The Intro
US actor David Soul had for many years been a frustrated singer, until his role in the 70s cop drama Starsky & Hutch enabled him to achieve his dream. Thanks to his fame, he was able to bag two UK number 1s in 1977.
Before
David Richard Solberg was born in Chicago, Illinois on 28 August 1943. Of Norwegian extraction, his father was a Lutheran minister and his mother a teacher. The Solbergs moved regularly when he was growing up. While studying at the University of the Americas in Mexico City (rather than accept an offer from the Chicago White Sox to play baseball), he was inspired to learn the guitar, and so began his love for music, playing Mexican folk songs.
At some point in the mid-60s Solberg began going by the name David Soul and would perform in New York without making much impact. He hit upon the idea of concealing his identity and became The Covered Man. The gimmick worked and he was hired by The William Morris Agency and he garnered TV appearances, most notably on The Merv Griffin Show in 1966. Unfortunately when he unmasked on the same show the year later, proclaiming ‘My name is David Soul, and I want to be known for my music’, the bookings dried up.
It did however get him noticed and he began to get work as an actor instead, making his TV debut in an episode of Flipper, then an episode of Star Trek. In 1968 he became a regular on comedy series Here Comes the Brides, which ran for another two years. Clint Eastwood cast him for a role in Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force, released in 1973.
Then came the big one. In 1975 he landed the part of Detective Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson in ABC’s Starsky & Hutch along with Paul Michael Glaser as David Michael Starsky. This action drama series became huge and perhaps made Soul decide the time was right to try his hand at music once more, or someone at the label Private Stock Records could smell opportunity.
Soul was teamed with Tony Macaulay, a proven hitmaker with a considerable track record, having written and produced number 1s for The Foundations, Edison Lighthouse and The New Seekers. He had been tied up for much of the 70s in a legal dispute with his publishers. His win on appeal proved a landmark case for artists to challenge the terms of their contracts.
Review
Soul’s first number 1 is a very typical 70s slushy ballad, and very similar to If You Leave Me Now. Unfortunately the hook isn’t as catchy as Chicago’s, but the song as a whole is perhaps stronger, as it doesn’t tail away into nothingness. It’s lyrically similar too. Soul and his love have had a bust-up. Sounds quite serious too, as in the middle-eight he says ‘I really lost my head last night’. But he’s now full of regret and, not blessed with the strongest of voices, his meekness fits the theme of the song quite well. But if Soul hadn’t been starring in one of the most successful TV imports of the decade at the time, I doubt this would have topped the charts.
The Outro
Don’t Give Up on Us went to number 1 in the US too, and Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Soul would be back at the top before the year was out.
The Info
Written & produced by
Tony Macaulay
Weeks at number 1
4 (15 January-12 February)
Trivia
Births
24 January: Actress Hayley Tamaddon
5 February: Sailor Ben Ainslie
5 February: Footballer Jason Euell
Deaths
24 January: Chief of the Air Staff Sir Andrew Humphrey
Meanwhile…
29 January: Seven Provisional IRA bombs explode in London’s West End but there are no fatalities or serious injuries.
4 February: Police find an IRA bomb factory in Liverpool.
5 February: 28-year-old homeless woman Irene Richardson is murdered in Leeds, at nearly the exact location where prostitute Marcella Claxton was injured in an attack nine months earlier. Police believe that this murder and attempted murder may be connected, along with the murders of Wilma McCann, Emily Jackson and the attempted murders of at least three other women.
10 February: The three IRA terrorists involved in the 1975 Balcombe Street Siege in London are sentenced to life imprisonment on six charges of murder.
