”

For years, it turns out, I was wrong. I remember “Talk To Ya Later” pretty well, but it didn’t even crack the Hot 100, peaking at #101 in 1981. I’m guessing it was resurrected by some DJs after “She’s a Beauty” hit, and that’s how I know it.

The band indeed hit the Top 40 one other time, though, in the summer of 1981 with “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore.” This song is not seared into my brain at all. In fact, when I heard it last week, I was both sure I had never heard it before and shocked that it was The Tubes.[1]

Some of that is because rather than regular lead singer Fee Waybill, guitarist Bill Spooner supplies the vocals here.

I also probably don’t remember it because it kind of sucks.

Seriously, what the hell is this? How did the same band that came up with such a bright, fun, and unforgettable track as “She’s a Beauty” hit the charts with this piece of boring, middle-of-the-road, crap? I would describe “She’s a Beauty” and “Talk To Ya Later” as “Fast Times Rock.” I.e. from that broad swath of early ‘80s music that was equal parts New Wave and straight rock and would have fit nicely onto the soundtrack for Fast Times at Ridgemont High or any other teen movie of the early ‘80s.[2]

This song strikes me as something a band trying hard to sound like Chicago on the state fair circuit might have written, not a group that had serious roots in the art, punk, and glam worlds. I guess there’s a touch of some Styx-like space rock in there, if you listen hard enough. Still, that ain’t New Wave. Hell, if there was a horn section, you could talk me into believing this was a deep track on Chicago 16 or Chicago 17.

I totally get why the rest of the band does not appear in the video. They knew it was trash. I guess the joke was on them, though, as this is the song that saves The Tubes from being a One Hit Wonder by the strictest definition of the term.