David Steel

425. Commodores – Three Times a Lady (1978)

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The Intro

Alabama funk outfit Commodores developed a softer soul sound thanks largely to chief songwriter Lionel Richie, who eventually left to become one of the biggest pop stars of the 80s. This was their most famous hit and sole chart-topper.

Before

The seven-piece formed from the ashes of two former student groups at Tuskegee Institute in 1968. From the Mystics came vocalist, keyboardist and saxophonist Richie, lead guitarist James McClary and William ‘WAK’ King on trumpet, rhythm guitar, keyboards and vocals. They were joined by three members of the Jays – Andre Callahan on vocals, drums and keyboards, Michael Gilbert on bass and trumpet and Milan Williams on keyboards and rhythm guitar. Another keyboardist, Eugene Ward, also joined them.

Legend has it they chose their new band name when King opened a dictionary and picked a random word. He pointed out later that they were lucky they didn’t become known as The Commodes.

The Commodores won a talent contest at their university and began performing at frat parties. Two years later the line-up changed when Callahan, Gilbert and Ward left. Ronald LaPread took up bass duties and James Ingram (not the famous singer with that name) became lead vocalist and drummer. At this point they were still performing covers but original material was creeping into setlists.

After performing in parking lots, fortune smiled on the Commodores when they landed a support slot on a tour with none other than The Jackson 5. This led to Motown Records signing them up.

Their recorded output got off to a blistering start with that fine instrumental funk classic Machine Gun, the title track of their 1974 LP, which peaked at 20 in the UK. Nothing like their latter career, this features Williams hammering away on the clavinet to great effect. Ingram had left two years previous to head to Vietnam, with his role replaced by Walter Orange, who also took up songwriting duties along with Richie.

Over the next few years they released several hard funk albums to mixed success. Their singles didn’t dent the UK charts, however. Things began to pick up when third album Movin’ On (1976) spawned Sweet Love, a softer track that hit five in the US and 32 in the UK. Success on these shores picked up in 1977 with their eponymous fifth album (renamed Zoom here), which contained the classic break-up anthem Easy. It reached four in the US and nine in the UK. Orange sang the funky follow-up Brick House (32 in Blighty).

A live album was released to bridge the gap while the band worked on their next album. The first song to be released from this was Three Times a Lady.

Richie was at a party to celebrate his parents’ 37th wedding anniversary. When his father toasted his mother and said ‘She’s a great lady, she’s a great mother, and she’s a great friend’, his son was inspired. Putting pen to paper, he came up with a gentle waltz that he dedicated to his wife Brenda, who he saw as once, twice, three times a lady.

However, he considered it too soft for his band. When they presented producer James Carmichael with ideas for the LP Natural High, Richie played Three Times a Lady on the piano but told everyone present it wasn’t for them. He had Frank Sinatra in mind. Carmichael thought it was too good to let go and insisted they record it.

https://youtu.be/VzIs3nKF98Y

Review

As we all know, Three Times a Lady became a massive hit, one of Richie’s most loved songs and a staple at wedding receptions. It’s not among my favourites though – it doesn’t hold a candle to Machine Gun, Easy or some of Richie’s solo love ballads. It’s just too gentle for me and doesn’t go anywhere to keep me interested. Richie sings it beautifully though. Some of the lyrics (and there’s not many) leave me slightly puzzled as the first verse is in past tense and suggests a relationship that’s ended for some reason:

‘Thanks for the times that you’ve given me,
The memories are all in my mind,
And now that we’ve come to the end of our rainbow,
There’s something I must say out loud’

Sounds like a goodbye doesn’t it? Not exactly what you want to sing to your new husband/wife for your first dance on your wedding night really but it’s far from the only misunderstood wedding song. All in all, it’s not bad, but I don’t consider it the classic so many others do.

After

Three Times a Lady topped the charts all over the world and moved Commodores up into a whole new level of fame. It was nominated for two Grammys and won several other awards. A similar and superior tune, Sail On from the album Midnight Magic, reached eight in the UK in 1979 and Still followed hot on its heels, peaking at four here but earning them their second US chart-topper.

Their next album Heroes in 1980 saw a drop in their sales and the single Wonderland only reached 40 here. It was their last top 40 hit for five years. Despite this they were doing well again in the US before long but Richie threw a spanner in the works in 1982 by announcing he was going it alone. Skyler Jett replaced him as lead singer. Then in 1983 McClary left to also go solo and he was replaced by guitarist-vocalist Sheldon Reynolds. Jett was gone by 1984 and his role was taken by former Heatwave frontman James Dean ‘JD’ Nicholas.

Just as the Commodores were coming to the end of the road with Motown, the title track of their 1985 album Nightshift saw them unexpectedly return to the charts. This touching tribute to soul stars Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, who had both died the year previous, soared to three here and in the US.

The Outro

This return to fame proved short-lived, however. LaPread departed in 1986 and Reynolds a year later. His role was taken by David Battelene. While Richie continued to release hits on his own, Commodores were forgotten. A few more albums were released but made no mark. The last album to date was New Tricks in 1993 but Orange, Nicholas and King still tour the world as Commodores.

The Info

Written by

Lionel Richie

Producers

James Carmichael & Commodores

Weeks at number 1

5 (19 August-22 September)

Trivia

Births

19 August: Actor Callum Blue
27 August: Actress Suranne Jones

Deaths

28 August: Actor Robert Shaw
4 September: Suffragette Leonora Cohen
7 September: The Who drummer Keith Moon
9 September: Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid
15 September: Composer Edmund Crispin

Meanwhile…

20 August: Gunmen opened fire on an Israeli El Al airline bus in London.

25 August: With the aid of homemade water shoes, US Army Sergeant Walter Robinson ‘walked’ across the English Channel in 11 hours 30 minutes.

7 September: The Who’s wild drummer Keith Moon’s self-destructive ways resulted in his death. His body was found in in a flat owned by Harry Nilsson, who didn’t want to let Moon stay there as he believed it was cursed after Mama Cass died there. Moon died from a drug overdose aged 32.
Also that day, Prime Minister James Callaghan announced he would not call a general election for the autumn. Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher and Liberal leader David Steel accused Callaghan of ‘running scared’, in spite of many opinion polls showing that the minority government could win an election at that time with a majority.
And Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was stabbed with a poison-tipped umbrella while he walked across Waterloo Bridge in London. He died four days later.

15 September: German terrorist Astrid Proll was arrested in London.

19 September: British Police launched a murder hunt following the discovery of the dead body of 13-year-old newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater at a farmhouse near Kingswinford in the West Midlands. 

423. Boney M – Rivers of Babylon (1978)

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The Intro

Boney M were one of the most popular disco acts of the 70s and scored one of the biggest number 1s of all time with this cover of a Rastafari song by The Melodians. In a year in which the singles charts were returning to importance after years of dominance by albums, Boney M were the most popular. And they were the first of several pop acts to spring from the mind of Frank Farian.

Before

Farian, born Franz Reuther in Kirn, Germany on 18 July 1941 had trained as a cook before moving into the music industry. As Frankie Farian he released his first single, Will You Ever Be Mine in 1967.

He wasn’t really making much of an impression until he recorded Baby Do You Wanna Bump in 1974. It was a remake of Jamaican ska singer-songwriter Prince Buster’s Al Capone from 1964. However, in the first of many performance and songwriter controversies from Farian, there was no mention of Prince Buster within the credits.

Farian provided all the vocals and when deciding on an alias for the release, he was inspired while watching an episode of Australian detective drama Boney. He just stuck an ‘M’ on the end for added mystery.

Slowly, the single picked up steam in the Netherlands and Belgium. Farian decided to put a group together to promote it on TV. The first line-up of Boney M in 1975 consisted of Montserrat-born model-turned-singer Maizie Williams, her Jamaican friend Sheila Bonnick and a dancer called Mike. Several changes took place before the group settled down in 1976 with Williams, Jamaican-British singer Liz Mitchell, Aruban exotic dancer Bobby Farrell and Jamaican Marcia Barrett.

Farian set to work on Boney M’s debut LP, Take the Heat Off Me. It became apparent that he couldn’t use either Williams’ or Farrell’s voices and would instead use his own along with Barrett’s (who had already recorded solo with Farrell) and Mitchell’s. Again, the response was initially lukewarm but Farian pushed them to tour constantly, performing at discos, clubs and even country fairs.

The breakthrough occurred when they appeared on West German TV show Musikladen in September wearing outlandish outfits during a performance of Daddy Cool. It shot to 1 in several European countries and peaked at five in the UK. Follow-up Sunny rose to number three over here. Disco was peaking and Boney M had come along at exactly the right time.

In 1977 they released second album Love for Sale and it spawned two hits – Ma Baker (number two) and Belfast (eight). Undertaking their first major tour, Farian lined up live musicians known as The Black Beauty Circus to provide backing.

Boney M’s first release of 1978 was taken from forthcoming third album Nightflight to Venus. Rivers of Babylon was written by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of rocksteady Jamaican act The Melodians. Released in 1970, the lyrics were adapted from the texts of Psalms 19 and mainly 137 in the Hebrew Bible. The latter expressed the thoughts of Jewish people in exile after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC. It contains the line ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.’

Rivers of Babylon was a big hit in Jamaica once the government lifted a ban on it and it became famous internationally after it appeared in the 1972 film The Harder They Come.

Featuring Mitchell on lead vocal and Barrett and Farian on backing vocals, the Boney M version showcased Farian’s standard disco-lite sound, removing all Rastafarian language from the lyrics. The initial single mix featured extra ad-libs from Mitchell and all single versions feature extra vocals from Farian as well as a different fadeout to the LP version. Initially, Dowe and McNaughton didn’t receive any songwriting credit until they rightly kicked up a fuss.

https://youtu.be/HTq7vE_5un4

Review

I’ve never liked Boney M and I can’t see that ever changing. This blog has helped shift my attitude to realise how good ABBA actually were, for example, but I think Boney M are so cheap, tacky and throwaway and re-listening now has made little difference.

There are disco versions of every style of song going but I find taking a song about Biblical plight in poor taste, or maybe that’s just down to my inbuilt dislike of Boney M. I guess though that it’s more respectful than other Boney M hits. Mitchell is a great singer, so there is that, but Farian’s vocals are awful, which makes me wonder how much worse Farrell’s must have been.

So here is another example of the madness of British record buyers. Not only was Rivers of Babylon the biggest-selling single of 1978 but it’s the seventh biggest-selling single OF ALL TIME. What the fuck?

After

After five weeks at the top, it was slipping down the charts and was at 20 when DJs began playing the B-side, a cover of traditional Caribbean nursery rhyme Brown Girl in the Ring. It became a hit in its own right and took the single all the way to number two. This seems highly unfair to me but it at least partly explains why something so poor could sell so well.

The Info

Written by

Frank Farian, George Reyam, Brent Dowe & Trevor McNaughton

Producer

Frank Farian

Weeks at number 1

5 (13 May-16 June) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

14 May: Scottish field hockey defender Emma Rochlin
22 May: Model Katie Price
6 June: The Libertines singer Carl Barât
9 June: Muse singer Matthew Bellamy

Death

18 May: Conservative MP Selwyn Lloyd
7 June: Nobel Prize laureate Ronald George Wreyford Norrish

Meanwhile…

16 May: 40-year-old prostitute Vera Millward is found stabbed to death in the grounds of Manchester Royal Infirmary. It is believed that she is the 10th woman to die at the hands of the Yorkshire Ripper and the second outside of Yorkshire.

17 May: Charlie Chaplin’s coffin, stolen 11 weeks previously, is discovered in a field near the Chaplin home in Corsier near Lausanne, Switzerland.

25 May: Liberal Party leader David Steel announces the Lib-Lab pact is to be dissolved at the end of the Parliamentary session by mutual consent, which would leave Britain with a minority Labour government.

3 June: Airline entrepreneur Freddie Laker is knighted.

8 June: Naomi James becomes the first woman to sail around the world single-handedly.

13–16 June: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena make a state visit to the United Kingdom. He is made a Knight of the Order of the Bath and she becomes an honorary professor of the Polytechnic of Central London. How lovely. 

402. Manhattan Transfer – Chanson D’Amour (1977)

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The Intro

Manhattan Transfer were, like many chart-toppers of the 70s, in thrall to the past. But they went further back then the rock’n’roll retro bands like Showaddywaddy. They paid tribute to swing, jazz and acapella music. Surprisingly, the second incarnation of the group found themselves at number 1 in the UK for three weeks in the early spring of 1977.

Before

Founder member of both versions of the group was Tim Hauser. He had dabbled in doo-wop in his youth but moved into a career in advertising. Then in 1969 he formed The Manhattan Transfer. Named after a novel by John Dos Passos, set in New York City at the dawn of the Jazz Age. The original line-up also featured Erin Dickins, Marty Nelson, Pat Rosalita and Gene Pistilli. Signing to Capitol Records, they released one album, Jukin’ in 1971. Unlike the later incarnation, the quintet also covered rock and country genres. Capitol declined to release another LP and The Manhattan Transfer split up.

In 1972 Hauser was working as a taxi driver in New York when waitress Laurel Massé got into his cab. They got talking about music and it transpired she had ambitions to make it big. Hauser clearly hadn’t given up on his dream either. Soon after he met jazz singer Janis Siegel at a party. She had recorded a single as a member of Young Generation (not Engelbert Humperdinck’s mates) and had been a member of folk trio The Loved Ones. An idea began to form and Hauser decided to invite Massé and Siegel to be members of a new Manhattan Transfer and they recorded some demos before starting live performances.

Among the crowd at one of the early shows was session drummer Roy Markowitz, who had played with Don McLean. Markowitz was part of the band in the Broadway version of a hit musical called Grease and he suggested one of the cast members could be a good fit for The Manhattan Transfer. Alan Paul, who played both Johnny Casino and the Teen Angel, agreed to join their ranks. Markowitz produced a demo and sent it to Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records and he agreed to sign them. Their eponymous LP was released in 1975, featuring bona fide jazz musicians including trumpeter Randy Brecker. They were an instant success in the US, with debut single Operator reaching 22. That same year they hosted a four-week series on CBS. A cover of 30s jazz tune Tuxedo Junction was their first taste of UK fame – it peaked at 24 in 1976. That summer they released the album Coming Out, which featured Chanson D’Amour, which has a connection to one of the very first UK number 1s. The LP featured a certain Ringo Starr, Jim Keltner and Dr John.

Chanson D’Amour, French for ‘Love Song’, had been written by US songwriter and producer Wayne Shanklin, who gave it to Art and Dotty Todd in 1958. The husband-and-wife duo had charted in the UK in 1953 with the original version of Broken Wings. It went to six, but a cover by vocal group The Stargazers became the first UK number 1 by a British group later that year. The older generation, somewhat frightened and unsure about rock’n’roll, loved this taste of more gentle times and it was a big hit.

Acclaimed producer Richard Perry worked with Manhattan Transfer on Coming Out, and he liked their demo of Chanson D’Amour. They recorded their number 1 version in one take, featuring Siegel on lead. Backing the group were John Barnes on piano (not that John Barnes), Steve Paietta on accordion, Ira Newborn and Ben Benay on guitar, Andy Muson on bass and Jim Gordon on drums.

Review

I have never enjoyed this track. And that’s for not one, but two reasons. Siegel’s vocal is so over-the-top it’s painful. She’s trying to sound like Edith Piaf but comes across more like Edith Artois in sitcom ‘Allo! ‘Allo!. Every syllable is stretched out interminably. And then there’s the ‘rat-a-tat-a-tat’. My god, it’s irritating. It’s not even amusing to me as a ‘so bad it’s good’-style novelty number 1. Not a lot else to say, really. The most interesting aspect is the fact it’s produced by Perry, making it his second UK number 1 in a row, as it toppled his first, When I Need You by Leo Sayer.

After

Despite its success in the UK and in many other countries, Chanson D’Amour was only a moderate hit in the States. Further UK hits followed in Blighty, including Walk In Love (number 12) and On a Little Street in Singapore (number 20), both in 1978. The following year Massé was involved in a car accident and left the group, to be replaced by Cheryl Bentyne. The single Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone went to 25 in 1980. Also on its accompanying album, Extensions, was Birdland, an instrumental by Weather Report, which now had lyrics and earned Siegel a Grammy for Best Jazz Fusion Performance. In 1981 their version of The Boy from New York City was a big hit Stateside, climbing to seven, and they won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. A version of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square won the Grammy for Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices. And there were more. Until I Met You (Corner Pocket) saw them pick up the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. And then in 1982 – Route 66 won them the Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group. Impressive stuff.

Manhattan Transfer’s last charting single was Spice of Life, written by former Heatwave member and Michael Jackson collaborator Rod Temperton. It peaked at 19 in the UK. Yet more Grammy nominations and wins were to come, though. 1985 album Vocalese had 12 nominations – at the time second only to Thriller for most nominated single album ever. It won two – Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group, and Best Arrangement for Voices. In 1987 their album Brasil won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. No more albums released until 1991’s The Offbeat of Avenues. Its track Sassy won a Grammy in 1992 for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance, Instrumental. It was their 10th.

The Outro

The rest of the 90s saw the acclaim slide but Manhattan Transfer diversify, with The Christmas Album in 1992 and children’s album The Manhattan Transfer Meets Tubby the Tuba in 1995. They continued through the 00s with material like The Symphony Sessions, a collection of orchestral reworkings of previous material and The Chick Corea Songbook in 2009. This was their last album for nine years, as health problems crept up on the members. Original member Rosalia died in 2011. Bentyne left several times to battle Hodgkin’s lymphoma, replaced first by Margaret Dorn in 2011, then Katie Campbell in 2014. Hauser, the founder member and only person to bridge both incarnations, passed away in 2014 of cardiac arrest. He was replaced by Trist Curless. Pistilli died in 2017. The following year Manhattan Transfer’s last album to date, The Junction, was released.

The Info

Written by

Wayne Shanklin

Producer

Richard Perry

Weeks at number 1

3 (12 March-1 April)

Trivia

Deaths

26 March: Composer Madeleine Doing
1 April: Partitioner of India Cyril Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe

Meanwhile…

14 March: The government reveals inflation has pushed prices up by nearly 70% within three years.

15 March: Car manufacturers British Leyland announce their intention to dismiss 40,000 toolmakers who have gone on strike at the company’s plant in Birmingham. 

23 March: The government wins a vote of no confidence after Prime Minister James Callaghan strikes a deal with David Steel, the leader of the Liberal Party.

391. The Real Thing – You to Me Are Everything (1976)

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The Intro

Number 1 throughout the most memorable heatwave of the past 50 years, Liverpool soul quartet The Real Thing stepped out of David Essex’s shadow in style with the disco stylings of You to Me Are Everything.

Before

They formed in 1970 with Chris Amoo as lead singer, along with Dave Smith, Kenny Davis and Ray Lake. Originally they were The Sophisticated Soul Brothers and then Vocal Perfection. Pretty cheesy names. Fortunately manager Tony Hall saw a Coca-Cola billboard while waiting at traffic lights in Piccadilly Circus with their famous slogan ‘The Real Thing’ in huge letters.

Initially they performed soul covers of US hits, and landed a contract with EMI, releasing debut single Vicious Circle in 1972. They struggled to break through and David left. Even an appearance on Opportunity Knocks couldn’t turn their fortunes around.

What did make a difference was signing with Pye Records in 1975. Essex produced their initial sessions, resulting in the single Watch Out Carolina. They joined him on tour as his support act but it wasn’t just famous friends that opened doors for The Real Thing. Amoo’s brother Eddie, who had sung with 60s soul group The Chants, joined the band and the Amoos began writing together.

However, You to Me Are Everything was written by Ken Gold and Michael Denne. They were British but most of the material they had spent the last few years writing was sold to US musicians, such was the lack of UK soul groups.

Review

I’ve always had a soft spot for You to Me Are Everything. It has a infectious groove thanks to that wah-guitar, uplifting piano and luscious strings. The lyrics on the whole are a little too cliched to impress, though Gold and Denne get round this by explicitly saying ‘Words cannot express how much you mean to me’. One line that is great though is ‘So now you’ve got the best of me/Come on and take the rest of me’, implying they’ve already got on very well in the bedroom and although it won’t get better than that, perhaps they can get to know each other too? You to Me Are Everything is a great track for romancing down the disco, and in a year where quality number 1s are very thin on the ground, it stands out even more now. Great to see that Liverpool could do soul and disco, too.

After

The Real Thing nearly made it two in a row that year when Can’t Get By Without You stopped short at two. They finally released their eponymous debut LP and a third single from it, You’ll Never Know What You’re Missing, took them to 16 in 1977. Over the next few years they had several hits and misses, including Whenever You Want My Love, which reached 18 in 1977. Most successful was Can You Feel the Force?, a decent disco floorfiller, which may have caught on in part due to Star Wars. It reached five in 1979, but the follow-up Boogie Down (Get Funk Now) was their last hit for seven years, only reaching 33.

The Real Thing returned to working with David Essex in 1982, performing backing vocals, which they also did on his hit Me and My Girl (Nightclubbing). Then 10 years after their number 1, The Real Thing were back in the charts, courtesy of DJ Froggy, Simon Harris and KC. You to Me Are Everything (The Decade Remix 76-86) shot to five and Can’t Get By Without You (The Decade Remix II) went to six. Can You Feel the Force? (’86 Remix) was their final chart entry at 24.

In 2002 Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk and DJ Falcon released a single under the name Together called So Much Love to Give. It sampled The Real Thing’s Love’s Such a Wonderful Thing from 1977 and became a big club hit. Although they didn’t credit The Real Thing, N-Trance’s Kevin O’Toole and Dale Longworth did when they released their version of So Much Love to Give as The Freeloaders. It was a number nine hit.

The Outro

Lake died in 2000, and Eddie Amoo in 2018 during the making of a BBC Four documentary about the band. Everything – The Real Thing Story was shown in 2020.

The Info

Written by

Ken Gold & Michael Denne

Producer

Ken Gold

Weeks at number 1

3 (26 June-16 July)

Trivia

Births

28 June: Actress Lorraine Stanley
1 July: Actress Kellie Bright
7July: Actress Natasha Collins
8 July: Yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur
12 July: Actress Anna Friel
13 July: Actress Lisa Riley
14 July: Cricketer Geraint Jones

Deaths:

28 June: Actor Sir Stanley Baker
5 July: Comics artist Frank Bellamy

Meanwhile…

26 June–16 July: The legendary 1976 heatwave reaches its peak with a temperature of 26.7C every day of this period. For 15 consecutive days, (23 June-7 July), it reaches 32.2 C in London. For five consecutive days – the first being 26 June the temperature exceeded 35C. On 28 June, the temperature reaches 35.6C (96.1 °F) in Southampton, the highest recorded for June in the UK. And then on 3 July, thermometers recroded 35.9C in Cheltenham.

29 June: The Seychelles become independent of the UK.

7 July: David Steel is elected as the leader of the Liberal Party.

14 July: Ford launches the Fiesta, a small three-door hatchback.