Here’s a western ghost town instrumental version of what later became known as “My True Love.” I found this on the now out-of-print Shakedown compilation, tacked on as a hidden track at the end of Disc 1’s “The Chase.”
Bobby Fuller – “My True Love (early version)”
Presented here in its ultimate version, this tiki lounge number pops up a few times in the first season of Hawaii Five-0. The problem is that those who sing it eventually end up in serious trouble, if not dead.
Don Ho – “It Ain’t No Big Thing”
Rare little beauty written by Paul McCartney. This 45 is apparently John Christie’s only release and also the only thing I know about him.
Update (12/06/10): My “only release” pronouncement has been mercifully disproven by Herman Hamerpagt (see comments below). Christie, who was a discovery of Dave Clark (of the Dave Clark 5) actually put out an album called Relax in ’74 and had a hand in Clark’s ’80s musical Time. A record hunter’s work is never done.
John Christie – “4th of July” (1974)
It peaked nationally at #43, but back home in Salt Lake, KCPX-AM used to play this track by Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s daughter – her only charting single – like it was a Top Ten smash. I never understood the appeal of this two-headed, minor chord melodrama and always groaned when it came on. Finally, by the end of the year, the single had run its course, but then along came Aerosmith in November with their own version of it, and my station promptly played it to death, much to my great discomfort (peaked at #67). I checked out a Shangri-Las record from the library a few years later and heard “Remember” in its proper melodramatic context, thereby helping me understand where those two cover versions were coming from, at least. Louise Goffin’s website: louisegoffin.com.
Louise Goffin – “Remember (Walking in the Sand)”
The Dells are one of Chicago’s very finest, best known for “Oh What a Night” and “Stay in My Corner,” two late sixties smash hit updates of songs they’d done earlier (1956 and 1965 respectively). These wondrous doo wop revamps showcased the group’s pleading, seamlessly interchanging vocals and featured hip instrumental arrangements noted for their airy guitars and weeping, shimmering strings (the string arrangements in the best of late-sixties and early-seventies soul: another subject worthy of a book). “Stay in My Corner” is the ultimate Dells song in my opinion, in which they milk all they can out of six emotional and indispensible minutes.
“O-O I Love You,” though, another one of their chart hits – albeit a forgotten one – predates those two songs but at once serves as 1) a preview of the highly-charged, emotionally drawn-out direction they were headed and 2) an assurance that they were still able to pack an emotional wallop into three standard pop song minutes when they wanted to. The song kicks off with a corny basso recitation by Chuck Barksdale, making us hair-trigger types think we’ve got the whole song all figured out (“the pen writes and, uh, words are born”). But then lead tenor Johnny Carter takes over and we start to melt. After which we’re completely blown off our seats by the aching, majestic bridge. Then comes a burst of fireworks from lead baritone Marvin Junior, a final recitation by Barksdale, who now sounds completely seductive, and even more dueling fireworks for the glorious finale, courtesy of Junior and Carter. Fade into stunned silence.
The Dells – “O-O I Love You” (1967)
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) sponsored this “Norwegian sing-a-long” special along with many other Nordic delights that perhaps await you now at your nearest Salvation Army. (The Standard-Colonial label actually issued a whole bevy of “World of Music” LPs – not just Scandinavian – but I haven’t been able to verify if they were all sponsored by airlines.) The title of the selection below translates to (I think) “You Get Candy,” and it’s guaranteed to cheer you up under any circumstance.
Walter Eriksson and Andrew Walter’s Orchestra – “Du Ska Fa Sukkertoy”
The most scorned radio hits of the mid-seventies tend to bring back some of my happiest childhood memories of kite flying, splashing around in wading pools, and frisbee in the park. Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun” is one of those. But here’s the curious B-side in case you missed it back then. A potential “Boneyard Media” theme song? Thanks(?) to Janet for bringing this back to memory.
Terry Jacks – “Put the Bone In”
Medleymania was essentially nostalgia-based, so I think we’d be pretty safe to chalk it all up (in the US, at least) to the media-generated “new morning in America” mentality that the Reagan speechwriting team cultivated like plastic flower bouquets. Capitol records was first to answer the Stars on 45 smash with a hasty, patchwork Beach Boys medley which hit #12 the same year and has never been released on CD.
A quick chart rundown of Medleymania as I remember it, which means I’m probably forgetting some entries. But the big ones are all here (dates refer to first chart appearance):
Stars on 45 – “Medley” (4/11/81, #1)
Stars on 45 – “Medley II” (more Beatles) (7/18/81, #67)
Beach Boys – “Beach Boys Medley” (7/25/81, #12)
Stars on 45 – “More Stars” (60s hits) (9/26/81, #55)
Louis Clark Conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – “Hooked on Classics” (10/31/81, #10)
Meco – “Pop Goes the Movies (Part I)” (2/13/82, #35)
The Beatles – “The Beatles Movie Medley” (3/27/82, #12)
Stars on (A Tribute to Stevie Wonder) (sic) – “Stars on 45 III” (3/27/82, #28)
Larry Elgart and His Manhattan Swing Orchestra – “Hooked on Swing” (6/5/82, #31)
The Beach Boys – “Beach Boys Medley”
Thoughts of the early ’80s and the Beatles have led me to this inescapable checkpoint: the Stars on 45 medley that absolutely owned the US airwaves (a Billboard #1 hit) during the summer of ’81 and which most of us had completely forgotten by the end of the year. It was the slick product of a gang of Dutch session players doing dead-on impersonations against a disco/handclap backdrop. Other aspects of this single were clear as mud, especially the song choices: “Beat the Clock” (Sparks), a “Stars on 45” disco theme inspired by “Stayin’ Alive” (Bee Gees), “Venus” (Shocking Blue), “Sugar Sugar” (The Archies), “No Reply” (Beatles, along with the next 8), “I’ll Be Back,” “Drive My Car,” “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” “We Can Work it Out,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “Nowhere Man,” “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” and closing with a reprise of the “Stars on 45” disco theme.
It’s a favorite game of mine, the attempt to ascertain what psychological aspects of society demand that certain songs become hits, but this one’s not so tough – it was a well-timed beneficiary of US Beatle nostalgia just a handful of months after Lennon’s murder in December ’80 (it entered the Billboard charts early the following April). I think it’s the only way a song with a blatant opening disco chant in a very acutely disco-hungover era could have gotten any significant airplay. (The actual disco sound, of course, never really went away, but flaunting the passé word “disco” certainly did.) But in retrospect, this song ultimately had less to do with Beatlemania and more to do with Medleymania, which kicked in in a big way because of it. More tomorrow.
In the American chart listings, by the way, every song in the Stars on 45 medley was listed as part of the title, making this the wordiest chart entry in Billboard history. But the short snippet of Sparks’ “Beat the Clock” at the beginning was never included among the titles. I wonder what the story is there.
During my three years in junior high school in Salt Lake City (1981-1984), they marched all students into the auditorium one time each year to watch a 45 minute pop music show. I’ll bet all junior high schoolers in the area during those years saw the same three assemblies/shows, each of which featured a brief “don’t do drugs” or “don’t drop out” message. The shows were:
1 – A rock group of frizzy-haired characters called “Freedom Jam.” They dressed in Revolutionary War suits like Paul Revere and the Raiders and played a whole bunch of covers, mostly from REO Speedwagon’s Hi Infidelity album. Their keyboardist, who looked like a member of the Bus Boys, would bend over impossibly far to the side when it was time for a solo. At least half the school behaved as though this were a real rock show, leaping out of chairs and high-clapping.
2 – A guy and girl duo with British accents. The guy stood behind a synth console and occasionally picked up an electric guitar after he got the loops going. The girl sang and skank-danced and reminded me of one of the female Jetsons. The only songs I remember them doing are “Tainted Love” and “I Love Rock and Roll.”
3 – A one man band synthesizer/karaoke guy also with a British accent. He may well have been one half of the duo from above. He had a microphone headset and regularly stepped away from the console and gesticulated along with the lyrics he sang. The only song I remember is “I Don’t Like Mondays.” He spent quite some time on the song’s back story, telling us about the girl who went on a Monday shooting spree, which now strikes me as strange. And I’ve never been able to hear that song since then without thinking of him in his headset, fluttering his fingers in the air to the Telex machine inside his head.
(Not posted, because the song’s on my don’t-mind-if-I-never-hear-again list.)