In the 10 years since their last number 1, The Bee Gees had split, reunited and suffered wilderness years before a remarkable comeback. They rode the disco wave and set the charts alight with a string of hits and eventually returned to the top of the charts once more with this smooth song from the Saturday Night Fever (1977) soundtrack.
Before
Following their second number 1, I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You, The Bee Gees lost their lead guitarist, Vince Melouney. He had been the only non-Gibb brother to write and sing on a Bee Gees album, with the track Such a Shame on Idea. He did however feature on their fourth LP Odessa, a sprawling double album released in 1969. A single, First of May, reached six, but Robin wasn’t happy that his song Lamplight was relegated to the B-side. Such was the tension between he and Barry, he announced he was leaving the band to pursue a solo career.
Barry and Maurice continued, releasing the bizarrely named Cucumber Castle. During recording, they fired drummer Colin Petersen and hired Pentangle’s Terry Cox to finish the sessions instead. The first single from it, Don’t Forget to Remember, was a big hit, peaking at two. However, by the time the album was released in 1970, The Bee Gees were no more, and sales plummeted. Robin’s solo album Robin’s Reign was released around the same time, but planned releases by Barry and Maurice never saw the light of day.
It wasn’t long before they reunited. Robin rang Barry and they made amends, announcing The Bee Gees were back that August. The album 2 Years On followed, with new drummer Geoff Bridgford. The single Lonely Days did well in the US but not here. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, from the LP Trafalgar, became their first US number 1, in 1971. That year, Alan Kendall became their lead guitarist.
Run to Me, from To Whom It May Concern, became their first top 10 hit in three years, climbing to nine in 1972. But their commercial appeal shrank hugely and their next albums, Life in a Tin Can (1973) and Mr Natural (1974), sank without trace. They found themselves performing in tiny Yorkshire clubs, with a new drummer, Dennis Byron.
Bolstered by former Strawbs keyboardist Blue Weaver, The Bee Gees moved to Miami, Florida and recorded their 13th album Main Course. Following the advice of manager Robert Stigwood and producer Arif Mardin, they adopted a disco sound and Barry began using a falsetto for the first time. The funky Jive Talkin’ rightly returned them to the mainstream, hitting number 1 in the US and five in the UK. They were bona fide superstars and followed up their Main Course with Children of the World a year later. First single You Should Be Dancing, featuring Stephen Stills on percussion, earned them another US number 1, reaching five in the UK.
After the release of live album Here at Last… Bee Gees… Live the Gibbs agreed to work on the film that made them a bona fide phenomenon. Saturday Night Fever was in post-production when the Bee Gees began recording for the soundtrack. The Bee Gees were recording their next album in France when Stigwood rang them and asked if they’d consider helping out and they originally refused, saying they hadn’t the time. They relented and, with nothing but a rough script as a guideline, recording demos. It’s weird to imagine, but before the Gibbs were involved, John Travolta was originally dancing to music by Boz Scaggs and Stevie Wonder when filming his famous dance scenes.
To say The Bee Gees got it right is an understatement. The soundtrack became enormously successful. You wouldn’t know from this collection of disco classics and soul ballads, primarily by the Gibbs, that the actual film was a gritty, bleak affair. It’s fair to say it marked the peak of the commercial appeal of disco, turning it into a true phenomenon. It’s one of the best-selling albums of all time and every single it spawned – How Deep Is Your Love, More Than a Woman, Stayin’ Alive and Night Fever, became global smashes and all became US chart-toppers. Amazingly, Night Fever was the only one of the four to be number 1 on these shores.
The film was originally going to be called Saturday Night and Stigwood was hoping his group would write a title track but The Bee Gees noted there were too many songs already out there with that name. They offered Night Fever but he wasn’t keen on that as a movie title, so they compromised and the filmwas renamed.
Among the demos began in April 1977, it was inspired by Blue Weaver noodling on a string synthesiser. He had been wanting to record a disco version of Theme From a Summer Place and when Barry heard it he knew they had the origins of a brand new song. Barry, Robin and Maurice completed the lyrics sitting on a staircase, which was how they wrote their first international hit New York Mining Disaster 1941.
Review
These days Night Fever is considered one of the least impressive Bee Gees hits of the era. I don’t agree with this. It’s not as good as Stayin’ Alive but that’s one of the best disco songs of all time. Night Fever is nearly just as good but for different reasons. The main issue seems to be that the chorus doesn’t have the same impact as the verses. That sense of urgency, in which Barry is so intense you can’t really understand what he’s saying, turns into lovely, gentle harmonies, and then the chorus is a more sedate but blissful affair. I love it.
The highlight of the song is the string synth, it’s just gorgeous and I can’t quite believe it’s not a real orchestral arrangement. And although The Bee Gees are rightly better remembered for their melodies than their lyrics, those verses are great so it’s a shame they’re almost unintelligible. They really capture the magic of a night on the dancefloor, totally lost in music.
After
The more famous Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb became, the more ridiculous and ripe for parodying their image became. The trousers got tighter. The hairy chests came out. The gold medallions displayed proudly, as they flashed those famous large pearly whites. It’s worth checking out the official video above. It was recorded in 1978 but unseen until 2004. Barry has no beard!
The Info
Written by
Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb & Maurice Gibb
Producers
Bee Gees, Albhy Galuten & Karl Richardson
Weeks at number 1
2 (29 April-12 May)
Meanwhile…
1 May: The early May Day bank holiday was enjoyed for the first time.
4 May: When Altab Ali was murdered in East London in a racially motivated attack, the British Bangladeshi community protested.
6 May: Ipswich Town won the FA Cup for the first time, defeating Arsenal 1-0 in the final at Wembley.
10 May: Liverpool retained the European Cup with a 1–0 win over Club Brugge KV, also at Wembley.
One-hit wonders Brian and Michael, aka Michael Coleman and Kevin Parrott (I’ll explain) toppled Kate Bush from her deservedly lofty perch with this tribute to Lancashire artist LS Lowry’s depictions of the industrial north west. Yes, Don McLean wasn’t the only singer to immortalise a painter in a number 1 song.
Before
Brian and Michael started out as members of a Stax-style soul band called The Big Sound who toured Europe in the 60s. In 1976, the comedy musical duo Berk & Jerk began, consisting of Coleman and Brian Burke, who had both been part of The Big Sound. Parrott, who had also been in the band, had become lead guitarist with Manchester rock band Oscar. The trio remained friends.
Coleman and Burke penned Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (Lowry’s Song) as a tribute to the artist, who had died in 1976. Lowry painted matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs, offering a unique view of life in the working class north. His paintings were very stylised, casting no shadows and featuring little personal detail, using only five colours. Why this song refers to them as being ‘matchstalk’ rather than ‘matchstick’, I have no idea.
At some point Burke & Jerk decided to become Brian and Michael instead (though they also used their old name on the record sleeve). They took this song to Parrott, who borrowed around £1,000 to record the song at Pluto Studios in Stockport. The studio, owned by former Herman’s Hermits rhythm guitarist Keith Hopwood, was in the same building as 10 cc’s Strawberry Studios. Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs was recorded over three sessions, beginning on 25 September 1977. Brian and Michael were backed by Tintwistle Brass Band, from the Derbyshire village where Parrott lived at the time and St Winifred’s School Choir.
Parrott tried and failed several times over to get the single released but eventually he managed a deal with Pye Records. It was released on 25 September but within weeks Burke decided to quit. As the record slowly but surely gained traction, Parrott found himself cast as ‘Brian’. Back in the 70s, singles could take ages to climb the charts. Here’s a very good example – this took five months to top the charts.
Review
Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs, not to be confused with the one Status Quo song that doesn’t sound like all their others, is one of those strange chart-toppers that could only have happened in the 70s or early 80s. Fair play to the duo/trio for writing a song about a surrealist northern artist as it’s certainly an unusual subject matter for a hit. But they overdo the ‘Ay up love, it’s grim up north, t’int it?’ image too much. To me, Lowry’s work shows the north in a realistic way, cold and grey, and by giving the figures little in the way of personality, he portrays the working class the way many saw them – as unimportant, identical figures. Brian and Michael go overboard, turning the north into one big caricature. ‘He painted Salford’s smoky tops/On cardboard boxes from the shops’ is true, but there’s no need to sound so happy about it, that’s a pretty grim lyric really!
The use of the choir is also too much. They join the duo on the chorus, which is fine, but there’s no need for them to also sing the children’s song The Big Ship Sails on the Alley-Alley-O towards the end. It’s sickly. And we know there was more to come from St Winifred’s School Choir. Though a spin-off LP, The Matchstalk Children, sank, they returned to delight and horrify the nation in equal measure with the 1980 Christmas number 1 There’s No One Quite Like Grandma.
After
Brian and Michael’s follow-up Evensong was a failure and so was the album The Matchstalk Men and second album I Can Count My Friends on One Hand. Coleman did however win an Ivor Novello for the Lowry tribute however, for The Outstanding Lyric of the Year.
Both Coleman and Parrott remained in the music business. Most notably, the former wrote and latter produced It’s ‘Orrible Being in Love (When You’re 8½), a number 13 hit in 1986 for Claire and Friends, a young schoolgirl and her mates from, you guessed it, St Winifred’s School Choir.
The Outro
In 2002, Coleman and Parrott became Brian and Michael once more, performing a reunion concert with the original St Winifred’s choir at Manchester’s Lowry Centre. 10 years later they formed The Matchstalk Men with Parrott’s brother Nigel on drums and Coleman’s brother Tim as lead vocalist. The line-up has changed since but the one-hit wonders remain, performing material from their two albums and hits from other acts from the 50s and 60s.
The Info
Written by
Michael Coleman & Brian Burke
Producer
Kevin Parrott
Weeks at number 1
3 (8-28 April)
Trivia
Births
9 April:S Club 7 singer Rachel Stevens 21 April: Cricketer Carl Greenidge 24 April: Field hockey goalkeeper Beth Storry
23 April: Nottingham Forest won the Football League First Division title for the first time. Their manager Brian Clough, who guided their East Midlands rivals Derby County to the title six years previous. He became only the third manager in history to lead two different clubs to top division title glory.
Only 19 when this debut single was released, Wuthering Heights introduced the world to one of our most unique singer-songwriters. In an era where ABBA rip-off merchants could get to the top of the charts with dated pap, this Kate Bush song captured the hearts and minds of record buyers while being based on a 19th-century Gothic classic by Emily Brontë. Good work, record buyers.
Before
Catherine Bush was born 30 July 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent to Doctor Robert Bush and his wife Hannah, an Irish staff nurse. She grew up in their East Wickham farmhouse surrounded by artistic people. Robert was an amateur pianist, Hannah an amateur traditional Irish dancer and her elder brothers John and Paddy were both involved in the local folk scene.
Bush was only 11 when she taught herself how to play the piano. She would also play an organ that was in the barn behind her parents’ house and studied the violin. By 13 she was composing her own songs and writing lyrics too.
The nascent musical prodigy attended St Joseph’s Convent Grammar School in Abbey Wood. A demo tape was put together by the Bush family featuring over 50 of her compositions but record labels kept turning it down. Fate intervened when she was 16 however, when family friend Ricky Hopper passed the tape on to Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour, then working on Wish You Were Here.
Gilmour was intrigued and captivated by Bush’s talent and strange singing voice and he decided to pay her a visit. Blown away by watching her perform, he decided the world needed to hear her and he arranged for a more professional demo to be recorded. Produced by Andrew Powell and former Beatles sound engineer Geoff Emerick, the demo saw Bush get signed by EMI executive Terry Slater.
With the large advance she received, Bush enrolled in interpretive dance classes taught by Lindsay Kemp, who had taught a pre-fame David Bowie. She spent more time on her education than recording for the first two years of her contract but left school after her mock A-levels. From there she fronted the KT Bush Band and began performing in London pubs during the summer of 1977.
It was during this time she set to work on her debut LP, The Kick Inside, which featured Gilmour along with other progressive rock stalwarts. EMI wanted her first single to be James and the Cold Gun but Bush had other ideas. In an early sign of her determination for creative control, she insisted her introduction to the public should be Wuthering Heights.
On 5 March 1977, aged 18, Bush had enjoyed a repeat of a 1967 BBC adaptation of Wuthering Heights and wrote the song late that night within a few hours. Upon reading Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, she discovered she shared her birthday with the author. Written from the perspective of the character Catherine Earnshaw, only those who know the story would realise the wild and passionate Cathy is a ghost, haunting her beloved Heathcliff. Bush paraphrased the line ‘Let me in your window – I’m so cold!’ from the book itself and built the chorus around it.
The song was recorded one summer night, with Bush’s vocal laid down on the first take. She also played the piano. Backing her were the album’s producer and arranger Andrew Powell on bass and celeste, former Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel member Duncan Mackay on Hammond organ, former Pilot singer David Paton on acoustic guitar, Ian Bairnson, also from Pilot, played the famous guitar solo, drummer Stuart Elliott (also from Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel), Morris Pert on percussion and orchestral contractor David Katz. The production team, with Bush, began mixing at midnight and finished at five or six in the early hours of the morning.
Review
From that beautiful piano opening to the heroic guitar ringing out over the fade, Wuthering Heights is a dark, quirky delight. Bush’s voice isn’t for everyone and I’ll hold my hand up to being someone who can only take it in relatively short doses, but here it commands your attention. As Cathy, Bush recounts her tempestuous relationship with Heathcliff in the opening verse (‘I hated you. I loved you, too’). In the second verse, she’s about ‘to lose the fight’ and pass away, before her triumphant spectral return in the chorus. One of the highlights is the verse where Cathy’s need for Heathcliff is all-consuming: ‘Ooh! Let me have it/Let me grab your soul away’. It’s stirring, it’s wonderful, it’s a startlingly good number 1.
The first video of Wuthering Heights, made for the UK and Europe features an iconic performance by Bush, portraying the ghost of Cathy and dancing in a white dress in white mist. The alternative version for the US market featured Bush in a red dress dancing in grass.
After a two-month delay due to Bush being unhappy with the record sleeve (you’ll notice more and more single artwork featuring in the blog now), Wuthering Heights was released early in 1978 and thanks to lots of Radio 1 airplay it shot up the charts and beat Blondie to their first number 1 with Denis. Bush had become the first British woman to get to number 1 with a self-penned song.
After
Bush’s second single, the lovely The Man with the Child in His Eyes, was the same version on the demo which gained her a record contract. It peaked at six. Despite Wow reaching 14 in 1979, her second album Lionheart failed to match the success of her first. she underwent an exhausting tour combining music, dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic and theatre in which Bush was involved in every aspect of the show. During the tour she became the first pop star of note to have a microphone strapped to her face (courtesy of a self-made construction of wire coat hangers). Babooshka, from third album Never for Ever, reached five in 1980. This album saw the introduction of synthesisers and drum machines to her sound.
In 1982 Bush released the self-produced album The Dreaming, which baffled critics with its weirdness, yet spawned a number 11 single with Sat in Your Lap. The title track originally featured Rolf Harris, but since the obvious he’s been removed and replaced.
For her next album, 1985’s Hounds of Love, Bush had a private studio built so she could work at her own pace. The result was an excellent collection of pop art featuring my favourite track by her, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), which peaked at three and had a profound effect on me as a young boy. Cloudbusting later became the basis of Utah Saints’ Something Good and is another Bush banger, as is the title track. When Dolly Parton turned Peter Gabriel down, Bush featured on his 1986 duet Don’t Give Up, a number nine hit. That year also saw the release of a compilation The Whole Story, for which Bush rerecorded her vocal for Wuthering Heights.
In 1987 Bush was at number 1 again due to her appearance on a cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be, a charity single by a group of pop stars known as Ferry Aid, after the MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsized, killing 193 passengers and crew. 1989 saw her release The Sensual World, an LP she described as her most personal and honest yet. The title track reached 12, as did a cover of Elton John’s Rocket Man two years later and then Rubberband Girl two years after that. It was the first release from her seventh album The Red Shoes. This LP divided opinion among her fans due to the simplified production, designed to create a live sound.
A planned year-long hiatus after The Red Shoes lasted much longer and she became a virtual recluse. It is believed that in this time Bush grieved the loss of several friends and her mother, who had died of cancer in 1992. She became a mother in 1998 and devoted her time to raising her son Bertie. Stories would occasionally emerge of Bush – I remember one where she invited an EMI executive over. The label were very excited, assuming she had finally made a new album. Instead she revealed she’d baked a cake.
In 2005 Bush made a triumphant return with the album Aerial. The single King of the Mountain peaked at four, her highest chart placing in 20 years. It was another six years before she released Director’s Cut, comprising reworked tracks from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, recorded with analogue rather than digital equipment. A proper new album, 50 Words for Snow, also came out in 2011, featuring Elton John. She turned down an offer to appear at the 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony but a remix of Running Up That Hill was played in her absence and reached 12 in the charts.
Two years later Bush shocked critics and fans alike by announcing her first live dates since 1979. Before the Dawn was a 22-night residency at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was a huge success, with an album released two years later. she became the first female artist to have eight albums in the top 40 simultaneously.
The Outro
Bush is a national treasure. Totally unique and an amazing talent. While watching her video to Wuthering Heights on a repeat of Top of the Pops, my eldest daughter, then around four, sat entranced and declared at the end that ‘That Katie Bush is a funny onion’. I hope the performance has stayed with her.
The Info
Written by
Kate Bush
Producer
Andrew Powell
Weeks at number 1
4 (11 March-7 April)
Trivia
Births
16 March:Labour MP Anneliese Dodds 22 March:Scottish field hockey player Samantha Judge 31 March:Footballer Stephen Clemence 3 April:Actor Matthew Goode 7 April:Blue singer Duncan James
Deaths
4 April:Aeronautics engineer Sir Morien Morgan
Meanwhile…
26 March: The Yorkshire Ripper looked to have claimed another life when the body of 21-year-old prostitute and mother-of-two Yvonne Pearson, who was last seen alive on 21 January, was found in Leeds.
30 March: The Conservative Party recruited up-and-coming advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi to revamp their image.
3 April: Permanent radio broadcasts of proceedings in the House of Commons began.
ABBA broke Slade’s record for most UK number 1s in the 70s with this, their seventh. A return to the uplifting pop that made their name, Take a Chance on Me is one of their biggest anthems.
Before
The Swedish superstars released their fifth and most ambitious LP to date, ABBA: The Album in December 1977. It came out in conjunction with ABBA: The Movie, a docu-drama about their Australian tour. It also stars Tom Oliver, better known these days as Lou Carpenter in Neighbours, as their bodyguard.
The album’s second track and second single, Take a Chance on Me was recorded 15 August 1977 at Marcus Music Studio. Its origins lay in Björn Ulvaeus’ love of jogging. To pace himself he would repeat a ‘tck-a-ch’ rhythm to himself and found it so catchy, he and Benny Andersson set it to music and originally called it Billy Boy. Andersson wasn’t a fan of ‘We could go dancing, we can go walking, as long as we’re together’ but relented in the end. Unusually, Take a Chance on Me is mainly keyboard and synthesiser-led by Andersson. Ulvaeus only plays an acoustic guitar this time. Session musicians on this are drummer Roger Palm, Malando Gassama on percussion and Rutger Gunnarsson on bass.
Review
Now that I’m a little more aware of how ABBA’s songs developed, I’m really interested in Take a Chance on Me‘s place in their discography. Knowing Me, Knowing You was a bleak look at the end of a relationship and The Name of the Game a reticent chance of potential love. This seventh number 1 turns their last chart-topper on its head and now Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog are urging someone to give their love another chance. There’s no pleading, no begging, no tears. They’re merely asking someone who sounds to have panicked to change their mind and give it a whirl, as what’s the worst that could happen?
Suitably, the music propelling Take a Chance on Me is upbeat and it’s their most life-affirming pop single since the magnificent Dancing Queen. The jogging rhythm is so effective, you wonder how nobody ever thought of it before. Was it a nod to Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express? Combined with the ‘ba-ba-ba-ba-ba’, it’s a very effective double whammy and when the two are given full prominence at the song’s close, it’s a dizzying display of pop brilliance. Having said that, the verses are reminiscent of The Name of the Game, with a slow, slinky disco groove to give chance to recover from the incredibly infectious chorus. The spoken word bits are cheesy but they just about get away with it. The supercool may scoff at the almost Europop ‘oompah’ synths but I’m having none of it. I’m a fan of this one.
The video is also good fun. Each band member gets a square to sing inside, which is reminiscent of the opening titles of The Brady Bunch. Then Frida and Agnetha are trying to persuade glum-looking Björn and Benny in a minimalistic white studio which occasionally switches to black. It’s another iconic ABBA moment.
After
This marked the end of ABBA’s very impressive run of UK number 1s in the 70s. I’d imagine it was pretty satisfying to knock copycats Brotherhood of Man from their perch too. It also topped many other charts and went top 10 in the US. The hits of course continued, even as their relationships soured. Two more number 1s would be notched up before their demise.
The Outro
14 years later Take a Chance on Me was back at number 1 courtesy of synth-pop duo Erasure. Their Abba-esque EP was their only chart-topper and was partly responsible for the ABBA revival of the 90s, for better or worse. Since then it’s been memorably sang by Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge and Julie Walters in the hit film Mamma Mia!. So I’m told. I’ll never watch it.
The Info
Written, produced & arranged by
Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus
Weeks at number 1
3 (18 February-10 March)
Meanwhile…
18 February: 20 suspects are arrested in connection with the La Mon restaurant bombing by the IRA.
20 February: Severe blizzards hit the south west of England.
8 March: Douglas Adams’ cult sci-fi series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first broadcast by BBC Radio 4.
Brotherhood of Man took their perceived similarity too far with their second number 1 Angelo. When their next single tanked they followed it up with another song named after a man with a similar name to Fernando. It paid off yet again and gave them a hat trick of chart toppers.
Before
The quartet had released Highwayman after Angelo but scuppered a major chance of promoting it on the 1977 Royal Variety Performance by electing to play the former instead. Figaro was their first release from their seventh album B for Brotherhood. As usual, singers Lee Sheriden and Martin Lee penned the track with producer and manager Tony Hiller. I don’t want to be cruel and call them a low budget Stig Anderson, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus but…
Review
I was incredibly scathing about Angelo and couldn’t believe it when I saw they topped the charts a third time with what was bound to be another Fernando rip-off. So, put it down to very low expectations but I was pleasantly surprised by this. That’s mainly down to it not actually sounding like a straightforward ABBA copy. And I’m all for a bit of wah-wah guitar and the bawdy brass and song’s theme put me in mind of some kind of politically incorrect 70s British comedy film.
Figaro is a lecherous Spanish waiter intent on pursuing the opposite sex. The dirty dog is constantly at it, winking at the girls with his guitar and wandering the beaches looking for prey. The idea came about when Hiller’s daughter returned from a holiday with tales of real-life Figaros trying to romance her and other young ladies. It’s total throwaway nonsense of course, but it’s better than other Brotherhood of Man songs Angelo and Save Your Kisses For Me. Was the title this time around a reference to Bohemian Rhapsody?
After
Brotherhood of Man’s downfall came soon after. The next single Beautiful Lover was the last time they troubled the charts, peaking at 15. A compilation LP, Twenty Greatest, did at least give them their biggest album chart placing at six.
Hiller set up Dazzle Records in 1980 and signed his group but perhaps due to missing Pye’s promotional budget, they stopped selling well. They signed with Warwick Records. No, I’ve never heard of them either. Sheriden opted to leave in 1982 to study for a degree in music. He was replaced by Barry Upton, later a songwriter for Sonia and Steps.
Encouraged by the huge success of Bucks Fizz, Brotherhood of Man signed with EMI in 1982 and Hiller had high hopes of ripping off another Eurovision-winning group. A year later Hiller, Lee and Upton wrote a tune for A Song for Europe for Hiller’s male/female trio Rubic (how early 80s!) but they came fifth. When Upton decided to leave in 1984, the whole group called it a day.
However in 1985 Sheriden returned with Lee, Nicky Stevens and Sandra Stevens for a one-off TV reunion and decided to continue. They became stalwarts of the nostalgia circuit, becoming regulars at Butlins and other holiday camps. As well as their hits from the 70s they performed tracks like 1999 by Prince. That I have to hear.
The Outro
As 2000 dawned they cut back on touring but two years later they unveiled their show The Seventies Story, a nostalgic look back at the decade that brought them their glory years. They still tour now, sometimes with the current incarnation of Bucks Fizz and are often wheeled out for Eurovision-related shows, remaining one of the most successful winners of the competition.
The Info
Written by
Tony Hiller, Lee Sheriden& Martin Lee
Producer
Tony Hiller
Weeks at number 1
1 (11-17 February)
Trivia
Births
12 February:Welsh rugby player Gethin Jones
Meanwhile…
13 February: Anna Ford becomes the first female newsreader on ITV. Also on this day, an opinion poll conducted for the Daily Mail shows the Conservatives 11 points ahead of the Labour government, with an election due by October next year. The quick turnaround for the Conservatives, who last month were behind Labour, is believed to be due to Margaret Thatcher’s recent negative comments on immigration.
17 February: 12 people are killed by the Provisional IRA in the bombing of the La Mon restaurant in Belfast. It was one of the most horrific incidents in The Troubles, with some bodies left melted and unrecognisable by incineration.
It was starting to look like Wings would be at number 1 forever in those first few freezing weeks of 1978. It took two Jamaican teenagers to knock Mull of Kintyre/Girls School from the top.
Before
17-year-old Althea Forrest and Donna Reid, 18, started out singing on the sidewalks of Kingston, Jamaica. They were spotted by the singer Jacob Miller, who introduced them to producer Joe Gibbs. The duo recorded Up Town Top Ranking as a lighthearted answer song, with origins dating back to 1967.
That year, ‘Godfather of Rocksteady’ Alton Ellis released the track I’m Still in Love, a sweet slice of lovers rock. In the mid-70s, circa 1975, Marcia Aitken recorded her own version, produced by Gibbs. He and sound engineer Errol Thompson were known as The Mighty Two and they cut many reggae hits in Jamaica.
In 1977, deejay and producer Trinity took the backing track of Aitken’s version and toasted over the top, bragging about how sharp he looked in his Three Piece Suit. Althea & Donna, together with Thompson, wrote their reply to Trinity. With tons of tongue-in-cheek, frisky attitude, Up Town Top Ranking answered back, using the rhythm track of Aitken’s version.
Upon its original release, Althea’s name was spelt incorrectly as ‘Althia’, hence the weird spelling in the title here. Even worse, Gibbs was credited as ‘Joe Gibson’. It’s one thing to get an unknown teenager’s name wrong, but an acclaimed producer?! I’m also going with the original title – ‘Up Town’ rather than ‘Uptown’.
As fun and catchy as Up Town Top Ranking is, it’s unlikely it would have made it to number 1 had it not been for Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Allegedly he began playing it as a joke. I find that a little hard to believe, I’d imagine he just really liked it, like most people. Eventually other Radio 1 DJs began to spin it too and the rest is history.
Review
Up Town Top Ranking is a great start to the chart-toppers of 1978 and the best number 1 since I Feel Love in July 1977. In an era of often staid chart hits, it cuts through the crap by being full to the brim with the joy of being young and alive.
Althea & Donna aren’t note perfect and are outright flat at times but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that sometimes the patois is impenetrable to a 42-year-old from East Yorkshire, there’s enough that is decipherable to know that these girls are out on the town, dressed to kill and won’t take any shit from the likes of Trinity and his ego, three-piece suit or no three-piece suit:
‘True you see me in me pants and ting, See me in me halter back, Say, me give you heart attack’.
When they sing ‘Love is all I bring/Inna me khaki suit and ting’, they’re not coming on to the men they meet. The ‘love’ they sing of is likely a more innocent kind. The love of being alive and on the dancefloor. ‘Give me little bass make me whine out mi waist’ is all they care about. More power to them.
After
Althea & Donna cheered up a gloomy February with an appearance on Top of the Pops where they looked like they couldn’t believe their luck. The album Uptown Top Ranking followed, with backing from The Revolutionaries and produced by Karl Pitterson. It couldn’t match the magic of their one hit and nor could three singles – Puppy Dog Song, Going to Negril and Love One Another, all released in the same year.
Althea & Donna disappeared as so many one-hit wonders do but they did record more material separately, Althea occasionally under the name Althea Ranks. Both recorded covers during the 80s and then left the business. Althea was last heard of working as an events planner and Donna works for the state of Florida. They performed together again in 2018 in Jamaica.
The Outro
Up Town Top Ranking has been covered by, among others, Black Box Recorder (1998). Occasionally it gets sampled and covered but ignore all that and stick on Ellis, Aitken, Trinity and this number 1 instead.
The Info
Written by
Errol Thompson, Althea Forrest & Donna Reid
Producer
Joe Gibson
Weeks at number 1
1 (4-10 February)
Meanwhile…
9 February: 25-year-old Scotland central defender Gordon McQueen became Britain’s first £500,000 footballer in a transfer from Leeds United to Manchester United.
Eight years after The Beatles had their last number 1 with The Ballad of John and Yoko, Paul McCartney hit big with his next band Wings. Mull of Kintyre/Girls School became the 1977 Christmas number 1 and the first single to sell more than two million units. It is the biggest selling record of the 70s and remains the bestselling non-charity single of all time.
Before
Following his departure from the Fab Four, McCartney had struggled to recapture the magic of the greatest group of all time. Two albums, McCartney (1970) and Ram (1971) – the latter co-credited to wife Linda, were ill-received, although both have enjoyed improved re-evaluation since.
He decided to begin a new band and invited session drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist Hugh McCracken, both of whom had worked on Ram, to join him. Seiwell agreed but McCaracken didn’t, so McCartney asked Denny Laine instead. Laine, formerly of The Moody Blues, was working on a solo album when he received the call from McCartney. The album was abandoned straight away.
In August 1971 the McCartneys, Laine and Seiwell assembled to record the album Wild Life. McCartney reverted back to his Beatles days, on bass primarily once more. On 13 September Linda was giving birth to their second child together, Stella. Due to complications, there was a danger that both mother and daughter could die. McCartney was praying for them when the name ‘Wings’ came to mind.
Wild Life was released that December and was slated. Most tracks were recorded in one take, and it showed. Linda was ridiculed by the music press for her role as backing vocalist and keyboardist. Undaunted, Wings continued with the addition of second guitarist Henry McCullough, who had been in Joe Cocker’s Grease Band, in January 1972. They went on their first tour playing universities in the back of a van together. Attempting to recapture the early days of The Beatles, Wings didn’t perform a single track by McCartney’s previous band.
The debut Wings single, Give Ireland Back to the Irish was a controversial response to the events of Bloody Sunday. Banned by the BBC it nonetheless reached 16 on the singles chart. In what was understandably seen by many as a sarcastic response, their next single was a simple cover of children’s song Mary Had a Little Lamb. It went to nine. Hi Hi Hi‘s drugs references saw them banned by the Beeb again but it peaked at five.
McCartney decided to change their name to Paul McCartney and Wings for the 1973 LP Red Rose Speedway, perhaps deciding they needed more star power to improve sales. My Love, one of their best singles, took them to the top in the US and reached nine here. Then came Live and Let Die. Their theme to Roger Moore’s debut as James Bond reunited McCartney with Martin and was brilliant. A deserved number one, it could only reach nine.
Following another tour, Paul McCartney and Wings set to work on another album but soon McCullough and Seiwell left. Both were unhappy with Linda’s inclusion and felt Paul was too domineering. Reduced to a trio, the McCartneys and Laine decamped to Lagos in Nigeria and recorded one of their best albums. The title track to Band on the Run (1973) was a brilliant mini-medley, reaching three. Again, it deserved better. Jet, released beforehand, was a superior rock tune.
Former Thunderclap Newman guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton joined the ranks soon after. After recording an album with Paul’s brother Mike McGear and The Scaffold they released the single Junior’s Farm, which became their final release on Apple Records. As The Country Hams they released a single with Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer. Walking in the Park with Eloise was a song written years before by Paul’s father James.
Known as just Wings once more, Britton left the band during the recording of their first album for Capitol Records. He was replaced with US musician Joe English. The first fruits of the sessions for Venus and Mars to be released was the beautifully upbeat Listen to What the Man Said, which peaked at six in 1975. Next album Wings at the Speed of Sound boasted their most commercially successful songs to date, Silly Love Songs and Let ‘Em In, which both soared to two. The latter is perhaps the most quintessentially McCartney 70s tune – a very catchy song about a very mundane subject matter. Someone is knocking at the door and ringing the bell. McCartney suggests someone let them in. Hmm.
Sessions for the next Wings album were interrupted when Linda became pregnant. On 9 August the McCartneys and Laine entered Spirit of Ranachan Studio at High Park Farm in the Mull of Kintyre and set to work on a song he had first laid down in 1974.
McCartney had bought the farm in 1966 and eight years later a piano-led demo had him tinkering with a simple song in which he sang of his love for the area. To give the finished version a suitably folksy feel, McCartney recorded his vocals and acoustic guitar outside. Laine, who is credited on the track, added backing vocals and acoustic and electric guitars and the heavily pregnant Linda sang backing vocal and also added percussion. Wanting an authentic rousing Scottish ending, Wings added Campbeltown Pipe Band on bagpipes and drums. Mull of Kintyre was wrapped up in a day.
Reviews
It was inevitable that eventually McCartney would join George Harrison in the ranks of former Beatles achieving a number 1. Little did anyone know that this would be the one to do it, let alone for nine weeks, toppling She Loves You as bestselling song. I get that Mull of Kintyre has a simplistic charm, extolling the virtues of natural beauty. That, like McCartney songs at their best, it has an inclusive quality, building to a big singalong ending like Hey Jude. That And releasing it in time for the Christmas market, when the older generation like to buy a nice tune, was a great move.
Also, clearly, for some unknown reason, bagpipes did well in pop during the 70s. Remember that an instrumental version of Amazing Grace was the biggest song of 1972?! But I cannot get my head around the mammoth success of Mull of Kintyre. It’s a bit of a dirge to my ears, too simple to leave that much of a mark. But it’s McCartney isn’t it? I can’t deny one of the greatest songwriters of all time a number 1, even if he’s made far better over the decades.
The video to Mull of Kintyre is suitably wistful, featuring Paul strumming on a fence at his farm, Linda in the background. They and Laine stride towards a place overlooking the beach, where Campbeltown Pipe Band are performing. Eventually Wings are joined by locals for a nighttime fire sing-song. Lovely.
One reason I suspect nobody was expecting Mull of Kintyre to do so well was the fact it was promoted as a double A-side with Girls School. Nobody remembers this. Before Mull of Kintyre was recorded, Wings had begun making a new LP in the Virgin Islands. Among the tracks recorded for what eventually became London Town was this track. But Linda’s pregnancy had stopped the sessions. Wings must have decided Girls School deserved equal billing.
It didn’t. Girls School is an average McCartney rocker, akin but inferior to Jet. It’s album filler or B-side material. It also has rather dodgy lyrics, telling of a boarding school where the head nurse runs a massage parlour in the school hall and when the PE teacher puts the students to bed, ‘She gives them pills in a paper cup/And she knocks them on the head’. The soaring backing vocals from the much-maligned Linda are nice, but it’s understandable why it’s been forgotten.
After
Mull of Kintyre/Girls School was released in November and was at number 1 for an incredible two months, from 3 December 1978 until 3 February 1979. It also reached number 1 elsewhere, but not in the US, where Girls School got most of the airplay. That same month sessions for London Town resumed but once again Wings were reduced to a trio as McCulloch and English left. The next single With a Little Luck, a nice little ballad, went to five. But Wings were in trouble.
Later in 1979, with new members Laurence Juber on lead guitar and Steve Holley on drums, they recorded the single Goodnight Tonight, which was their last top 10 hit (five). One last album, Back to the Egg, followed. Produced by Chris Thomas, it featured a more ragged sound and showed a new wave influence. One track, Rockestra Theme, featured members of Led Zeppelin, The Who and Pink Floyd and won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
McCartney annoyed the other members of the band by deciding to focus on a solo album, McCartney II, but the band resumed for a tour at the end of the year. Unfortunately when the McCartneys arrived in Japan in January 1980, Paul was arrested for marijuana possession. The tour was cancelled and all Paul McCartney and Wings music was banned from TV and radio across the country. Laine formed the Denny Laine Band with Holley and released a solo album, Japanese Tears in December 1980. That title was clearly a dig at McCartney’s arrest.
McCartney reunited again with Martin for the album Tug of War but Holley and Juber were told they were not needed. Laine stayed on board but was having a tough time with his marriage and angry at the flat fee he received for Mull of Kintyre. He announced he was leaving Wings in April 1981. By the time McCartney came round to promoting Tug of War, he admitted Wings were no more.
Although Wings are considered to be just the McCartneys and revolving session musicians, this is unfair, particularly on Laine, who contributed a lot over the years. Years later, Laine would occasionally perform as Wings with other members for one-off events. Laine released another album with a pointed title reference to McCartney – Anyone Can Fly – in 1982. He did however contribute to McCartney’s Pipes of Peace in 1983. He continued to release solo albums through the 80s. In 2018 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with The Moody Blues.
Seiwell went on to drum for artists including Billy Joel and Liza Minnelli and worked on film scores including Grease II. McCullough’s voice featured on one of the bestselling albums ever. It’s him you can hear on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon saying ‘I don’t know I was really drunk at the time’. McCullough continued to record and perform, dying in 2016. McCulloch left Wings to join the reformed Small Faces and formed both Wild Horses and The Dukes. But in 1979 he was found dead from heart failure, aged only 26. Britton joined power pop group The Keys in the early-80s and set up a kickboxing school. Juber continued to work in music, recording with Ringo Starr, Belinda Carlisle and featuring on She’s Like the Wind from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Holley collaborated with Julian Lennon and Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter.
Linda remained with Paul for the rest of her life, and despite her critics remained in his backing band for tours until 1993. She became an animal rights activist and founded the Linda McCartney Foods company with Paul. In 1995 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and died in 1998 aged 56.
Paul McCartney of course continues with a very successful solo career. His next number 1, with another musical giant, was also very popular but not considered to be among his best work.
The Outro
So that’s 1977 rounded up. A year that was better than the dizzying lows of the year previous. But despite the impact of punk, it made little effect on the year’s number 1s. It would take a few more years for its influence to creep in, in the form of new wave.
The Info
Written by
Mull of Kintyre: Paul McCartney & Denny Laine/Girls School: Paul McCartney
Producer
Paul McCartney
Weeks at number 1
9 (3 December 1978-3 February 1978)*BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE DECADE*
Trivia
Births
6 December 1977:Footballer Paul McVeigh 23 December:TV presenter Matt Baker 1 January 1978:Model Alex Leigh/Footballer Phillip Mulryne 17 January:Footballer Warren Feeney
Deaths
20 December 1977:First World War soldier Henry Tandey 25 December: Actor Charlie Chaplin 14 January 1978:Athlete Harold Abrahams 22 January:Cricketer Herbert Sutcliffe
Meanwhile…
3 December 1977: For the second tournament in succession, the England football team fails to qualify for the World Cup.
12 December: Ron Greenwood signs a permanent contract as England manager. The appointment proved controversial, as there had been widespread support for Brian Clough of Nottingham Forest.
14 December: 25-year-old Leeds prostitute Marilyn Moore is injured in an attack believed to have been committed by the Yorkshire Ripper.
16 December: The Queen opens a £71,000,000 extension of the London Underground’s Piccadilly line.
21 December: Four children die at a house fire in Wednesbury in the West Midlands. Due to the firefighter strike, Green Goddess fire appliances are sent to deal with the blaze. 119 people have now died as a result of fires since the strike began, but this is the first fire during the strike to result in more than two deaths.
25 December: The Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show on BBC One attracts an audience of more than 28,000,000 viewers, one of the highest ever in UK television history.
27 December: Star Wars is screened in British cinemas for the first time.
1 January 1978: Otters become a protected species.
11 January: A storm surge in the North Sea ruins piers in Herne Bay, Margate, Hunstanton and Skegness.
16 January: After three months, the firefighter strike ends when fire crews accept an offer of a 10% pay rise and reduced working hours.
18 January: The European Court of Human Rights finds the UK government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland but not guilty of torture.
30 January: Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher says many Britons fear being ‘swamped by people with a different culture’.
31 January: 18-year-old prostitute Helen Rytka is murdered in Huddersfield. She is believed to be the eighth victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.
ABBA’s impressive run of chart-toppers continued with this, their sixth. The Name of the Game can be seen as the sequel to their previous number 1, Knowing Me, Knowing You and it shows their continuing progression into serious, mature pop.
Before
In May 1977 the Swedish superstars began work on their fifth studio LP, ABBA: The Album. Concurrently, they filmed ABBA: The Movie, a docu-drama featuring many of the songs from that album. The first release from the forthcoming album was The Name of the Game. Originally known as A Bit of Myself, it was also the first song to be completed in the sessions.
If Knowing Me, Knowing You was a tragic look at the end of love, The Name of the Game is a tentative sign of a blossoming new romance. Agnetha Fältskog and Frida Lyngstad are singing from the point of view of an ‘impossible case’ wondering whether she can let a new man into her heart. They’ve seen each other twice within a week and she can already feel her defences dropping. So what is the name of the game? Is it love, or is he messing her about?
Review
The Name of the Game isn’t the best ABBA song, but it’s still decent. For me, the best part is that reggae-sounding walking bass that opens proceedings. It was apparently inspired by slowing down the bass in Stevie Wonder’s I Wish from Songs in the Key of Life (1976). Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus were heavily inspired by Wonder’s peak creative period in the mid-70s. It’s unusual to hear ABBA doing funk, but it’s welcome and it suits the hesitant seriousness of the song.
There’s something slightly disjointed here – ABBA were very good at overloading their best material with catchy hooks that complemented each other, but it doesn’t quite work this time. Before researching this song, I could only remember the chorus, I thought the verses were from a totally different song, which makes this an unusually unmemorable one. But it’s an interesting continuation of their maturing outlook on pop, which of course would coincide with the failing of relationships within the band.
After
As usual, Lasse Hallström created the video to the single. The theme of the song was taken extremely literally this time. Hallström simply took the premise of gameplay and had Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida playing a board game. The game in question is Fia-spel, a Scandinavian variant of Ludo.
The Outro
ABBA were by this point regularly scoring number 1s across Europe, so it may have come as a surprise to them and their label that they only topped the UK chart this time around. The Name of the Game marked the end of an era as it was the last time their manager Stig Anderson was involved in the lyrics of an ABBA single.
The Info
Written by
Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus
Producers
Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus
Weeks at number 1
4 (5 November-2 December)
Trivia
Births
22 November:Footballer Michael Preston
Deaths
10 November:Writer Dennis Wheatley 30 November: Playwright Terence Rattigan
Meanwhile…
14 November: Firefighters take part in their first ever national strike, in the hope of getting a 30% wage increase.
15 November: The first SavaCentre hypermarket, a joint venture between Sainsbury’s and British Home Stores, opens at Washington, Tyne and Wear.
22 November: British Airways inaugurates their regular London to New York City Concorde service.
The first ever number 1 by a female duo, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie is also one of the best-selling songs of all time.
Before
Spanish duo Baccara had only formed the year previous. Mayte Mateos (born 7 February 1951 in Logroño) graduated as a teacher at the Royal Spanish Academy for Arts, Drama and Dance. She started at a television ballet company, where she met fellow performer María Mendiola (born 4 April 1952 in Madrid). They bonded and formed variety show singing and dancing duo Venus and left the company.
Venus garnered a few TV and nightclub appearances but they decided to relocate to the Canary Islands. In Fuertaventura, they were performing flamenco dance and Spanish songs for mostly German tourists at the Tres Islas Hotel. Among the guests was Leon Deane, manager of the German subsidiary of RCA Records. He invited them to Hamburg to meet producer and composer Rolf Soja.
Soja remodelled Venus, developing their stage act, recruiting backing musicians and renaming them Baccara. This was a reference to the black rose, which Soja compared the duo to due to their dark Spanish looks. He took their flamenco stylings and updated them for the disco era, which was growing ever more popular. By suggesting Mateos, who would normally sing lead, in black and Mendiola in white, he created a striking image. Together with their sexy groans, Baccara fitted in nicely with the era in which Donna Summer had released the filthy epic Love to Love You Baby.
Soja co-wrote their debut single Yes Sir, I Can Boogie with Frank Dostal. In the 60s, Dostal had been singer with German rock group The Rattles.
Review
I was very surprised to see this single ranked so highly among the bestselling of all time. In my mind, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie was a minor entry in the canon of 70s disco hits, but it was very popular around Europe, reaching the top of the charts in Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
It’s not the most inspiring of tracks. The steamy moans at the start bring to mind Summer’s classic and the music is almost a complete lift of Don’t Leave Me This Way by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Baccara’s number 1 is a low rent combination of the two.
The lyrics, written only the night before the duo recorded, are rather seedy and desperate, depending on how you read them. Is this some kind of dirty game, with the ‘Sir’ in question in charge, and ‘boogie woogie’ meaning something rather less innocent? Incidentally, I hate the words ‘boogie woogie’, which doesn’t help my enjoyment. Unless we are meant to take them on face value and Baccara really are just exclaiming about how great they are in the disco. The way Baccara sing this in a broken English makes it both grubby and rather comical at the same time.
Having said that, there are a couple of lines which are genius: ‘Yes sir, already told you in the first verse and in the chorus/But I will give you one more chance…’. The chorus, particularly the string stabs, are pretty memorable. But for me there are plenty of other better disco tracks out there.
After
Baccara’s eponymous debut LP followed and next single Sorry, I’m a Lady (great title) was another hit, reaching number 1 in many European countries and peaking at eight in the UK. Third single Darling did OK in Europe but the hits then dried up. Their second album Light My Fire was released in 1978 and one single, Parlez-vous Francais? was selected to be Luxembourg’s entry in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest, where it placed seventh. Baccara appeared weekly on French singing star Sacha Distel’s TV series in the UK. Third album Colours failed to chart anywhere in 1979.
Such was Baccara’s fall from grace that their final album Bad Boys didn’t even get released here in 1981. Disco was dying and tensions were high after a disagreement between Mateos and Mendiola over the vocal mix of the single Sleepy-Time-Toy the previous year. As a result of the fall-out neither Soja or Dostal were involved in Baccara’s last album. They decided to go their separate ways.
Following the split Mateos began working with Soja on solo material. She reformed Baccara in 1983 with Marisa Pérez. This pairing was short-lived and Mateos went through umpteen partners across Europe’s light entertainment circuit. In 1999 Mateos and Cristina Sevilla released a reworked version of Yes Sir, I Can Boogie and recorded an album, Baccara 2000. This version attempted to enter Eurovision in 2004 but didn’t get selected. In 2008 Mateos recorded another Baccara album with Paloma Blanco (?) Satin …in Black & White was produced by Soja and Dostal and featured yet more reworked back catalogue material.
In 1985 Mendiola teamed up with vocalist Marisa Pérez and they became New Baccara. Two years later they had a Spanish top five hit with Call Me Up and their Hi-NRG songs went down well in European clubs. Towards the end of the 90s they confusingly dropped the ‘New’ from their name. In 2004 they appeared on UK reality show Hit Me Baby One More Time. To make matters even more confusing, Pérez left in 2008 and was replaced by Sevilla from Mateos’s Baccara. In 2016 they released yet another version of their UK number 1, with the band Plugin.
The Outro
Yes Sir, I Can Boogie was reworked and improved on by Goldfrapp in 2003. Yes Sir turned up the sleaze and dropped any mention of ‘boogie’. In November 2020 the original made the top 60 again after members of the Scotland football team posted online videos of them dancing to it. Sounds bloody awful.
Mendiola’s death was announced on 12 September 2021. She was 69.
1977 was a very successful year for actor and singer David Soul. Not only was he a co-star of one of the hottest shows of the era – Starsky & Hutch, but he topped the UK charts twice. Silver Lady is the lesser known of the two.
Before
It had nearly been his third. Inbetween this and Don’t Give Up on Us came Going in With My Eyes Open, which climbed all the way to two. The name of his LP Playing to an Audience of One, released that year, couldn’t be further from the truth.
Silver Lady could be seen as a sequel to his first number 1. Despite his pleas back at the start of the year, his lover has indeed given up on him. Soul is reduced to ‘drifting, searching, shifting through town to town’, meeting with ‘Double talkers, backstreet walkers at every turn’ in ‘Seedy motels, no star hotels’. As before, Tony Macaulay produced and wrote this, but with Geoff Stephens on writing duties too. Stephens had been in The New Vaudeville Band, who had a hit in 1966 with Winchester Cathedral. Macaulay, as has been well documented here, had written and produced quite a lot of chart-toppers in the 60s and 70s. This was to be his last. He later turned to writing thrillers.
Review
As with many of Macaulay’s number 1s, Silver Lady is OK. Decent chart fodder and fairly memorable but disposable. I prefer it to Don’t Give Up On Us as it’s a bit edgier. Soul seems to be down on his luck through his own mistakes and is regretting where he’s ended up. Trouble is, he doesn’t sound too bothered. Considering he’s an actor I’d have preferred a bit more character.
The video is good fun though. Soul all manly and hurt, wandering around all lonesome, or on a motorbike, or remembering being with his silver lady. Who, it turns out, isn’t an old woman, but a young blonde.
After
Later on that year Soul released the top eight hit Let’s Have a Quiet Night In. I haven’t heard it but I love that title. I’d like to think Soul is either reunited with his love or found someone new. Tired of his old ways, he’s now preferring to suggest they just have a night watching telly. Considering Soul has been married five times, it’s likely he prefers a bit more adventure.
One more hit followed in 1978 – It Sure Brings Out the Love in Your Eyes. For some reason Soul’s music did better in the UK, even though Starsky & Hutch continued until 1979. That year he released another LP, Band of Friends. He also starred in the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, which terrified me and many people of a certain age, that weren’t old enough to have been watching it in the first place.
Soul wasn’t as prolific on TV or in the recording studio in the 80s. He had lots of bit parts, and released the album The Best Days of My Life in 1982. The following year he starred a short-lived TV series of Casablanca and a season of The Yellow Rose. From there it was mainly TV movies. The roles became fewer and Soul had become an alcoholic and developed a violent temper. He was jailed and ordered to have therapy classes for alcoholism after attacking his third wife Patti Carnel Sherman while she was seven months pregnant. They soon divorced. I hope he struggled like the character in this song afterwards. However a year later he married actress Julia Nickson and they had one daughter, China Soul, who is now a singer-songwriter.
In the mid-90s Soul moved to the UK, which revitalised his career thanks to many West End roles, including in Blood Brothers. He helped his friend, former war reporter Martin Bell, become an independent MP in the 1997 general election. That year he also released his last album to date, Leave a Light On…
In the early 00s he had cameos in Little Britain and Top Gear, plus an appearance on Holby City. 2004 saw him land replace Michael Brandon as Jerry Springer in the controversial musical Jerry Springer – The Opera. He also appeared alongside his old crime-fighting parter Paul Michael Glaser as joint cameos in the movie version of Starsky & Hutch. Owen Wilson took his role and Stiller was Glaser’s character.
The Outro
Since then Soul has occasionally surfaced in film, TV and theatre. These include a role as a murder victim in Lewis, a cameo lip-syncing to Silver Lady in the film Filth (2013) and as a coach driver in an advert for National Express. He sang along to Silver Lady.
The Info
Written by
Tony Macaulay & Geoff Stephens
Producer
Tony Macaulay
Weeks at number 1
3 (8-28 October)
Trivia
Births
26 October: Paralympian swimmer and cyclist Sarah Storey
Deaths
11 October: Architect Misha Black
Meanwhile…
10 October: Missing 20-year-old prostitute Jean Jordan is found dead in Chorlton, Manchester, nine days after she was last seen alive. Police believe she may have been another victim of the Yorkshire Ripper. It’s the first time he was suspected of a murder outside of Yorkshire.
15 October: Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, both 17, go missing after leaving the World’s End pub in Edinburgh, Scotland. The next day their bodies are found tied and strangled in the countryside. It wasn’t until 2014 that serial killer Angus Sinclair was convicted of the crime.
27 October: Former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe denies allegations of having a relationship with and subsequent attempted murder of male model Norman Scott. Also on that day, Sex Pistols released Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Despite refusal by major retailers to stock the album, it debuts at number 1 in the UK album chart the following week.
