In what must surely be one of the shortest durations between chart-toppers for one act, Blondie only had a month inbetween Atomic and Call Me – two of the best number 1s that year. This collaboration with Italian genius producer Giorgio Moroder (the man behind I Feel Love) was the theme song to Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo. The film starred a little-known actor called Richard Gere as a high-end male escort and it made him a star.
Before
Call Me began as a Moroder instrumental known as Man Machine. Not the tune by Kraftwerk, but similar in the sense it combined electronic music with pop. He originally had his eye on Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac to add lyrics and perform songs for American Gigolo, but she couldn’t for contractual reasons. Luckily for Moroder, Blondie were one of the hottest bands on the planet, and singer Debbie Harry was up for it. She watched the film and had the opening scene – driving on the Californian coast – in mind as she set to work writing the words, which only took a few hours.
Blondie went into the studio in New York with Moroder in August 1979 to record Call Me – just one month after finishing up their fourth LP Eat to the Beat. The pressure of following up the massive album Parallel Lines, and Harry’s perceived increasing dominance of the group, was causing tension. The recording of Call Me didn’t help. The first session, in LA, had seen Moroder and his crew, including keyboardist Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey (drummer on I Feel Love), record an instrumental version to a timecode so it would synchronise with American Gigolo.
It’s unknown whether Moroder was only expecting Harry, but Faltermeyer later claimed the producer was surprised the rest of the band were insisting on adding their own instrumentation. Guitarist Chris Stein’s equipment was buzzing and annoying the perfectionist Moroder, who, after realising the musicians were struggling to play in time and fighting among themselves, aborted the sessions. The backing tape was completed by Moroder and co, including the keyboard solo by Faltermeyer. This riled an already paranoid Blondie (minus Harry of course), but when Call Me shot to number 1 in the US before Atomic did, and then after Atomic in the UK, they changed their tune. Who is it on backing vocals, is it drummer Clem Burke, keyboardist Jimmy Destri, bassist Frank Infante, all three, or Moroder’s boys? I don’t know.
Review
Moroder and Blondie are two of the greatest names in disco, so it’s a given that any collaboration between the two would be great. Call Me and Atomic are like sisters, both showing Blondie at the top of their game, melding disco, pop and rock in a totally natural way. And although only Harry is on the recording, you’d never know upon listening, which shows how effectively Moroder had also become in combining different genres. Moroder was intending to produce Blondie’s next LP, but the infighting caused him to change his mind. It’s fascinating to imagine how good that could have been.
The rest of the band’s jealousy towards their singer is only natural, but she is also at the peak of her powers as a songwriter. Where Atomic featured improvised lines that captured the feel of the band’s blistering performance, Call Me shows Harry studying her source material and coming up with a song that is perfect as a film soundtrack. She succinctly communicates that Gere’s character is available whenever you need him, referencing the classic Martini ad tagline ‘Anytime, anyplace, anywhere’. He’s clearly used to a higher class of clientele (‘Roll me in designer sheets’) and ‘speaks the languages of love’, with a smattering of Italian and French thrown in for good measure. But the best lines are Harry’s frustration at feelings ruining what are meant to be a purely business arrangement: ‘Emotions come I don’t know why/Cover up love’s alibi’. As with I Feel Love, this Moroder classic is best heard in full via the 8:05 album version. The video edit is way too short at only 2:15
Further proof that Harry now pretty much was Blondie in the public eye is apparent in the record sleeve above and the video to Call Me, in which the striking singer is filmed in the city, on the beach and on stage. The rest of her band are nowhere to be seen.
After
Call Me was released in the US first in January 1980 and surprisingly was only their second number 1. It became their biggest-selling single and was also number 1 on Billboard‘s end-of-year chart that December. In addition to the soundtrack version, video edit and radio edit, there was a Spanish-language 12″. A Ben Liebrand mix missed out on top 40 action in 1988. Oh, and an abbreviated version was sung by Harry on The Muppet Show in 1981.
The Outro
Of course, the problem with being at the peak of your powers is that the only way is down. There was only one more Blondie 80s number 1, and it was a cover that didn’t hit the heights of Call Me. The band re-recorded Call Me in 2014, and to be fair, this probably felt more needed than their other 2014 covers, as it meant Blondie were actually on the recording. However, it’s probably not a huge surprise to find out it doesn’t match the original.
The Info
Written by
Giorgio Moroder & Debbie Harry
Producer
Giorgio Moroder
Weeks at number 1
1 (26 April-2 May)
Trivia
Births
28 April: Cyclist Bradley Wiggins 2 May: Footballer Zat Knight
Deaths
26 April: Actress Cicely Courtneidge/Conservative MP Irene Ward, Baroness Ward of North Tyneside 27 April: Theatre director E Martin Browne/Producer John Culshaw 29 April: Film director Sir Alfred Hitchcock (see ‘Meanwhile…’) 30 April: Scottish Labour MP Thomas McMillan 2 May: Conservative MP Sir Jocelyn Lucas, 4th Baronet/Army captain Herbert Westmacott
Meanwhile…
29 April: Legendary filmmaker Sir Alfred Hitchcock died at home in Los Angeles, aged 80.
30 April: A six-man team of terrorists from the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan began the Iranian Embassy Siege, taking 26 hostages at the Embassy of Iran in Knightsbridge.
‘Queen of Disco’ Donna Summer sold hundreds of millions of records in the 70s and 80s. Her sole UK number 1, I Feel Love, is to put it mildly, one of the greatest, most influential records of all time. Pointing the way towards the future of pop, this collaboration with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte will never, ever grow old. It is as important to music as The Beatles’ She Loves You.
Before
Summer was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on 31 December 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts. The third of seven children, her father was a butcher and her mother a schoolteacher. Her performing debut took place at church when she was aged 10, replacing another child who failed to appear. A popular child, at high school she performed in school musicals. In 1967, weeks before graduation, Gaines left Boston for New York, where she joined blues rock group Crow. Allegedly the band split when they failed to be signed due to the label only showing an interest in her.
Gaines remained in New York afterwards, where she auditioned to be in counterculture hit musical Hair. She agreed to take the role of Sheila in the Munich production. Her parents were reluctant for her to move to West Germany, but she did. In 1968 as Donna Gaines she released her first single Wasserman, a German cover of Hair‘s Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, on Polydor. Over the next few years she became fluent in German and starred in several musicals.
In 1971, Gaines moved to Vienna in Austria, where she married the native actor Helmuth Sommer. She got work as a backing singer, going under the name Gayn Pierre. While flitting between this work and being a part-time model, she got to know Moroder and Bellotte in Munich during a recording session with Three Dog Night at their studio. She signed with them in 1974, releasing their first fruits together, Denver Dream, as a single. Due to an error on the demo’s cover, Sommer decided to keep the name Donna Summer instead. Debut LP Lady of the Night came out that same year. This mix of rock, folk and pop performed respectably in the Netherlands, where it was initially released.
Then a year later Summer approached Moroder with a sketch of a song called Love to Love You. Raunchy and explicit, she was unsure she wanted her name putting to it, but agreed to record a demo. Moroder loved it and insisted her version be released. It reached 13 in the Netherlands, but Moroder knew this was just the start. He sent a tape to Casablanca records boss Neil Bogart in the States. Bogart was a lively hedonist and would play Love to Love You at his wild parties. He loved it, but told Moroder it needed to be longer. This was because people would end up having sex to it at his parties and he got sick of having to put the needle on the record again when it ended too soon. A reticent Summer eventually threw herself into the job, laying on a near-dark studio floor to record a vocal the like of which had never been heard in mainstream pop before. Over 16 minutes long and according to the BBC featuring 23 orgasm sounds, Love to Love You Baby introduced the world to Summer. This filthy disco classic, renamed by Bogart, reached two in the US and four in the UK in 1975.
Summer, Moroder and Bellotte wasted no time in capitalising on the success, with an album of the same name following, then two more, A Love Trilogy and Four Seasons of Love in 1976. These were disco concept albums, featuring lengthy dance floor epics on one side and shorter tracks on the flip. Summer had by now earned herself the nickname ‘First Lady of Love’. Sales dropped in the UK, although Winter Melody climbed to 27 in the UK singles chart.
That October, the trio set to work on another concept album. I Remember Yesterday was planned as an LP showcasing Summer’s ability to put her voice to varying music styles from the past, as well as her trademark disco stylings. The final track, it was decided, would be set to what they envisioned as the music of the future. That future was I Feel Love.
Although Moroder had spent several years developing his string-laden disco epics, he had history with the future of music. His song Son of My Father became the first number 1 to feature a synthesiser when covered by Chicory Tip in 1972. For I Feel Love, Moroder borrowed the Moog Modular 3P from classical composer Eberhard Schoener, who had been something of a Moog pioneer. Schoener’s assistant Robby Wedel proved integral in the recording process. Bellotte later called him the unsung hero of the track as he was able to control the Moog in a way nobody, including Robert Moog himself, thought possible.
The large unwieldy instrument, looking like a small TARDIS, was brought into Musicland Studios in Munich. The first line was laid down and Wedel taught Moroder and Bellotte how to synch tracks. It was he that produced the most distinctive and initiated bassline in electronic music, thought up by Moroder. Each note of the baseline was doubled by a delay effect, with the original note coming through the left channel and the delay through the right, creating that hypnotic strobing sensation. Moroder would alter the key at regular intervals to add variety. The recording process was laborious, with the unpredictable Moog going out of tune every 20 or 30 seconds. For the hi-hat sound they took white noise generated by the machine’s envelopes and cut it up. There was however one human element added to the instrumentation. Because they were unable to get a large enough kick drum sound from the Moog, they used their regular session drummer Keith Forsey, who added seven minutes of thump. Forsey later co-wrote Flashdance… What a Feeling with Moroder.
Summer and Bellotte were supposed to work together on the lyrics. Bellotte headed over to her house one night and got started while Summer was on the phone. It was three hours later before she finally came down, apologising for being on the phone to her astrologer, who was helping her decide between two men she was dating. Bellotte had finished writing the song. Summer made up for the wait by eventually recording her vocal in one take.
Review
There simply aren’t enough superlatives to describe this song. It’s far too big to even be called a song. It’s a cultural touchstone. A landmark in music. And unlike some of the greatest songs of all time, I think it’s actually impossible to tire of it. While researching it I fell down a rabbit hole and listened to over 90 minutes of this one song and the many remixes through the years. I could have gone on, too. It’s also an understatement to say no number 1 before it had ever sounded like this. The Moog fades in, shimmering, before the bass and its delay creates a totally addictive, motorik arpeggio, used on countless tunes ever since. It’s alien, electronic, magnetic. And you can feel blissed-out even before Summer comes in. But when she does… total ecstasy. She glides over the retro-futuristic electronic soundscape like an angel.
Understandably when I Feel Love is discussed it’s the backing that gets most of the attention. Summer’s one-take vocal, though, is fantastic. It takes George McCrae’s orgasmic falsetto on that earlier dancefloor revolutionary number 1, Rock Your Baby to another level. The only criticism I could possibly give this single is that it’s too short. The album version, 5:53 long, is hacked down to 3:45, with the fade-in happening too quick, and it fades out before the third verse. If ever a song deserved to stretch out, it’s this.
And yet, Casablanca didn’t seem so sure about I Feel Love. Moroder later recalled that Bogart enjoyed it but not as much as he’d hoped. Bellotte also says that nobody involved in the making of it seemed to realise just how special it was. It was initially tucked away as the B-side to the ballad Can’t We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over), released 1 May 1977. But it gained traction in nightclubs, particularly in the UK. Casablanca switched sides and I Feel Love became the single here and then internationally. It became huge. The 12″ version, at 8:15, is even better than the album version.
After
Summer followed I Feel Love with the beautiful Theme from “The Deep” (Down, Deep Inside), co-written by John Barry. It peaked at five. Love’s Unkind, also from I Remember Yesterday, went to number three. Summer, Moroder and Bellotte followed up that LP with Once Upon a Time… a double album based on Cinderella. In 1978 she acted in the modestly received disco comedy film Thank God It’s Friday. Her song from the soundtrack, Last Dance, saw Summer win her first of five Grammys, for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Also that year, she notched up her first US number 1 with a live recording of MacArthur Park. Her final album for Casablanca, released in 1979, was Bad Girls. This double LP was the biggest selling and most acclaimed of her career. Moroder brought in Harold Faltermeyer to contribute. Hot Stuff and Bad Girls were both US number 1s, making her the first solo artist to have two songs in the Billboard top three. When her duet with Barbra Streisand, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) also went to number 1 there, she became the first female artist to achieve three chart-toppers in one calendar year.
Casablanca wanted Summer to continue to record disco only but she had other ideas and as the 80s began she signed with the new Geffen Records. Her album The Wanderer was its first release. Despite a more eclectic sound, the album didn’t have the same impact in the UK as her Casablanca material. The next collection, Donna Summer, was released in 1982. A pregnant Summer sang at the funeral of Bogart, who died during recording sessions. The eponymous album was a success, with State of Independence a number 14 hit in the UK. It was produced by Quincy Jones, ending her long and fruitful relationship with Moroder and Bellotte.
This was followed by an I Feel Love (Mega Mix) by Patrick Cowley. The American producer, like Moroder, is now considered a disco and hi-NRG pioneer. But he was virtually unknown while alive. Shortly before he died of AIDS in November that year, Casablanca released this 15:43 version of I Feel Love that Cowley originally produced in 1978. Stretching the song out even further than before by looping the bassline, he laid new effects and synth work over long instrumental passages. Allegedly, Moroder isn’t a fan. This could be because Cowley somehow managed to better the original. This is the definitive version of I Feel Love, and made the song a UK hit once more, climbing to 21.
In 1983 Summer recorded the album She Works Hard for the Money to settle her contract dispute between Geffen and Casablanca. It was her bestselling album of the 80s and the single Unconditional Love, featuring Musical Youth, was her last UK chart hit for four years. She returned there with Dinner with Gershwin, which peaked at 13 in 1987. Two years later she worked with the UK’s biggest production team of the era – Stock Aitken Waterman. They were untouchable at the time and it paid off. The album Another Place and Time featured This Time I Know It’s for Real, which peaked at three, and I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt, reaching seven.
The 90s were a leaner time for the Queen of Disco but she was still doing well. In 1994, Melody of Love (I Wanna Be Loved) reached 21. Not bad for a new song tacked on to a greatest hits. The following year a new mix of I Feel Love was released and soared to eight. Featuring a new vocal from Summer and remixes by Masters of Work and Rollo & Sister Bliss from Faithless. I’ve heard many great remixes of the track and these are not among them – but they’re very ‘mid-90s’. Remixes of State of Independence followed in 1996 and gave Summer her final chart hit (13).
The Outro
In 2003 Summer released her autobiography Ordinary Girl: The Journey. Five years later came her first original album in 17 years – Crayons. It would be her last. She died on 17 May 2012 of lung cancer. A nonsmoker, she blamed the 9/11 attack for causing toxic fumes she inhaled, as she had an apartment near Ground Zero. Many of the world’s top singers, influenced by her, paid tribute. She had many hits in her lifetime but non compare to I Feel Love. Few things do.
They may look like your average early-70s band, but Kent rock group Chicory Tip were the first chart-toppers whose single featured a synthesiser. Kraftwerk? It was another decade before they got to number 1. However, Son of My Father had been created by a true electronic music pioneer – the godlike genius, Giorgio Moroder.
Before
Giovanni Giorgio Moroder, born 26 April 1940 in Urtijëi in South Tyrol, Italy, began releasing songs as ‘Giorgio’ after moving to Berlin, Germany in 1963. He moved to Munich in 1968 and two years later he scored his first big hit, the bubblegum pop track Looky Looky. Giorgio founded the renowned Musicland Studios, and took one Pete Bellotte under his wing.
Bellotte, from Barnet, Hertfordshire, had played guitar in beat group The Sinners, who teamed up with Linda Laine. While touring Germany, Bellotte befriended Reg Dwight, later Elton John, who was playing with Bluesology. Bellotte learnt German and had ambitions to become a songwriter. He and Giorgio were the perfect match, and in 1971, Bellotte wrote English lyrics for the Giorgio track Nachts scheint die Sonne, which translated as In the Night Shines the Sun (Michael Holm had penned the German lyrics). This catchy tale of a young man determined to break free of the conformity of his parents stood out due primarily to Giorgio’s use of a Moog synthesiser.
This legendary instrument, created by Dr Robert Moog in 1964, had first come to the attention of the mainstream courtesy of Wendy (then Walter) Carlos’s album Switched-On Bach in 1968, the same year it began to be used by The Monkees. In 1969 it appeared on The Beatles’ swansong Abbey Road, and George Harrison performed a whole album, ElectronicSound, on the instrument, also released that year.
Giorgio knew he had a potential hit on his hands and he decided to make it the title track of his forthcoming album. But somehow, an advance copy of his next single found its way into the hands of Roger Easterby, manager of Chicory Tip.
The five-piece had formed in Maidstone in 1967, and consisted of singer Peter Hewson, guitarist Rick Foster, bassist Barry Mayger, drummer Brian Shearer and guitarist and keyboardist Rod Cloutt. Originally knows as The Sonics, Mayger had come up with the new name after seeing ‘chicory’ on the label of a coffee bottle.
After singing with CBS Records, Chicory Tip began releasing records in 1970 with MondayAfter Sunday, but failed to make an impression. Second single, I Love Onions, sounds like an interesting listen, though. They made it on to Top of the Pops with third single Excuse Me Baby in 1971, but again, fame eluded them.
Luckily, Easterby secured the band the option to rush record their own version of Giorgio’s next single. Chicory Tip recorded Son of My Father at George Martin’s Air Studios, and in another Beatles connection, the Moog in the song was played by engineer Chris Thomas, who had helped out on The Beatles and went on to become one of the UK’s greatest producers, working with David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, Sex Pistols and Pulp.
Review
For such a historically important number 1, Son of My Father is a rather unassuming little song, but a decent one, and yes, that’s mainly down to that infectious Moog running through the track. And yet, this isn’t some brave new world we’re hearing – it’s no I Feel Love or Autobahn. It doesn’t make your jaw drop when you compare it to what had come before. Even the Musitron clavioline (a forerunner to the synthesiser) in Del Shannon’s Runaway stands out more. It seems to be there just to add colour to an otherwise standard pop-rock song, in much the same way The Beatles had used the instrument.
It’s a great fit though, that gleeful, impish sound conjuring up images of childhood, which of course ties in with the theme of the song. And more credit should be due to Bellotte., I’d always assumed Moroder came up with the lyrics to his music, but Bellotte is the unsung hero of the partnership, making Moroder’s material more palatable to English-speaking audiences.
Of course, it would help if you could actually decipher the lyrics in Chicory Tip’s version. They rushed the recording so much, Hewson didn’t have time to learn the words and appears to be making them up as he goes along. ‘Moulded, I was folded, I was preform-packed’, a nice comment on how society dictates the adult we grow up to be, became what sounds like ‘Moogling, I was googling, I was free from drugs’, as seen in an edition of BBC Two music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks, here. So ironically, it’s easier to understand Giorgio’s version, which also features an understandably more polished production. Nonetheless, it’s an endearing number 1, and a glimpse into the world of electronic music that Moroder was so important in over the next decade.
After
The future looked bright for Chicory Tip at first, with What’s Your Name reaching the top 20 later that year, and Good Grief Christina in 1973. Interestingly, it was Moroder and Bellotte who penned these singles and more, but their fortune faded, and when IOU failed to hit the charts in 1973, they stopped working with the duo and tried hitmakers Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley on Take Your Time Caroline, but again, no joy. I’m sure the band wouldn’t have been amused at the fact they bowed out in 1975 with a song called Survivor. They left behind only one album, named after their number 1.
The Outro
Other versions of Chicory Tip came and went until 1996 when Foster, Mayger and Shearer reformed the group without Hewson, who had to decline due to throat problems. He had released a solo single in 1983, Take My Hand, produced by another electro pioneer – Vince Clarke of Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure. Foster and Shearer still perform in a version of Chicory Tip, but Cloutt died in Australia in 2017.
The Info
Written by
Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte & Michael Holm
Producers
Roger Easterby& Des Champ
Weeks at number 1
1 (19 February-10 March)
Births
19 February:Footballer Malky Mackay
6 March:Snooker player Terry Murphy
Deaths
19 February: Documentary film-maker John Grierson
Meanwhile…
22 February: In retaliation for Bloody Sunday, The Official Irish Republican Army were responsible for the Aldershot Barracks bombing. which killed seven civilians and injured 19. It was the Official IRA’s largest attack during The Troubles, and due to the widespread criticism of the attack, they declared a permanent ceasefire in May. The Provisional IRA, however, were another matter entirely.
25 February: After seven weeks, the miners’ strike ended. Heath was to take them on again in 1974, but the move backfired.
