Tag: RFTS (Page 6 of 12)

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.

Chart Week: August 8, 1987
Song: “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” – Whitney Houston
Chart Position: #17, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 for two weeks in June and July.

I tend to shy away from songs that hit number one since they will get the Tom Breihan treatment over at Stereogum. I squeezed in “West End Girls” before he got to it, but now that he’s just about done with the ‘80s, he’s covered every song of the Casey Kasem era.

I making an exception for this track simply because of a little blurb that Casey shared on another summer of ’87 countdown.

Casey told a story from Narada Michael Walden, the mega-producer behind this and so many other monster songs of the late ‘80s and ‘90s. Walden mentioned how his success meant he was able to meet some of his musical heroes. Once of those heroes was Prince.

At some point they were in studios next to each other: Narada with Elton John and Aretha Franklin while Prince was working with Morris Day. Prince invited Narada over, they chatted for a bit, and then Prince invited Narada and Day outside to shoot some hoops.

Despite wearing “seven-inch, high heeled boots,” Prince won the game of 21 rather easily.

HOLY SHIT! Remember when folks confirmed that the legendary Chapelle Show Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories sketch on The Chapelle Show was true? And here we had evidence from way back in 1987!

Chart Week: July 12, 1986
Song: “If She Knew What She Wants” – The Bangles
Chart Position: #29, 10th week on the chart. This was the song’s peak; it fell out of the Top 40 the next week.

I recall being in love with a lot of unattainable women in the summer of 1986. There was Heather Thomas, whose poster I had on my wall. There was Tamlyn Tomita, who played Ralph Maccio’s Okinawan love interest in The Karate Kid Part II. I’m sure there were plenty of girls at my high school I longed to get attention from but was frightened to speak to. And there was Susanna Hoffs.

Man, did I love Susanna! She had a girl-next-door quality to her beauty that made her seem like someone who was too pretty for normal dorks like me to have any hope of dating, but not so hot that she wouldn’t talk to you, laugh at your jokes, etc.

I know I wasn’t alone. And judging by comments from friends, there are a lot of us who are still fans, as she has aged very, very well.

Like most dudes my age I fell in love with Hoffs in the spring of ’86 when The Bangles hit #2 with the Prince-written “Manic Monday.” Later in the year they would release what ended up being the biggest single of 1987, “Walk Like an Egyptian,” another song the band did not write. In fact, of the band’s five biggest songs – all Top Five hits – they only wrote two, and both of those included input from songwriters outside the group. A handful of their other famous songs were also covers, which is a little odd given how the band was fully capable of writing a great tune. I guess they knew how to pick a good cover.[1]

“If She Knew What She Wants” was not one of their biggest hits. It struggled to gain traction on the charts and could only claw its way up to #29 and then fall clean out of the Top 40 a week later. Which is a shame because it’s a totally gorgeous song. Those “Ooooo-ooooo-ooooo-ooooo’s” Susanna throws in at the beginning and end of the track are both angelic and killer. I didn’t understand why people didn’t love it back in 1986, and I still don’t understand why it wasn’t a bigger hit.

It was – surprise surprise – also a cover. In this case it belonged to Jules Shear, a musician with a long, deep track record of writing songs for others. ’Til Tuesday, Marshall Crenshaw, 10,000 Maniacs, and Olivia Newton-John are just the most immediately recognizable artists to record his music.

Shear also wrote “All Through the Night,” which Cyndi Lauper turned into a #5 hit during her huge run in 1984. When she toured her monster She’s So Unusual album, Lauper selected The Bangles as her opening act. While on that tour The Bangles came to know Shear’s music and eventually struck up a friendship with him. When he performed his single “Steady” on American Bandstand in 1985, he recruited The Bangles to be his “background band,” miming the track along with him for Dick Clark and his audience. When asked to record a song for The Goonies soundtrack, The Bangles brought in Shear as a co-writer. As a token of thanks, or just a sign of their admiration for his art, they also selected this track to include on their Different Light album.

They didn’t veer much from Shear’s arrangement. They do flip a few words to adjust the gender perspective. It is their shift toward their favored sound of 60’s-influenced jangle pop with gorgeous harmonies that makes their version really shine, and elevates it above Shear’s version.

For some bonus Susanna Hoffs material, here is her performing two of her biggest Bangles tracks with a string quartet on CNN for the Fourth of July.

Chart Week: June 12, 1982
Song: “Fantasy” – Aldo Nova
Chart Position: #32, 12th week on the chart. Peaked at #23 for two weeks in May/June.

I only caught a few songs of this countdown, but I tuned in at the perfect time. I’m guessing I had not heard this jam in a long, long time. Which is a damn shame because kicks all kinds of ass. I guarantee it was on a Johnny Lawrence mix tape.

I’m of two minds about this track.

On one hand, it is a pretty cutting assessment of what Aldo Nova saw on his first visit to New York. He had led a relatively sheltered life in Montreal and was shocked by the early ‘80s debauchery of NYC. Drugs and prostitutes everywhere. People losing themselves in lifestyles filled with fiction and sin to maintain some sanity in a city that would gladly chew them up and spit them out. If you strip away all of the general 80’s-ness about the song, it’s a solid critique of that world by an outsider.

On the other hand, that is overthinking things. This is just a straight rock song that is is completely cheesy yet absolutely awesome.

It begins with the artist. Aldo Nova is an amazing name. It was even cooler to a 10/11 year old kid who heard older kids on the bus say it. Aldo Nova sounded futuristic and exotic, like a sleek, rare, Italian sports car you catch rumors of but will never actually see. I doubt his parents, who were Italian immigrants, had any idea what they were unleashing on the world when they named their son Aldo Caporuscio in 1956. Dropping his family name and replacing it with Nova was a brilliant moment of self-promotion, guaranteeing every little degenerate kid in North America would think it was awesome.

Then there is the song and video. The long intro, with the helicopter and sounds of lasers firing was straight cornball. And incredible! Those sounds were perfect for a generation of kids that was blowing its allowance in arcades and had the sounds of techno-war imprinted in our minds. It also reminded me of a movie like Megaforce, generally considered one of the worst films ever made. I was nuts about that stupid-ass flick, and the Atari Force comics, in the summer of ‘82.

In the video, for some reason Nova has to chopper into an area secured by men with weapons. Then he uses his laser guitar to bust open the door to a building, where his band and an adoring crowd are waiting for him.

Why did he have to be choppered in? Why did the guys guarding the landing area have guns? Why did he have to use a laser to cut his way into a building where he was expected? This, my friends, is the beauty of early ‘80s videos! It didn’t have to make sense, because the prime audience was dickheads like me who would watch and scream, “AWESOME!”

Nova is also wearing an absolutely spectacular animal print bodysuit. It might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

The song begins with that big, crunchy rhythm guitar riff, which is quickly covered up by Nova’s soaring, iconic lead riff that carries the track. From there it goes through fairly standard ‘80s rock progressions. It’s worth noting that not all of this was typical yet in 1982. One article I came across suggested that Nova, in this song, created the genre of Hair Metal. That may be giving him too much credit, but you can certainly hear the roots of what would soon dominate the rock charts here.

The rest of the video is loaded with straight cheese. To my eyes, it’s an absolute work of art.

Nova had an interesting career. His debut album went double platinum in the US. He released a couple more albums, but they weren’t nearly as successful and he never had another single that charted in America. He grew disenchanted with the music industry and asked out of his contract. Eventually Nova worked with other artists. Notably he wrote the main, 1000% awesome, riff for Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory.” He produced albums for Celine fucking Dion, winning a Grammy for his work. He even wrote some music for Clay Aiken.

Wacky, wild stuff.

I thank the Music Gods for allowing me to rediscover this completely kick ass song and video, which I’ve listened to/watched at least 15 times over the past week.

Chart Week: May 12, 1979
Song: “In the Navy” – The Village People
Chart Position: #5, 9th week on the chart. Peaked at #3 for two weeks.

I wasn’t old enough to “get” the Village People when they were at the height of their powers. I was 6–7 years old during their brief moment at the top of the pop culture pyramid. All I knew was that they were goofy and funny and sang catchy disco songs.

I had no clue about all the subtext that was a part of the band, though. I didn’t know about the coding in songs like “Y.M.C.A.” and “Macho Man.” I didn’t get the meaning behind their name. I had no idea that their costumes and personas were all carefully selected to present a certain perspective of gay male fantasy.

All that makes me laugh because, when you look back on The Village People and their music, how more obvious could it have been what they were all about? Again, I was six and seven. What could I have known?

This countdown had one of my favorite AT40 trivia tidbits, a little note about how The Village People came to be.

The producers who assembled the group had a very specific concept for how they wanted the band to appear. They placed an ad in a trade paper looking for performers who fit this look. According to Casey, the ad sought “Singers and dancers, very good looking, with mustaches.” Wikipedia says the ad read, “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Mustache.”

The mustache line makes me laugh every time I hear it. Was that code in the late ‘70s for gay, particularly in the theater community the producers were searching in? I mean, a lot of dudes had mustaches in the ‘70s. Was the ability to dance while also having a mustache something that clearly identified a man as gay at the time?

That does not explain Victor Willis, the main vocalist and lyricist for the band. While he was leading The Village People, he was married to actress Phylicia Ayers-Allen, who a few years later became famous for playing Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Willis has been married at least one more time, also to a woman. Doing some research, it seems that Willis was the only straight member in the classic lineup of the Village People.

Over the years so many gay entertainers had to present themselves to the public as straight, married, family men. But Willis, perhaps the most famous “gay” man in the world in the late ’70s, was actually straight. Pop culture doesn’t always make sense.

For some reason I can’t embed the video, so go here to watch it. 

Chart Week: May 1, 1982
Song: “867–5309/Jenny” – Tommy Tutone
Chart Position: #8, 15th week on the chart. Peaked at #4 for three weeks in May and June.

Quick show of hands: if you were alive and old enough in 1982, how many of you dialed 867–5309 to see if Jenny would answer? I know I did. I believe in Kansas City the response was an AT&T recording that there was no such number in my area code (816 represent!).

Unintentionally, the band Tommy Tutone set off a brief fad with their ode to looking for a good time by calling a number scribbled onto a wall.

According to Casey Kasem, dozens of people around the country had the number 867–5309 when the song was released. As the song climbed the chart, and volume of callers looking for Jenny multiplied, it created great annoyance and forced many of those poor folks to change their phone numbers.

A couple businesses tried to take advantage.

A talent agency in Los Angeles adopted the number and connected it to an answering machine, where a woman named Jenny asked callers to leave a message.

Chicago radio station WLS went a step further. The AM radio giant also claimed the number. In a matter of weeks they got over 18,000 calls. The phone company told the station they needed to add more lines to handle the flood of callers. WLS did, and enlisted Tommy Tutone lead singer Tommy Heath to record a message that answered the calls, thanking fans for their interest in the song.

If only I knew the Chicago area code in 1982! Then again, long distance calling was an expensive luxury back then. My mom probably would have killed me when the phone bill arrived listing a bunch of calls to 312–867–5309.

As I listened to this week’s countdown I couldn’t help but compare this little bit of harmless marketing fun to how brand managers would handle a similar song today. Can you imagine? There would be coordinated social media pushes. There would be ads on YouTube. There would be carefully crafted GIFs, Tik Toks, and Instagram filters. Jimmy Fallon would do a super dumb parody. And since the charts are so different now, the song would hang around for nearly a year, to the point where we would all be sick of it and never want to hear it again.

Thank goodness the ‘80s were different times! Instead of being overexposed and forgotten, “867–5309/Jenny” become one of the most beloved, iconic, and unforgettable songs of its era.