Pop

384. Slik – Forever and Ever (1976)

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The Intro

Here is surely one of the strangest and most obscure number 1s of the 70s, perhaps of all time. Before his solo career, before Band Aid, before Ultravox, Midge Ure was in a group called Slik, who briefly lorded it over the charts with a bizarre mix of Gothic horror and Bay City Rollers-style pop.

Before

Slik started out as Glasgow-based heavy-rock band Salvation in 1970. The original line-up featured the McGinlay brothers, Kevin and Jim, Nod Kerr, Mario Tortolano, and Ian Kenny. The line-up changed several times but stabilised in 1972 with Kevin on vocals, Jim on bass, Kenny Hyslop on drums, Billy McIsaac on keyboards and Jim Ure on guitar. In a bid to avoid the confusion of having two Jims in the band, their bassist suggested Ure say his backwards, and he became ‘Mij’, which in time became ‘Midge’, and stuck for the rest of his life. They became the house band at Glasgow discothèque Clouds, where they would perform cover versions.

In April 1974 Kevin McGinlay left Salvation to pursue a solo career. Ure assumed singing duties while remaining as guitarist. That November they became Slik. They signed with Polydor and adopted pseudonyms – Ure was already Midge, Hyslop became Oil Slik, McGinlay was Jim Slik and McIsaac was now Lord Slik. Slik suited up to live up to their name, and ditched glam rock to work with pop songwriters Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. Together the duo had scored three number 1s over the years with Sandie Shaw, Cliff Richard and the England 1970 World Cup squad. Their most recent group to benefit from their skills was the Bay City Rollers, and very well they were doing too.

Slik didn’t initially have the same success. Debut single Boogiest Band in Town on Polydor in 1975 got nowhere. So they ditched the suits and, for some reason, swapped them for baseball shirts, probably to try and break the US. They also signed with Bell Records. Interestingly, Ure has claimed in the past that he was approached by Malcolm McClaren to be the singer of the Sex Pistols.

This isn’t Demis Roussos’ Forever and Ever, which would come later in the year. Slik’s song had originally been released by the pop group Kenny earlier that year on their album The Sound of Super K. It’s worth noting that their version is almost as odd as Slik’s, it just isn’t as well produced and is lacking bounce. Unlike their hit The Bump.

Review

I can still recall the first time I saw this on a BBC Four repeat of Top of the Pops. It blew my mind. Who the hell decided the opening section should insinuate we were about to hear some proggy, concept single or Black sabbath style metal obscurity? Considering Kenny and Slik’s version starts the same way, it must have been Martin and Coulter’s idea. It had me on the edge of my seat. I thought I was about to be treated to a forgotten surreal masterpiece. How the hell did this get to number 1? And is that really Midge Ure singing it? Thinking about it though, did this idea of an atmospheric opening help inspire Vienna?

Once the verses switch to the chorus, it becomes apparent how it got to number 1. It sounds like a Bay City Rollers reject, and it was. I’m all for schizophrenic singles, but the transition here is far from seamless, and although the chorus is catchy, as soon as it begins, my interest dissipates until the next verse. But I am an awkward sod. If I was whoever Ure is singing to here, I’d stay well away. He’s clearly assumed the role of a schizophrenic.

After

Slik, Martin and Coulter tried to repeat their surprise success with the follow-up Requiem, but only got to 24. This wasn’t helped by Ure being injured in a car accident which forced the band to cancel promotional appearances. Their eponymous LP soon followed, but didn’t even dent the top 40. In March 1977 Jim McGinlay left to be replaced by Russell Webb for Slik’s final tour dates. Desperate to ride the next musical wave, they changed their name to PVC2 and became a punk band. Only one single was released though, Ure’s Put You in the Picture, and it didn’t chart. They split up that September, with Ure joining The Rich Kids, former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock’s new band. More on them when we get to Ultravox.

As for the rest of Slik, Webb, Hyslop and McIsaac added Alex Harvey’s cousin Willie Gardner to their group and became Zones. They made one album, Under Influence, released in 1979, but they then split. Webb and Hyslop joined The Skids. McIsaac left the music business but made a return in the 90s with the Billy McIsaac Band.

The Outro

Weirdly, this is the first of two songs called Forever and Ever to reach number 1 in 1976, as Demi Roussos achieved the same accolade when an EP featuring his song topped the charts that summer.

The Info

Written & produced by

Bill Martin & Phil Coulter

Weeks at number 1

1 (14-20 February)

Trivia

Births

20 February: The Darkness drummer Ed Graham

Meanwhile…

19 February: Iceland breaks off diplomatic relations with the UK over the Cod War.

383. ABBA – Mamma Mia (1976)

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The Intro

In 1974, ABBA looked ready to go huge. They’d won Eurovision with Waterloo, and then… not a lot happened. It seemed likely that Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were to become one-hit wonders. But 1976 proved the doubters wrong.

Before

So what did happen in the two years inbetween Waterloo and Mamma Mia? Well, ABBA’s UK record label didn’t help matters. They decided to follow up their Eurovision smash with a remix of Ring Ring, whereas elsewhere, Honey, Honey did pretty well, including reaching two in Germany. Ring Ring didn’t even enter the top 30, whereas a cover of Honey, Honey by Sweet Dreams went to 10.

November 1974 saw them embark on their first European tour, but most venues didn’t sell out and some dates even had to be cancelled. Around that time they released So Long as a single but it didn’t chart. It was followed in mid-1975 by I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do. It didn’t. Although it reached the top five in many European countries, it scaled the lofty heights of 38 in the UK.

Fortunately, things picked up after that. Their eponymous third studio album was released in April and hit number 13, and their next single SOS went to six. And rightly so – it’s one of their best.

Mamma Mia was the final track to be recorded for ABBA but would be the LP’s opener. It had been written at Ulvaeus and Fältskog’s home, and never intended as a single. It was even offered to Brotherhood of Man, soon to become Eurovision winners themselves, but they turned it down. Which is rather ironic when you consider they would completely rip off Fernando with their number 1 Angelo in 1977. In addition to Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny, it featured session musicians Janne Schafer on guitar, Mike Watson on bass and Roger Palm on drums. That distinctive and memorable sound you hear tick-rocking in the opening was a marimba, which was incorporated at the last minute when Andersson found one in the studio and rightly thought it could work well.

Review

As I stated in my blog for Waterloo, I’m far from ABBA’s biggest fan, and was turned off by them in general for many years, but there are exceptions to my rule. Where does Mamma Mia rate in my opinion? Well, it’s chock full of hooks and an excellent introduction to the songwriting of Andersson and Ulvaeus, featuring bittersweet lyrics set to an upbeat sound. While it can work well to use sad lyrics in a happy song, and it’s something ABBA would excel at, I’m not sure it works so well here. The girls are singing about being ‘cheated by you since I don’t know when’ and have had it happen so many times, it’s over. They don’t sound particularly cut up about that. However, you can rightly point out that love isn’t that simple, and as we discover, ‘just one look’ is all it takes to forget all the bad times, and bring the good rushing back. Such is love. Does ‘Mamma Mia’ sufficiently encapsulate the power of that love? It’s no ‘A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, A-lop-bam-boom!’, that’s for sure, and was perhaps a placeholder that they decided to keep, with deadlines approaching.

Ultimately for me, despite its good points, Mamma Mia makes me think of the ‘cheesy’ aspects of ABBA that used to turn me off. They still sound a little ‘Eurovision’ here, and while I’m quite partial to a bit of cheese, and the guitar sound is a nice throwback to the glam they would soon ditch, I’m not fussed about hearing this song ever again. But I know I will, such is its ubiquity.

After

Mamma Mia was released in Australia in August, and spent 10 weeks at number 1. Epic went full steam ahead on promotion this time around in the UK, and it paid off. They filmed a video that’s proved to be an enduring image of the group – the girls and Ulvaeus dressed flamboyantly in white against a white backdrop, with Andersson tickling the ivories. You can see it in the link above.

It’s appropriate that future legends Queen, after nine weeks at the top, could only be defeated by another band that would in time be one of the biggest in the world. Even more appropriate when you consider that Bohemian Rhapsody contained the lyric ‘Mamma mia’ in the opera section.

The Outro

And of course, there’s the fact both bands have had musicals and films named after their songs. ABBA got there first, with the theatre show Mamma Mia! hitting the stage in 1999, followed by the cinema adaptation in 2008 and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in 2018. I’ve seen enough clips of the film, starring Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, to know that I would be physically ill if I was ever made to sit through it in full.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

2 (31 January-13 February)

Births

2 February: Swimmer James Hickman
10 February: Actress Keeley Hawes

Deaths

11 February: Actor Charlie Naughton
12 February: Philosopher John Lewis

Meanwhile…

2 February: Queen Elizabeth II opened the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. 

4–15 February: Great Britain and northern Ireland competed at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. They only win one gold medal, on 11 February, when John Curry won the figure skating competition.

379. Art Garfunkel – I Only Have Eyes for You (1975)

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The Info

Paul Simon was the brains behind Simon & Garfunkel’s impressive catalogue of folk and pop, including 1970 number 1 Bridge over Troubled Water. He continued to have success after they split, but it was Art Garfunkel who scored not one but two solo number 1s.

Before

You can find a profile of the duo in the blog I linked to above, but I’ll briefly touch on Garfunkel’s early years here.

Arthur Ira Garfunkel was born 5 November 1941 in New York City. He was of Romanian Jewish descent. His love of singing began in first grade, and he would often sing in synagogue. His father later bought him a wire recorder and he would spend his afternoons singing, recording, and playing it back to listen for flaws and learn how to improve. Such was his obsession, he performed for four hours at his bar mitzvah in 1954.

It was in sixth grade that Garfunkel first crossed paths with Simon, in a production of Alice in Wonderland, and Simon apparently first became interested in singing after hearing Garfunkel in a school talent show.

Between 1956 and 1962 they recorded together as Tom & Jerry, but Garfunkel released his first solo record, Beat Love, in 1959, under the name Artie Garr. When he and Simon graduated, he went to Columbia University, becoming heavily involved in sports and a capella group the Columbia Kingsmen.

Simon & Garfunkel reformed in 1963, and the rest is history, and in my blog. But it’s also worth noting that although Simon wrote everything, Garfunkel did get involved in the production side. He also wrote the Canticle in Scarborough Fair/Canticle, would work out how the material would be sung, and was credited with the arrangement on The Boxer.

After the break-up in 1970, Garfunkel avoided music for three years. He starred in two Mike Nichols films – Catch-22 (1970) and Carnal Knowledge (1971). He then spent 1971 to 1972 teaching geometry in Connecticut. But following a greatest hits album and a one-off reunion with Simon at a benefit concert for presidential candidate George McGovern, he decided to go solo.

Garfunkel’s debut solo LP, Angel Clare, was released in 1973. Co-produced by the singer and Simon & Garfunkel producer Roy Halee, it featured covers of material by Van Morrison, Jimmy Webb and Randy Newman. Simon contributed guitar on one track, and it also featured Jerry Garcia and JJ Cale on guitars, plus members of The Wrecking Crew including Hal Blaine. A single from it, Webb’s All I Know, was a big hit in the US, reaching nine.

I Only Have Eyes for You was the first material to be lifted from Garfunkel’s forthcoming second album Breakaway. Another album of mostly contemporary covers, this single was unusual in that the song dated further back. It was written by multi-Oscar winner Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin for the 1934 musical movie Dames. The most famous version came from influential doo-wop group The Flamingos in 1959.

Review

You can’t really go wrong combining as beautiful a song as this with the always-lovely singing of Garfunkel. And with a lush production from Richard Perry (who produced Without You), it’s a song you can wrap yourself in like a warm blanket. Having said that, it might not be to everyone’s taste. Some may find it overdone and too schmaltzy, and if so, they’d likely prefer the version by The Flamingos. I’ve got room in my heart for both though.

The Outro

This version seems to be mostly forgotten in 2020 – indeed, until now I had assumed Garfunkel had only scored a number 1 with Bright Eyes. Perhaps because The Flamingos song has such a reputation for being a classic. But this is worth your time, especially if you like Simon & Garfunkel.

The Info

Written by

Al Dubin & Harry Warren

Producer

Richard Perry

Weeks at number 1

2 (25 October-7 November)

Trivia

Births

27 October: Novelist Zadie Smith

Deaths

27 October: Royal Air Force officer Frederick Charles Victor Laws

Meanwhile…

30 October: West Yorkshire Police launch a murder investigation when 28-year-old prostitute Wilma McCann is found dead in Chapeltown, Leeds. 

6 November: A pub rock group called Bazooka Joe performed at Saint Martins College. Their support band were performing for the first time. They were called Sex Pistols.

378. David Essex – Hold Me Close (1975)

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The Intro

Since David Essex’s first number 1, Gonna Make You a Star, he had, with the help of producer Jeff Wayne, remained a top 10 mainstay. His next single Stardust was the theme to the sequel to the film That’ll Be the Day (1973). In Stardust, as before, Essex was the lead, playing wannabe pop star Jim MacLaine. This time his rise and fall took place through the 60s and early-70s. It’s not a bad song, but tries too hard to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of Rock On. Stardust reached seven in the singles chart, and the film, released in October 1974, did well, but Essex felt it was inferior to That’ll Be the Day.

Before

Next, Essex and Wayne set to work on a concept album of sorts. All the Fun of the Fair was a schizophrenic collection which touched upon Essex’s fascination with fairs as a child. Among the album’s personnel was session guitarist extraordinaire Chris Spedding, who had featured on the number 1 Barbados, and soul group The Real Thing, who would soon go from supporting Essex to having a number 1 in their own right with You to Me Are Everything. First single Rolling Stone went to five.

Ironically, Hold Me Close, which became Essex’s second and last number 1, was almost an afterthought in production. With record label executives waiting in the studio reception to hear the album in full, Essex banged out two vocal takes, and the mix was made in only half an hour.

Review

This information perhaps explains one of the problems with Hold Me Close. Now, Essex was a proper bona fide working-class Londoner, but he definitely played up to stereotypes and laid on the friendly cockney schtick too much at times on this vocal. And that, combined with Wayne’s cheesy production, makes this number 1 seem light years away from the edginess of Rock On. Essex’s transformation to light entertainment star was complete. Which, knowing now that the LP this comes from was all over the place stylistically, is a shame. Mind you, Essex, still popular all these years later, is probably fine with that. He’s very likeable, and despite my criticism, I can’t dislike Hold Me Close too much, it’s good at what it is.

Soon after this, Essex’s chart sales tailed off somewhat, although Oh What a Circus reached three in 1978. But he did take on a role in the original theatre run of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. It was also the year he appeared as the Artilleryman on Wayne’s huge concept double album, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, an idea the producer had been working on for years. Now a star in his own right, Wayne went on to be a prolific writer of music for TV, including the TV-AM and Good Morning Britain themes of the 80s. The War of the Worlds has spawned a remake and a theatre show.

After

The 80s started off well for Essex with a lead role in motor-racing film Silver Dream Racer (1980) and a song from it, Silver Dream Racer (Part 1) motoring to number four. In 1982 his seasonal single A Winter’s Tale did very well, reaching two in January. It’s been a festive favourite ever since. Tahiti, in 1983, is his last hit to date, reaching eight. As his music slowed, his theatre and TV roles were increasing, and Tahiti came from the West End show Mutiny!, which he co-wrote and starred in. He was the lead in BBC One’s gentle 1988 sitcom The River, which I enjoyed as a nine-year-old but I dare say it won’t have aged well.

Essex was still releasing albums to mixed degrees of success throughout the 90s, and rounded off the millennium with an OBE in 1999. He played a kind-hearted nomad in an episode of Heartbeat in 2000, a subject close to his heart due to his gypsy roots. He had been Patron of Britain’s National Gypsy Council before moving to the US.

The Outro

In 2005 he was a guest vocalist on dance group St Etienne’s album Tales from the Turnpike House, and was due to join the cast of EastEnders in 2006 but couldn’t fit the time needed into his schedule. He eventually joined the soap in 2011 as Eddie Moon for several months. 2008 was a big year for Essex, with the stage debut of his jukebox musical All the fun of the Fair, based on his back catalogue. It had a West End run two years later. In 2013 he starred in and wrote the score for Traveller, a film in which his real-life son Billy Cook played a half-gypsy searching for his true identity. Now aged 73, Essex still has that boyish smile that charmed so many in the 70s and beyond. Rock on.

The Info

Written by

David Essex

Producer

Jeff Wayne

Weeks at number 1

3 (4-24 October)

Trivia

Births

5 October: Actress Kate Winslet
9 October: Actor Joe McFadden

Deaths

22 October: Historian Arnold J Toynbee

Meanwhile…

9 October: The IRA strike again. An explosion outside Green Park tube station near Piccadilly in London kills one person and injures 20.

13 October: Motorcycle producer Norton Villers in Wolverhampton closes down due to bankruptcy. 

23 October: Another IRA bomb, this time intended for Conservative MP Sir Hugh Fraser, kills oncologist Gordon Hamilton Fairley.

377. Rod Stewart – Sailing (1975)

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The Intro

1975 was a pivotal year for Rod Stewart. He switched labels, left the UK, released this, his most popular of six number 1s, and lost his bandmates when Faces split. He became a superstar and lost credibility at the same time.

Before

Such was Stewart’s popularity when his previous chart-topper, You Wear It Well was released in 1972, his uncredited appearance on Python Jackson’s In a Broken Dream soared to number three. The album Never a Dull Moment spawned number four hit What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me). In 1973, Faces recorded their final album Ooh La La. It wasn’t supposed to be, but tensions made it so. Stewart didn’t turn up for the first few weeks of recording, then complained the songs were in the wrong key, leaving the band to re-record them. The title track, a classic, was made three times before Stewart eventually passed vocal duties on to guitarist Ronnie Wood.

In the meantime, Stewart’s solo career was still holding firm, with a medley of Farewell/Bring It On Home to Me/You Send Me reaching seven in 1974. I also have to mention the best song title I’ve seen in a while, also from that year – You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings. This was the final single by Rod Stewart and Faces. Note that billing. Either the record label knew the singer now had more pulling power, or he insisted on it himself.

In 1975, Stewart left Mercury Records and signed with Warner Bros. and decided to leave England with his girlfriend Britt Ekland for Los Angeles, in order to avoid paying 83% tax on his earnings. With a bigger budget, Stewart ditched his colleagues to work with famous producer Tom Dowd and the legendary Muscle Shoals musicians in Alabama. Cleverly, the LP was named Atlantic Crossing. On Ekland’s suggestion, the album was sequenced to have a slow side and a fast side.

It’s likely that Stewart may have suggested he cover Sailing to tie in with the theme of travelling to a new country. The fact it’s a cover was a surprise to me, and it’s original meaning wasn’t so literal either. It was written by Gavin Sutherland, one half of folk duo The Sutherland Brothers. It was released as a single in July 1972, and was a more haunting affair than the better-known cover. Featuring Gavin on bass drum and Iain on harmonium, it was intended as representing one man’s Celtic spiritual journey to freedom. Deep. If you like the gist of Sailing but find Stewart’s too overblown, it’s worth a try. Stewart became aware of The Sutherland Brothers the year their single came out and apparently they even co-wrote two songs with him intended for Atlantic Crossing but they never saw the light of day.

Stewart, despite his confidence, always needed a drink or two back then to record his vocals. So he was in for a shock when Dowd rang his hotel room at 10am telling him the backing track was ready so he had to go sing it ASAP. And so he found himself recording, stone-cold sober, at an ungodly hour for any musician, for the first time. And in front of world-famous musicians, to boot. But he loosened up enough to get it in six or seven takes, he later recalled. The choir were put together by Bob Crewe, a writer and producer for The Four Seasons.

Review

Sailing seems to be a song you either love or hate. As he moved into the big league, Stewart ditched the folk sound and the lyrical talent displayed on previous number 1s Maggie May and You Wear It Well. He used to have a great way of making the characters in his songs relatable and more human than your average songwriter. From here on in, he started to become mainly interested in covering other people’s material and showing off his famously gravelly voice. I may perhaps be over-generalising though, as The Killing of Georgie (Parts I and II) was still a year away.

As for me, I neither love nor hate it. It’s inferior to the songs I’ve just mentioned, and yes it’s overlong and overblown, but there was far worse to come. Nice guitar sound during the solo too. Perhaps you had to be there at the time to really feel it an overfamiliar dirge. And with four weeks at number 1, followed by almost repeating the feat a year later when it was used as the theme tune to Sailor, a BBC One documentary series on the Ark Royal, it was certainly a familiar song back then.

After

Sailing has sold over a million and became one of Stewart’s signature songs. Two videos were made. The first, from 1975, also starred Ekland, and the second, in which he dons a sailor outfit and looks all wistful at New York, was made in 1978 and became one of the first videos to be shown on MTV. You can see it above. It became a popular tune during the Falklands conflict, and was re-released in 1987 to raise money for charity following the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster. Whichever version you prefer, you cannot argue that it was Stewart who made it the anthem it’s known as to this day.

The Info

Written by

Gavin Sutherland

Producer

Tom Dowd

Weeks at number 1

4 (6 September-3 October)

Trivia

Births

18 September: Football player Richard Appleby
23 September: Radio DJ Chris Hawkins
25 September: Presenter Declan Donnelly

Deaths

10 September: Nobel Prize laureate George Paget Thomson

Meanwhile…

19 September: John Cleese’s classic sitcom Fawlty Towers debuted on BBC Two.

24 September: Douglas Haston and Doug Scott became the first British people to climb Mount Everest.

27 September: York’s National Railway Museum became the first national museum outside London.

28 September–3 October – The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people are taken as hostages at the Spaghetti House restaurant , takes place in London.

375. Typically Tropical – Barbados (1975)

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The Intro

Here’s a number 1 that is very 1975. Typically Tropical’s Barbados combines two of the decade’s crazes in the UK – the package holiday, and political incorrectness – earning itself the status of a summer smash. Holidays overseas were getting ever cheaper, resulting in songs like Y Viva Espana by Sylvia Vrethammar becoming huge, and controversial sitcom Love Thy Neighbour, about a black couple moving next door to a racist, was an ITV mainstay.

Before

Typically Tropical were two Welsh audio engineers, Jeff Calvert and Max West, who worked at Morgan Studios. Based in Willesden Green, London, Morgan was used by some of the biggest stars of the 70s, including Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd. In 1974 Calvert had returned from a holiday in Jamaica, and felt inspired. He and Hughes penned Barbados in two hours, sitting down with a piano and a guitar before heading to Morgan to put a demo together. On the strength of that demo they signed a three-single deal with Gull Records, and Barbados was to be the first.

Now known as Typically Tropical, they recorded a proper version, and used a fine roll call of session musicians, including guitarists Chris Spedding and Vic Flick, legendary drummer Clem Cattini (been a while since we’ve heard of him) and Blue Mink’s Max West and Roger Coulam on keyboards.

Review

Oh dear. If you’re equipped with the knowledge that the men behind this are two white Welshmen pretending to be black, it makes it pretty hard to stomach. Talk about racial stereotyping… the intro begins with ‘Captain Tobias Willcock welcoming you aboard Coconut Airways Flight 372’… The song is sung from the point of view of a Brixton bus driver who can’t wait to be back on the island, reunited with his girlfriend ‘Mary Jane’. It’s a joke about ganja, get it? You know, because he’s black? Awful.

What can I say in its favour? Well it’s a decent tune, so much so, it went to number 1 again when the Dutch Eurodance outfit Vengaboys reworked it into We’re Going to Ibiza! in 1999. I expect you’re more likely to hear that than Barbados on the radio anymore as it’s more PC, and that’s certainly fair enough. If it wasn’t for the stereotyping, I’d actually prefer Barbados, as I couldn’t stand the Vengaboys at the time.

After

On the strength of reaching number 1, Typically Tropical made the album Barbados Sky. Two singles came from it, Rocket Now and Everybody Plays the Fool but they failed to chart. They also released songs as Captain Zero, Calvert & West and Black Rod between 1975 and 1979, but they sank too. They did however score a hit when they wrote Sarah Brightman’s I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper in 1978.

The Info

Written & produced by

Jeffrey Calvert & Max West

Weeks at number 1

1 (9-15 August)

Meanwhile…

14 August: Hampstead entered the UK weather records with the highest 155-min total rainfall at 169mm.

15 August: Olive Smelt, a 46-year-old woman from Halifax, is severely injured in a hammer attack in an alleyway.

374. Bay City Rollers – Give a Little Love (1975)

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The Intro

In the summer of 75, Bay City Rollers were the biggest band in the UK. Their cover of The Four Seasons’ Bye Bye Baby had become the biggest seller of the year, they had their own ITV series, Shang-a-Lang, and ‘Rollermania’ was considered the new ‘Beatlemania’. There was one more number 1 to come.

Before

Give a Little Love was penned by Johnny Goodison and Phil Wainman. Goodison had been a member of The Brotherhood of Man’s original line-up in 1969 until 1971, and Wainman was a former colleague of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, producing many of their hits including The Sweet’s number 1 Block Buster !. They conjured up an anthem for their loyal fans to hold their tartan scarfs aloft and sway away to.

Review

By starting Give a Little Love with ‘It’s a teenage dream to be 17/And to find you’re all wrapped up in lo-o-ove’, Goodison and Wainman are ensuring every adoring teenage girl feels like singer Les McKeown is speaking directly to them about their love of the Rollers. The whole song is a love letter to the fans and I can imagine tears being shed to this one at live shows. It’s OK as far as this sort of thing goes, but it goes on a bit, and the single version is strangely missing the strings that were included in the album version – did this get rush-released to capitalise on Bye Bye Baby?

After

Bay City Rollers capped off the end of their peak year with the album Wouldn’t You Like It?, featuring the superior string-laden version of this single, and non-album track Love Me Like I Love You climbed to four. With the UK theirs, they next looked to repeat their fame in the US with the help of Clive Davis, head of Arista. It paid off in early 1976 when Saturday Night, a UK single from 1973, reached 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, the pressures of megastardom took their toll on bassist Alan Longmuir, one of the original members of the band. He was replaced by 17-year-old Ian Mitchell from Northern Ireland, the first non-Scottish member. Money Honey and a cover of Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want to Be with You were huge hits in the UK, peaking at three and four respectively.

From 1977, the fortunes of the Rollers faded. It’s a Game reached 16, but You Made Me Believe in Magic only just scraped into the UK top 40, and it was their last single to do so here and in the US. Mitchell quit and was replaced by Pat McGlynn, and there were arguments over the band’s future direction. They worked with Harry Maslin, a producer for David Bowie, but it didn’t work out.

At the end of 1978, McKeown quit and manager Tam Paton was fired. They decided to become a new wave band, and became simply the Rollers. South African Duncan Faure became the new singer. But they couldn’t come close to the fame they had in the mid-70s, and called it a day in 1981. In 1982 Paton was convicted of gross indecency with two teenage boys aged 16 and 17.

The inevitable reunions with shifting line-ups soon began and continued throughout the 80s and 90s. 1999 saw the classic line-up of McKeown, Alan Longmuir (Derek declined), Stuart ‘Woody’ Wood and Eric Faulkner performed on the final New Year’s Eve of the millennium outside Edinburgh Castle. Paton found himself in the news several times in the last few years of his life as further allegations of his predatory past came to light. He was arrested for child sexual abuse charges in 2003 but they were later dropped, and he was also accused of trying to rape McGlynn in a hotel room in 1977, but it was decided there was insufficient evidence. Original singer Gordon ‘Nobby’ Clark claimed in 2016 that Paton had urged the band to have sex with paedophile Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning. Paton died in 2009 of a suspected heart attack.

In 2007 the ‘classic’ line-up of the group plus Faure announced a lawsuit against Arista for ‘tens of millions’ in unpaid royalties. But their move was delayed by a 2010 lawsuit by Clark, Mitchell and McGlynn against the band. It took until 2016 for the original case to be decided, with an out-of-court settlement in which parent company Sony Music awarded each member £70,000.

The latest incarnation of the Bay City Rollers began in 2018, and includes Wood. Alan Longmuir died in 2018 after falling ill while on holiday in Mexico, and Mitchell died in 2020 from throat cancer. McKeown died of a cardiac arrest in 2021, aged 65.

The Outro

In 2023, ITV broadcast the documentary Secrets of the Bay City Rollers. DJ Nicky Campbell, who was himself abused as a child, highlighted the shocking abuse members of the band suffered at the hands of Paton.

The Info

Written & produced by

Johnny Goodison & Phil Wainman

Weeks at number 1

3 (19 July-8 August)

Births

30 July: Artist Graham Nicholls
31 July: Radio DJ Stephanie Hirst

Deaths

7 August: Labour MP Jim Griffiths

Meanwhile…

19 July: Hatton Cross tube station was opened, completing the first phase of the extension of the London Underground’s Piccadilly line to Heathrow Airport.

1 August: The Government’s anti-inflation policy came into full effect. During the year, inflation reached 24.2% – the second-highest recorded level since records began in 1750, and the highest since 1800.

373. Johnny Nash – Tears on My Pillow (I Can’t Take It) (1975)

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The Intro

US reggae singer-songwriter Johnny Nash is best known for the uplifting and inspirational I Can See Clearly Now, but he only scored one number one, and it’s this lesser-known track, which isn’t the Tears on My Pillow that immediately springs to mind.

Before

John Lester Nash Jr was born 19 August 1940 in Houston, Texas. This shy boy sang in the choir at Progressive New Hope Baptist Church in South Central Houston. Aged 13 he was working as a golf caddy, and he impressed retired businessman Frank Stockton with his singing so much, he arranged an audition for a local TV show. Nash went down so well, he made regular appearances for three years, and was earning more than his father.

In 1956, aged 16, Nash was signed with ABC-Paramount and released his first single, the self-explanatory A Teenager Sings the Blues. It made little impact but he did chart in the US with a cover of Doris Day’s A Very Special Love. His eponymous LP was released in 1958 and a year later he made his film debut in the adaptation of Take a Giant Step.

In these early years, his label marketed him as a rival to Johnny Mathis. He mostly ignored rock’n’roll, and crooned ballads on several labels, to little success. By the 60s, he was looking decidedly old-fashioned.

Nash’s career picked up when he and manager and business partner Danny Sims moved to Jamaica in 1965. Sims opened a new music publishing business, Cayman Music. A year or so later, Nash went to a Rastafarian party where a little-known group called Bob Marley & The Wailing Wailers were performing. Nash was awestruck and got to know Marley, his wife Rita, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, and got them signed to Cayman Music.

Jamaica transformed and rejuvenated Nash’s career. He, Sims and Arthur Jenkins formed JAD Records and released rocksteady single Hold Me Tight in 1968, and it was a big hit, reaching five in the US and UK. Follow-up You Got Soul reached six, and so did Cupid in 1969.

By the time I Can See Clearly Now came along in 1972, JAD Records was no more and Nash was signed with Epic. It was a number 1 in the US but somehow stalled at five on these shores, which is surprising, such is its enduring appeal. When Nash died a few weeks ago, this classic had top billing in his obituaries. The album it came from, with the same name, had four songs by Marley, one of which, Stir It Up, had also been a hit and is better known in its version by The Wailers. Third single There Are More Questions Than Answers climbed to number nine, and was later used on a regular round of A Question of Sport in the 80s when I would watch it with my dad, despite having next to no interest in sport.

But I digress. As Marley came into his own and superstardom beckoned, Nash was doing the opposite. In 1974 he decided to move back to Houston to live a quiet life on a ranch with his new, third wife, Carlie Collins. Which makes the success of Tears on My Pillow (I Can’t Take It) all the more surprising. It was a cover of reggae artist Ernie Smith’s I Can’t Take It, and the renaming caused Smith to miss out on initial royalties. Was it renamed to lead people into thinking it was a cover of the Little Anthony and the Imperials classic from 1958? Perhaps. It doesn’t help that the chorus contains the lines ‘Tears on my pillow/And pain in my heart”.

Review

It’s baffling to me how this overtook I’m Not in Love as number 1 – though there’s some continuity considering that contained the famous ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’ line. It’s a nice enough dose of light reggae, but there’s nothing to make it stand out really. Also, it’s a bit too upbeat to make you believe Nash is hurting. I like the initial move from the intro into the reggae rhythm, but then it doesn’t do enough to keep me interested. The spoken word section is poor, but Nash is in fine voice otherwise. I Can See Clearly Now is a much better track, so why did this do so well at the time? It’s a strange one. Nash hadn’t had a hit in three years, so there was no momentum there, other than there was a market for reggae-pop tunes, as the superior Everything I Own had been number 1 a year previous.

After

In 1976 Nash had a number 25 hit with a cover of Sam Cooke’s (What a) Wonderful World and then seemed to decide on planned obsolescence, releasing a couple more singles before dropping off the radar. He concentrated on family life and helping local causes. There was a brief resurgence in 1986 with the album Here Again, but then he vanished again. In 1993 he set up the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena in Houston and helped poor youngsters to have riding lessons they couldn’t afford otherwise. Nash died of natural causes on 6 October 2020, aged 80.

The Info

Written by

Ernie Smith

Producers

Johnny Nash & Ken Khouri

Weeks at number 1

1 (12-18 July)

Trivia

Births

12 July: Actress Hannah Waterman
15 July: Actress Jill Halfpenny
17 July: TV presenter Konnie Huq

372. 10 cc – I’m Not in Love (1975)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

With a thud resembling a human heartbeat it begins, and then the ethereal, icy voices float in around a warm, liquid electric piano line, enveloping the listener in a never-before-heard aural ecstasy. I’m Not in Love is not only 10 cc’s best number 1, it is their masterpiece, and one of the greatest chart-toppers of the 70s.

Before

Following the success of Rubber Bullets in 1973, the Mancunian quartet proved they weren’t a flash in the pan when The Dean and I reached 10 in the hit parade. Joined by second drummer Paul Burgess, they embarked on a UK tour before returning to Strawberry Studios to work on second album Sheet Music. Released in 1974, it featured the singles The Wall Street Shuffle (another number 10 hit) and Silly Love (24). Sheet Music helped the band make inroads in the US.

However, 10 cc were struggling financially. They were still signed to Jonathan King’s UK Records and haemorrhaging money due to a meagre royalty rate, so they needed a bigger label. Fortunately, they had a song that would blow the minds of record company executives.

I’m Not in Love was written in 1974 and stemmed from Eric Stewart’s wife Gloria complaining that he didn’t say ‘I love you’ to her enough. So he went away and tried to think of a clever way of saying it without making it explicit. A very 10 cc thing to do. The lyric about the picture on the wall hiding a ‘nasty stain’ refers to a photo of Gloria that he had used in his bedroom at his parents’ house

He wrote most of the melody and lyrics on the guitar, and asked Graham Gouldman to help him finish it in the studio. Gouldman suggested some different chords for the melody and came up with an intro and bridge. After two or three days they had a bossa nova guitar-led version to present to the other band members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. All four worked on recording the first version, with Creme on guitar, Gouldman on bass and Godley on drums. Stewart later recalled Godley and Creme didn’t like it, particularly Godley, who said ‘It’s crap.’ Stewart was taken aback and asked for something constructive to work with, and Godley told him to ‘chuck it’. So the original demo was wiped, which is a shame as it wold be fascinating to hear how the song developed.

Stewart and Gouldman instead helped Godley and Creme with Une Nuit a Paris, but Stewart noticed staff at Strawberry Studios were singing the melody to I’m Not in Love, and suggested they try again. Godley remained sceptical. He and Creme were considered the more ‘arty’ of the band, while Stewart and Gouldman came from a more ‘pop’ angle. Godley relented on the condition they ‘totally fuck it up’ and not use instruments, relying on voices instead. I’m Not in Love was back on.

Am acoustic guitar guide track was recorded first in order to help with the melody, but they then concentrated on creating a wall of vocal sound. Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing ‘ahhhh’ 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, creating a ‘choir’ of 48 voices for each note. To keep the voices running through the track, Creme suggested tape loops, having become obsessed with them since Revolution 9 from The Beatles. Stewart created 12 , each 12 inches long, to play through separate channels of the mixing desk.

Godley backed down on the ‘no instrument’ rule, but they were kept minimal. Stewart played the electric piano, Gouldman used an electric guitar for the rhythm melody and Godley borrowed Creme’s Moog synthesiser for the heartbeat drum sound. For the bridge and middle eight, Creme played the piano and replicated some lyrics that were rightly omitted: ‘Don’t feel let down. Don’t get hung up. We do what we can – do what we must.’ Gouldman added a nice touch of bass, and a toy box was double-tracked out of phase for the middle eight and fade-out.

It’s interesting to note that after spending so much time on the production, they decided Stewart’s guide vocal couldn’t be improved on. It was so heartfelt they kept it in. Godley and Creme recorded the backing vocals. That haunting keyboard that comes in when Stewart sings ‘It’s just a silly phase I’m going through’? It’s not, apparently a keyboard, but a chorus of treated kazoos.

The recording was just about finished, but Godley felt it was lacking something. Creme remembered when testing the grand piano mics that he, apropos of nothing, said ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’. Stewart soloed the line, and they felt they had something, but not the right voice. While considering this, their secretary Kathy Redfern entered the studio and whispered ‘Eric, sorry to bother you. There’s a telephone call for you.’. Creme jumped up and said she had the perfect voice. It took some coaxing but Redfern put down the famous whisper, and I’m Not in Love was complete.

Review

A common criticism of 10 cc is that, while they were clearly uncommonly stuffed with talent and brimming with ideas, their songs lacked heart and soul. You can’t say that here. I’m Not in Love was one of the most beautifully intelligent songs yet to top the charts, and a fascinating glimpse into the male psyche. Here, Stewart is steadfastly refusing to acknowledge his feelings, but he can’t stop the tide of emotion he feels. He may claim it’s a ‘silly phase’ but he doth protest too much, to the extent of being arrogant and cold. ‘Don’t think you’ve got it made’ is a pretty cocky way of making his point and telling the muse not to tell her friends suggests he’s ashamed of loving her.

Try as he might though, he can’t stem the tide of emotion, represented by the gorgeous sound of the celestial choir, a million voices telling him ‘don’t fight it, feel it’. Just at the point it sounds like it will completely overcome him, he comes up with another comeback, but the voices remain, and will always return. The ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’ section is inspired, and it seems too good to be true that it was a happy accident. Or maybe Creme subconsciously said it because that is the very essence of the song? This man is unable to reveal his true feelings, be they love or hurt, because he was told as a child to ‘man up’. And a lifetime of thinking like that is doing him harm. When he sings ‘You’ll wait a long time for me’, it’s through gritted teeth.

Production-wise, I’m Not in Love is light years ahead of most if not all other number 1s from 1975. A lush mix of prog-rock and pop with far-out effects, but yet very commercial at the same time. Godley and Creme did a great job of fucking it up, and the use of the choir is so good it sends shivers down my spine, but at the heart of I’m Not in Love is a great pop song, with a beautiful performance from Stewart.

After

10 cc’s manager Ric Dixon invited Nigel Grainge, head of A&R at Mercury Records to Strawberry to hear the track and he was blown away. With the rest of the album The Original Soundtrack in the can, they signed with the label for a million dollars. This infuriated Creme – as far as he was concerned, 10 cc were about to join Richard Branson’s fledgling Virgin label, but he and brother-in-law Stewart were on holiday with their wives.

10 cc released Life Is a Minestone as a preview of their forthcoming LP The Original Soundtrack and it reached seven. 10 cc knew they had a great song to follow it, but at six minutes-plus, how was I’m Not in Love going to fare as a single? Stewart refused to edit it at first, but backed down and they made a four-minute version for the radio. I’d advise not bothering with the edit. It’s pretty clumsy. Fortunately, it began selling well, so well in fact, public demand meant the full version began to be played instead.

The Outro

Not only were the band vindicated when it spent a fortnight at number 1 in the UK, it also went to two in the US. A year later Godley was telling the NME that I’m Not in Love was his favourite 10 cc song, a far cry from the ‘crap’ judgement he originally had. By the time 10 cc had their third and final number 1, he and Creme were no longer members of the group.

The Info

Written by

Eric Stewart & Graham Gouldman

Producers

10 cc

Weeks at number 1

2 (28 June-11 July)

Trivia

Deaths

2 July: Actor James Robertson Justice

Meanwhile…

30 June: UEFA reduces Leeds United’s ban from European competitions to one season on appeal.

5 July: 36-year-old Ann Rogulskyj from Keighley, West Yorkshire is badly injured in a hammer attack in an alleyway.

369. Mud – Oh Boy (1975)

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The Intro

Mud were always too in thrall with the 50s, and clowning around far too much, to go down in history as glam rock lynchpins, which is a shame as Tiger Feet is one of my favourite number 1s of the 70s, and Lonely This Christmas is one of the more memorable festive number 1s. But this third and final number 1 shows how stale they, and the movement that made them famous, was becoming.

Before

Fresh from the success of their Christmas number 1, Mud tried to gain a Valentine’s Day chart-topper with The Secrets That You Keep. They nearly managed it too, reaching three. Their next single was a cover of Oh Boy! by The Crickets, which had reached three in 1958 and came from their debut album The ‘Chirping’ Crickets. Meaning Chinnichap were only involved with production this time around, and soon, their partnership with the band was over.

Review

I can’t work out why Chapman and Chinn, who had proven time and time again how to get the best out of pop for several years by this point, chose to suck this rock’n’roll classic of all its energy and turn it into a stately stadium rock-style stompalong. It does the song and Mud a disservice, and although smothering the production with harmonies perhaps masks its weakness to an extent, it also means there’s barely any sign of singer Les Gray. In the original, Buddy Holly puts across brilliantly the excitement of waiting to meet a lover that night. You get none of that feeling here.

There’s also a strange section where a mystery woman sings too, which is even weirder when you watch it being performed in the video above. If you don’t, Mud briefly pretend to hang a cleaner who mimes this part…

After

Further Mud releases came thick and fast throughout 1975, but the band parted ways with Chinnichap and they left RAK. Moonshine Sally, L-L-Lucy and Show Me You’re a Woman all went top 10, and they were briefly joined by keyboardist Andy Ball. They also appeared in a bizarre musical comedy called Never Too Young to Rock. In 1976 they moved away from glam, and the number 12 hit Shake It Down was a decent stab at disco. A cover of Bill Withers’ classic Lean on Me was their final hit, reaching seven that December. That year, Gray was part of the Green Cross Code public information campaign Children’s Heroes.

By 1978 they were signed to RCA Records, and Brian Tatum had joined as keyboardist, but Gray decided to try a solo career and quit. Mud tried to carry on, and hired Margo Buchanan as their new singer, but they couldn’t recapture the spark, and they split in 1979. The original incarnation of the band performed one final time, at drummer Dave Mount’s wedding, in 1990.

In 1980 Gray began a new incarnation, dubbed Les Gray’s Mud, that he toured with in various incarnations for the rest of his life. While fighting throat cancer, he died in the Algarve, Portugal in 2004. Les Gray’s Mud continued as Mud II with the rest of the original band’s blessing. Mount died in 2006. Bassist Ray Stiles joined The Hollies in 1986 and is still with them now. Guitarist Rob Davis, known for dressing up as a woman on stage, had the most prominent career post-Mud. Following a chance meeting with dance producer Paul Oakenfold in the late-80s, he began writing lyrics to club tunes. In 2000 he had two number 1 smashes – Toca’s Miracle by Fragma and then Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) by Spiller. Most famously, he co-wrote Kylie Minogue’s classic Can’t Get You Out of My Head with Cathy Dennis in 2001.

The Outro

Oh Boy was, I think, Chinnichap’s last number 1, after several years of chart domination.

The Info

Written by

Sonny West, Bill Tighman & Norman Petty

Producers

Mike Chapman & Nicky Chinn

Weeks at number 1

2 (3-16 May)

Meanwhile…

3 May: West Ham United won the FA Cup for the second time, by beating Fulham 2-0 in the final at Wembley Stadium. Alan Taylor scored both goals.