Jeremy Thorpe

438. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell (1979)

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The Intro

Originally intended to be sung by an 11-year-old, disco song Ring My Bell was an innocent tune about children talking on the phone. With new, saucy lyrics, it became a one-hit wonder for US singer Anita Ward.

Before

Ward was born 20 December 1957 in Memphis, Tennessee. She loved gospel from an early age, and joined the Rust College A Cappella Choir. Ward graduated with a degree in psychology and became a substitute teacher, but the music bug didn’t leave her. She got herself a manager, who put her in contact with one-hit wonder singer-songwriter Frederick Knight, who had scored a number 22 UK hit with I’ve Been Lonely for So Long in 1972.

Knight agreed to record a three-song demo with Ward, but during recording he became so enamoured with her voice, they had nearly an album’s worth of material. But they needed one last song. Knight remembered he’d written one for 11-year-old Stacy Lattislaw. Knight kept the chorus as it was but rewrote the verses, so that Ward could sing from the point of view of a horny housewife waiting for her husband to return home so they can get it on. The song’s title was now far less innocent than originally planned. Ward didn’t like the song but Knight insisted they needed an uptempo tune to take advantage of the disco craze, so she relented.

Review

You either like or dislike Ring My Bell, it seems, depending on your tolerance for the Synare electronic drum. This pad was used throughout and is responsible for the decaying high-pitched tom tone at the first beat of every bar. Personally, I’m a fan for retro disco drum sounds, so bring it on. I’m also a fan of Ward’s performance, cooing her way through the lyrics breathlessly, putting across the mood of sexual anticipation effectively.

The lyrics could be taken as demeaning towards women if you consider the idea of a housewife telling her husband, ‘Well lay back and relax/While I put away the dishes’. However, I think the opposite. I see it as empowering and, for its time, refreshing to see the woman so forward in her desires, striking out of the classic Victorian marital setup. I can certainly see both sides of the argument though.

You can’t deny it’s a cool little tune. Slinky guitar and disco bass seemingly doing their own thing. I recommend the album version, which at 8:11 allows the groove to hypnotise like the best disco 12-inches do. Ring My Bell isn’t a classic, but it’s better than I remember it being in the past.

After

Ward’s debut single was a huge hit, reaching number 1 in the US, UK and several other countries. The album that spawned it, Songs of Love, also did well, reaching eight in the States. But that was as far as stardom stretched for Ward. Sweet Surrender, her second LP, was released only a few months later, but it tanked. Nothing else matched the catchiness of her sole hit and she failed to chart ever again – which apparently is what Ward had feared when Knight presented her with Ring My Bell.

Ward and Knight had a fractious relationship and a third album was abandoned. The Ring My Bell singer was involved in a severe car accident, and that coupled with the disco backlash, meant she disappeared into obscurity.

The Outro

10 years after her initial brush with fame, Ward released a third album, Wherever There’s Love (though not in the US). It contained an inferior remake of her hit. She had a daughter soon after and disappeared again, resurfacing briefly in 2011 to release a single, It’s My Night. Ward occasionally makes live and TV appearances, reminding nostalgic disco fans of her place in history.

I recommend the reggae remake of Ring My Bell, by Blood Sisters. Listen here.

The Info

Writer & producer

Frederick Knight

Weeks at number 1

2 (16-29 June)

Trivia

Births

19 June: Paralympic springer Graeme Ballard
29 June: 5ive singer Abs Green

Meanwhile…

18 June: As Labour continues to reel from their defeat in the General Election, Labour MP Neil Kinnock becomes the shadow education spokesman. 

22 June: Former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe is cleared in court of the allegations of attempted murder of  Norman Scott with whom he had allegedly had a relationship. Thorpe’s career never recovered.

413. David Soul – Silver Lady (1977)

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The Intro

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.

388. ABBA – Fernando (1976)

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The Intro

It may have seemed a little bold for ABBA to release a Greatest Hits in March 1976. However, their label Polar decided to due to the many cash-in compilations labels scattered around the globe were releasing in an attempt to cash-in on the fact that they were becoming huge. And with two UK number 1 singles to their name and plenty of hits elsewhere featured, it proved a wise move. It became their first number 1 album on these shores.

Before

As well as a mix of their early hits and lesser-known tracks in the UK, there was a new song, released as a single. Although it wasn’t strictly speaking, ‘new’. Fernando had first featured on band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s debut solo LP Frida ensam in 1975. Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus had originally called it Tango but at the last minute they renamed it Fernando after a bartender working at a club in Stockholm, Sweden, allegedly.

This Swedish version had lyrics penned by ABBA’s manager Stig Anderson and Lyngstad is singing to a heartbroken Fernando, attempting to console him after he has lost the love of his life. The chorus translated as:

‘Long live love, our best friend, Fernando.
Raise your glass and propose a toast to it; to love, Fernando.
Play the melody and sing a song of happiness.
Long live love, Fernando’

When it came to ABBA recording the song, Ulvaeus decided to take a different tack. He was lying outside one summer night and gazing at the stars when he hit upon a brainwave. Fernando became about two old freedom fighters who fought in the Texas Revolution of 1836, who reminisced about days of old one night in Mexico.

Review

Fernando is one of ABBA’s best-known and biggest-selling singles, but it’s my least favourite of their number 1s. I find it leaden and overwrought and I’m not really interested in hearing about what two 19th-century soldiers have to say. Give me their relationship drama and we’ve something to work with. It also suffers coming straight after Save Your Kisses For Me, which meant 10 weeks of tedium at number 1 on repeats of Top of the Pops and again, it makes me relieved I wasn’t a pop fan in 1976. Having said all this, I’d be a liar if I didn’t say the chorus was very memorable.

ABBA starred in a memorable, suitably dramatic video for Fernando, sat around a campfire looking very serious and gazing into each other’s eyes, as you can see above. ABBA made lots of videos – I’m not sure if they ever actually promoted on Top of the Pops in person? As well as a month as UK number 1, Fernando topped the charts across the globe. It became the longest-running number 1 in Australian history (14 weeks) for more than 40 years until Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You went one better in 2017.

After

ABBA made a Spanish-language album, Gracias Por La Música, in 1980 and Fernando was a natural choice for an LP aimed at Latin American countries.

The Outro

So, ABBA had scored two number 1s before we even reach the half-way mark of 1976, and the best was yet to come.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

4 (8 May-4 June)

Trivia

Births

8 May: Steps singer Ian ‘H’ Watkins
14 May: Actress Martine McCutcheon

Deaths

14 May: Yardbirds singer Keith Relf

Meanwhile…

9 May: 20-year-old prostitute Marcella Claxton is badly injured in a hammer attack in Leeds.

10 May: Following months of rumours of his involvement in a plot to murder his ex-lover Norman Scott, Jeremy Thorpe resigns as leader of the Liberal Party.

19 May: Liverpool win the UEFA Cup for the second time by completing a 4-3 aggregate win over Belgian side Club Brugge KV at the Olympiastadion in Brugge.

27 May: Harold Wilson’s Resignation Honours List is published. It becomes known satirically as the ‘Lavender List’ due to the number of wealthy businessmen awarded honours.

1 June: UK and Iceland end the third and final Cod War. The UK abandoned the ‘open seas’ international fisheries policy it had previously promoted.

344. Suzi Quatro – Devil Gate Drive (1974)

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The Intro

1973 had been a great year for the songwriting/production duo ‘Chinnichap’, but 1974 was even better. Tiger Feet became the year’s biggest-selling single, then after four weeks it was usurped by another Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman single. US singer and bassist Suzi Quatro was back at the top of the charts with another glam-pop-rock showcase for her skills. And there was certainly more stability in the charts than there was in Downing Street (see ‘Meanwhile…’).

Before

Quatro had remained a presence in the UK charts since her first number 1, Can the Can, a year previous. 48 Crash, the opening song on her eponymous debut album, climbed to number three, and Daytona Demon, a standalone single, number 14. She also played on Cozy Powell’s Dance With the Devil, a number three hit in January 1974, written by their record label owner Mickie Most of Rak Records. Devil Gate Drive was the first fruits of her second album Quatro, although it didn’t appear on that LP’s original UK tracklisting. Like Can the Can, it featured Len Tuckey on guitar (he and Quatro were married between 1976 and 1992) and Alastair McKenzie on keyboards, but Dave Neal replaced Keith Hodge on drums.

Review

Devil Gate Drive is Quatro’s most famous song, very similar in style to Can the Can, but more pop-friendly. It’s more overtly indebted to rock’n’roll – Chinnichap’s favourite era, clearly. The Devil Gate Drive in question seems to be the actual gates to hell, and Quatro points out how humans start sinning as young as the age of five. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is an insightful look at the human condition, but it’s cleverer than it appears, as Quatro knows that sinning can make us ‘come alive’. Quatro, you leather catsuit-wearing temptress. It makes a very nice change to hear her imploring everyone to get behind her, and hearing a load of burly male voices shouting back, rather than the screaming girls you’d have heard in pop most of the time. There’s some nice piano work from McKenzie too. It’s no Tiger Feet, but not bad at all.

After

A couple more hits followed for Quatro in 1974 – Too Big reached number 14 and The Wild One went to number seven, and then the law of diminishing returns began to apply. Critics of Quatro argue she was a mere novelty rather than a female role model, and was given substandard material by Chinnichap all along and her own material wasn’t good enough either. However in 1977 she not only had her first top 30 hit in three years with Tear Me Apart, she finally got noticed in the US thanks to her role as Leather Tuscadero in hugely popular nostalgic sitcom Happy Days. She appeared several times and was even offered a spin-off, such was the popularity of her character, but Quatro declined for fear of being typecast. The following year, If You Can’t Give Me Love showcased a more mellow sound and was her biggest hit since Devil Gate Drive (number four), and She’s In Love With You reached number 11 in 1979.

In 1980 Quatro’s contract with Most expired and she moved to Chapman’s Dreamland Records, but it marked a decline in her fortunes. It folded a year later, and she was without a label.

For much of the 80s Quatro could be found in more acting roles as well as releasing music. She starred in ITV comedy drama Minder in 1982, and crime drama Dempsey and Makepeace in 1985. The following year she featured alongside Bronski Beat and members of The Kinks on a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” for the BBC’s Children In Need. Then in 1987 she (sort of) returned to number 1 thanks to her appearance on the Ferry Aid cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be, which raised money for the charity set up in the aftermath of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster.

The Outro

Since then, Quatro has continued to release albums, which continue to sell to the fans who grew up in those heady glam rock days. Back to the Drive in 2006 saw her return to her heavier rock roots, and was her first charting album since Rock Hard in 1980. Andy Scott from The Sweet was the producer, and the title track was written by Chapman. Her autobiography, Unzipped, was released in 2007, and the most recent Quatro album, No Control, was released in 2019.

Trivia

Written & produced by

Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman

Weeks at number 1

2 (23 February-8 March)

Trivia

Deaths

23 February: Radio sports commentator Raymond Glendenning

Meanwhile…

27 February: As the country went to the polls, controversial Conservative MP Enoch Powell announced his resignation from the party in protest against Edward Heath’s decision to take Britain into the EEC.

28 February: Heath’s plan backfired badly. The General Election results in the first hung parliament since 1929. The Tory government held 297 seats, Labour, 301, and the largest number of votes. Heath made plans to form a coalition with Jeremy Thorpe’s Liberal Party in order to cling on to power.

4 March: Heath failed to convince the Liberals to form a coalition and therefore announced his resignation as Prime Minister, paving the way for Harold Wilson to become Prime Minister for the second time with Labour forming a minority government.[5]

6 March: An improved pay offer by the new Labour government results in the end of the latest miners’ strike.

7 March: The Three-Day Week came to an end. For now, with Labour back in power, things began to stabilise and improve with the unions.