April 24 – Corporation Paid Dividends For St. Clair

We remember Bernard St. Clair Lee today on the 80^th anniversary of his birth. Not exactly a household name, but he was a part of a group that was, briefly at least, the Hues Corporation. And being a part of that corporation began to pay dividends 50 years ago.

Lee was from California as was the group (which was Santa Monica-based) and assumed he was Black; however he found that he was also part Native Indian – originally from Canada – which was when he began wearing a Native-style headband as his personal trademark. Another surprise about his childhood was that his parents wanted him called “Sinclair”, the hospital transcribed it wrong on his birth certificate, hence “St. Clair”.

He became a member of a four-person singing group in the ’60s that billed themselves as Brothers & Sisters. They then changed the name to The Children of Howard Hughes, but when RCA signed them, they didn’t like that name so it became The Hues Corporation and the group was a trio men and female singer Ann Kelley. Initially they were a sort of lounge act that worked mainly in Palm Springs and Las Vegas, at times opening for Milton Berle and even Frank Sinatra! However, at some point they branched out. They did the score for the movie Blacula and soon after hooked up with RCA and decided to begin working on songs of their own.

The initial result was the 1973 album Freedom for the Stallion, a mix of dance and soul music. RCA must have believed in their potential a great deal since they brought in some of L.A.’s best session musicians including guitarist Larry Carlton and drummers Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon to make the music the Corporation sang to. The title track was a modest – very modest – hit but it was the second single that made the Hues Corporation turn a profit – 1974‘s “Rock the Boat”.

The song didn’t take off like a speedboat mind you. At first the reaction was muted to it. However, they remixed it to make it a tad more bass-y and perhaps a little more danceable and it took off on the disco floors across the continent. “You could cuddle (to it) or you could go crazy if you wanted to,” said Lee “it was a love song without being a love song. But it was a disco hit and it happened because of the discos.” Indeed, once it was a dance floor fave from New York to L.A., it soon took off on radio too.

The trio should have written a love song perhaps for Wally Holmes too. Holmes was a trumpeter who’d once been in their first incarnation but had quit and become a teacher. However, he and St. Clair still hung out and surfed together and he wrote this song and several others on Freedom for the Stallion, and added the trumpet parts himself to boot.

“Rock The Boat” was a massive hit, hitting #1 in the U.S. that summer , and in Canada where it was among the year-end top 10… appropriate given Lee’s heritage, though I doubt many Canucks knew of the connection while they danced to it. It also went top 10 in Britain, most of continental Europe and New Zealand and sold past two million copies.

However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing after that for the Hues Corporation. The follow-up single, “Rockin’ Soul” dented the top 40 but after that they were absent from the hit parade despite putting out five more albums before disbanding in 1980. Lee got two new singers to accompany him and regrouped, touring with the new Hues Corporation on and off until his death from natural causes in 2011.

April 20 – People Were Too Busy Dancing To Say A Lot Of Words

Every big music city at one time seemed to have its own little clique of talented session musicians, who many times knew each other and played together frequently. They’d do the actual music for numerous acts who sang, but didn’t necessarily play instruments … or at least not very well. Perhaps the most famous of those was L.A.’s Wrecking Crew in the ’60s and ’70s, who we’ve talked about a fair bit through the years. There were also the famous “Swampers” in Alabama at the Muscle Shoals studios, and in Motown, the Funk Brothers. Occasionally one of the musicians would go on to stardom in his or her own right – Glen Campbell being a noteworthy example of that – but usually they were pretty anonymous.

Well, Philadelphia had its own loosely-knit group too, and on this day 50 years ago they managed to work on their own and have the #1 song in the U.S. … but they still remained more or less anonymous! People were lovin’ “TSOP” back at this time in 1974. “TSOP” stood for “the Sounds of Philadelphia” and that is what it was indeed. But most would be hard-pressed to name any of the musicians on it, who went by the name MFSB.

MFSB stood for – officially at least “Mother, Father, Sister, Brother”… quite appropriate for the “City of Brotherly Love”. Unofficially, some of the dudes in the group said it meant something more like “mother (something) SOBs”. Either way, they knew how to put down an infectious groove and they’d been the “house band” at Philadelphia Intl. Records since the beginning of the decade. The assorted 30-plus musicians included ones on the album from which it came, like T.J. Tindall on guitars, Earl Young on drums, Anthony Jackson on bass and Kenny Huff (half of the well-respected Gamble & Huff writing and producing team that oversaw most of Philadelphia Intl.’s works at that time) on keyboards. Vocals, sparse as they were, came from another act on the label, the Three Degrees.

The tune originated as the creation of a theme song for the TV show Soul Train. The show and the tune were popular, so Philly decided to lengthen the piece a little and release it as a single. A very smart idea, but the title came about after the TV show refused to allow its name on the record. Originally it was simply going to be “the Theme From Soul Train”. No word on whether Soul Train regretted that a little when the record went to #1 in the States and Canada and #12 Down Under in Australia. It went gold within a couple of weeks of being released and was one of the very first disco chart-toppers. Interestingly, but perhaps not coincidentally, they played the music on the first such #1 song, “Love Train” by the O’Jays. Besides them, they also played on records by other hit artists including Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes, The Trammps, the Spinners, The Stylistics and quite a few more.

MFSB broke up in 1985, several years after some had split away to form their own group, the Salsoul Orchestra.

February 10 – Rod Kept It Mod

Blondes have more fun…especially if they’re rich and can change on a dime in order to fit the times. Or so we’d guess from Rod Stewart, and his biggest-selling solo single, his foray into disco, “Do You Think I’m Sexy?” It hit #1 in the U.S. on this day in 1979 and would stay there for four weeks, until being bumped off the top by Gloria Gaynor and “I Will Survive”.

“Do You Think I’m Sexy?” was the lead, and actually the only noteworthy, single off his ninth solo album, Blondes Have More Fun. Mind you, with a career that was already a decade-strong and a song so universally popular, one single may be all you need per album. Blondes Have More Fun was his second #1 album in the States, fifth in both Canada and Australia, and got to #3 in his own UK. At the time, many balked at the lightweight and dance-driven sound for the one-time hard rockin’ bluesman. Rolling Stone for example, suggested “if blondes have as much fun as Rod Stewart’s new record suggests they do, no wonder they’re exhausted when they stagger into the studio” and make an “album that’s actively disagreeable to listen to.”

Time has treated it somewhat more kindly though; the same magazine more recently included “Do You Think I’m Sexy?” among their 500 greatest songs of all-time. Allmusic consider the album “one of his most enjoyable records, even if the pleasures are guilty,” and call the hit single “one of the best rock-disco fusions”. Indeed, disco was so prevalant in that end of the ’70s that established “rock” acts like Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney had put out disco-tinged records and only a couple of months later, even Kiss would jump on the bandwagon with “I Was Made For Loving You.”

“Do You Think I’m Sexy?” was co-written by the session drummer on the album, Carmine Appice and Duane Higgins. And perhaps Brazilian Jorge Ben Jon. He settled with Rod out of court after suing for plagiarism, thinking the chorus sounded too much like his song “Taj Mahal”. Stewart says he may have been guilty of “subconscious plagiarism” as he’d visited Carnival in Rio De Janeiro the previous year and probably heard Ben Jorge’s song there. Higgins says the hit is not to be taken seriously. “We rock and roll guys thought we were dead meat when (Saturday Night Fever) and the Bee Gees came out,” he remembers, so “Rod in his brilliance decided to do a spoof on disco.”

Spoof or not, people ate it up, as part of his album, as one of the earlier 12” singles and as a normal-for-the-times 7” single. It was the fourth biggest seller of 1979 and Rod the Mod wouldn’t have a song as popular again until he joined in with Bryan Adams and Sting on “All for Love” some 14 years later. Speaking of spoofs, if Rod’s take on it isn’t quite Scottish enough for you, there’s always Mike Myers!

January 7 – People’s Love For Bee Gees Was Pretty Deep As ’70s Drew To Close

They’d had a little success early in the ’70s as an easy-listening, soft rock band. But no one did better from the disco revolution of the middle of that decade than the Bee Gees. The Brit-born, Aussie brothers basically wrote the soundtrack to the tail end of the disco age. They had the #1 song in the U.S. on this day in 1978 – with “How Deep is Your Love?”, which when you think of it isn’t that far removed from their early hits like “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?”, despite being from the ultimate disco record of all-time, Saturday Night Fever. A year later, this day in 1979, they’d once more be sitting at #1, with “Too Much Heaven”. That was the lead single to Spirits Having Flown, their follow-up to the massive movie soundtrack. In between, they’d owned the Billboard charts like few before or since.

With their two huge dance hits from Saturday Night Fever, “Night Fever” and “Stayin’ Alive”, they had four songs holding down the #1 position for 13 weeks from early-’78 to the beginning of January ’79. But wait, there’s more! Throw in the two #1 hits by Andy Gibb (their baby brother) “Love is Thicker Than Water” and “Shadow Dancing”, both primarily written by Barry of the Bee Gees and you have their sound topping the singles chart for 22 weeks out of the year. And let’s not forget the Bee Gees-written and sound-alike “If I Can’t Have You” by Yvonne Elliman and even the title track of the other big soundtrack of the year, Grease. That Frankie Valli song was written by… yep, Barry Gibb and you have the Bee Gees one way or another topping the chart for half of the entire year!

Spirits Having flown (their only #1 non-soundtrack album in Britain, as it turned out) also chipped in with “Tragedy” and “Love You Inside Out”, which hit #1 in early-’79 as well. That gave them single-handedly six #1 hits in just barely over one year, something accomplished before by only Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley and a little British band called The Beatles. At their peak, the Fab Four launched six #1 singles between February 1964 and the end of January ’65 and by the end of 1965, they’d had 10 #1 singles that had been on top for 30 weeks out of the two years. The Bee Gees didn’t quite lob ten to #1 in ’78-79… but they came close. And when you’re talking about being close to the popularity of the Beatles during Beatlemania, you’re doing something right!

Mind you, one thing is certain about being on top. Eventually there is only one way to go… and it’s not up! By the end of the ’70s, the public tastes were changing between the punk-influenced new wave of the likes of Blondie and Joe Jackson and the return of big-time prog rock statements from the likes of Pink Floyd and Supertramp. The Bee Gees quickly fell out of favor and it would be another full decade before they even managed another American top 10 hit with ’89’s “One.” Perhaps when it came to their sound, the public could have too much (Bee Gees) heaven!

January 6 – Van’s Dance Hit Was The Real McCoy

If you have the ambition, drive and some talent, sooner or later you’ll succeed… especially if you hustle a little! Such was the case for Van McCoy, who was born on this day in 1940.

McCoy grew up in Washington, DC, singing in a Baptist Church choir and learning to play piano while young. In high school, he formed a doo-wop group, The Starlighters with his older brother. They actually recorded three singles, one of which, “The Birdland”, named after a dance, became a bit of a regional hit. As you’re probably aware, it wouldn’t be the only time Van would do well with a dance song!

He headed off to university, but dropped out while still in his teens to begin his own record company, Rockin’ Records, in Philadelphia which seemed to have more of an active R&B/soul music scene than the Capital. While Rockin’ never amounted to a whole lot, it did get Van’s foot in the door to the business, and soon he was starting other small record labels, and taken off as a staff songwriter at Scepter Records, which at various times was home to artists including Merrillee Rush, the Kinsgmen and the Isley Brothers. After writing “Stop the Music” for the Shirelles in 1962, he was on a roll – eventually writing (or co-writing) some 700 songs. In the ’60s they included Barbara Lewis hit “Baby I’m Yours” as well as “I Get the Sweetest Feeling” for Jackie Wilson and songs recorded by Gladys Knight & the Pips, Donny Hathaway and others. Along the way, he had a Canadian hit song of his own in ’65 with “Butterfly”; curiously it made #10 there but failed to chart at home! It would seem like Van was all about the music, 24/7; while shopping at a Washington record store he heard Herb Fame – a shopclerk – sing and had the idea of teaming him up with the singer of a girl group on one of his small label’s roster. So came about Peaches & Herb.

As the ’70s started, he signed with Buddah Records and recorded a solo album in ’72, but it did next to nothing. However, he was brought on to help David Ruffin, formerly of the Temptations get his career on the go again and he produced, as well as wrote about half of Ruffin’s Who I Am album, which gave the singer a top 10 hit in “Walk Away From Love”. Around the same time, working in New York, McCoy signed to Avco Records and got together another solo album, Disco, Baby! It was a dance-oriented record of largely instrumental pieces that certainly fit the times. He played piano, sang in places and co-produced the record, bringing in some quality session help including guitarist Hugh McCracken, drummer Steve Gadd and, on the song that would make McCoy famous, picolo-player Phil Bodner. Bodner had played various woodwind instruments on a number of jazz records by the likes of Benny Goodman and Miles Davis.

Although the album contained his take on the Average White Band hit “Pick up the Pieces”, the piece that made it gold was a last-minute addition to the album. “The Hustle” was a popular dance in clubs at the time, and McCoy had seen it packing the dance floors at night while recording by day. He decided to write a song specifically designed to fit the dance and, not surprisingly, called it “The hustle.” In 1975, people were going out to do The Hustle and probably humming along with McCoy’s “The Hustle” while on the way. It became a #1 hit in both the U.S. and Canada, a top 5 in the UK and New Zealand and won him a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental performance.

Although McCoy kept busy after that, and had a couple more minor dance hits such as “Soul Cha Cha”, nothing ever vaulted him back into the spotlight like his one huge hit had. Sadly, his opportunity to regain that stature was cut short. He died of a heart attack in 1979, while just 39 years old.

September 3 – Shiny Auto Chrome Made Solid Gold Music

Is your Duster getting a little dusty? Your Maverick a bit muddy? Well, if it was 1976, you’d know what to do – take it to the Car Wash! If you hadn’t thought of that already, you might have remembered to on this day in that Bicentennial year because the movie Car Wash opened up. It was a comedy probably best described as inoffensive while not remarkably memorable that looked at the funny happenings at an L.A…. well you know, the name tells you… and had a few big names in it, including Richard Pryor as an Evangelist and George Carlin as a taxi driver. The Pointer Sisters made an appearance to, but didn’t sing the hit song from it though – that was Rose Royce. That nine-member group from L.A. got to do the entire 73-minute, double-LP soundtrack, which also came out this week that year.

Rose Royce were a disco act from that city signed by former Motown exec and producer, Norman Whitfield. They had three horn players, a funky bassist in Duke Jobe and a talented singer, Gwen “Rose” Dickey (who sounded not unlike the Pointers). Whitfield wrote a large amount of the album, including the title track, and allegedly wasn’t at all enthusiastic about the job. But he plodded through it because he liked that band, and felt his name was on the line too, since they’d not been much-noticed since he had signed them.

It was a smart move for all concerned. The movie was low-budget, so while not being a smash, turned a small profit of about $12 million, but the soundtrack did well. One song off it, “I Wanna Get Next To You” hit the U.S. top 10, but it’s remembered – as is the band name – for the title track. “Car Wash” was one of the biggest songs, disco or otherwise, of late-’76, hitting #1 in the U.S. (where it went platinum as a single) and Canada, and was top 10 in Britain and New Zealand. That made the album rise to #14 at home, and earn them their first platinum album, as well as a Grammy for Best Soundtrack.

Surprisingly perhaps, Rose Royce has lasted much longer than most of those Pintos or Mavericks! They’re still active, still with Dickey singing, and followed up Car Wash with ten more albums. Most had attracted little attention but its follow-up, In Full Bloom also went platinum in the U.S. Probably beats working in an actual car wash!

 

August 5 – Some Girls…Like To Dance

Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but you can at least get them to put a new spin on the old ones. Or at least you could the Rolling Stones as they forged on well into their second decade. They hit #1 in the U.S. on this day in 1978 with “Miss You.”

It was the first single off their Some Girls album, the first to have Ronnie Wood onboard as a full-time member and guitarist. Despite Keith Richards’ deepening drug problems in that time period, it was seen as one of their most creative albums of the decade and a return to form after a few less-than-brilliant records.

Considering that by then they used Richards and Wood as guitarists and Mick Jagger played some guitar on the single as well, it wasn’t as much a blow-the-walls down rocker as one might have expected. The Stones were taking note of what was going on in the music world and didn’t want to get left behind. It was the height of the disco revolution and old-style rock and roll wasn’t in vogue. So the Stones set out to get with the times… but do so in their own style.

“Miss You” was heavily influenced by going out to the discos,” drummer Charlie Watts confirmed. “you can hear it on the four-to-the floor and the Philadelphia-style drumming.” Keith Richards says it “was a damn good disco record.” To whit, the band took the song which is just under five minutes on the LP, under four on the single and put in a bit more dance beat and extended it to eight-and-a-half minutes in their first 12” single.

If you could dance to it, the song about the dude pining for his lost love and his buddies just wanting him to stop his moping didn’t exactly scream “Studio 54” like some other rockers disco hits of that era (think Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” or Kiss’ “I Was Made For Loving You.”) Part of that probably is owing to the fine, and prominent bluesy harmonica played by Sugar Blue, a New York bluesman Mick found busking in Paris! Ian McLagan, formerly of Faces joined in the fun adding some electric piano to the song Mick apparently wrote with a bit of help from Billy Preston when they were jamming in Toronto the year before. (Unfortunately for Preston, he wasn’t credited for writing while Keith Richards was, per the Stones’ norm.)

“Miss You” spent a week on top in the States before being deposed by the Commodores, and also made #1 in Canada. It was their seventh U.S. #1 single, but only the second of the ’70s. Maybe more of a surprise, that’s their last #1 single here… although with word of a new album coming soon, it’s too soon to say it will be their last one for good. It got to #3 in the homeland which wasn’t very much home to them at that point, the UK.

“Beast of Burden” was the next single off Some Girls and was also a North American top 10 making the album the last of theirs to produce two major hit songs.

June 7 – Funkytown Was The Destination Of Choice

Some artists liked lips-synching in videos, others refused to. The topic is a musical debate, some people being all for it, others hating it. But on this day in 1980, it seemed like no matter what their position on “lip synch” in music, everyone loved Lipps Inc. They held down the #1 spot for the second week in a row in the U.S. with “Funkytown” and would hang on to the top spot for two more weeks. OK, so it was a #1 hit – not bad, but not like it was the world’s biggest hit, you might be saying. Or was it?

Well… while it sold in the millions, it wasn’t the biggest-selling single of that year, let alone of all-time. And I seriously doubt many people, even dance enthusiasts, would suggest it was the greatest record ever made. But, on at least one count, it did become the most successful single ever, a distinction it would hang onto for over two decades. We’ll get to that, but first a little background.

Lipps Inc. were a funk/dance group out of Minneapolis, the brain child of Steven Greenberg. He was a popular wedding DJ in the Twin Cities, and one assumes he noticed people liked to dance to the disco hits at weddings. So he decided to make some music of his own. He was joined by Cynthia Johnson, a singer and sax player from a band which would morph into Prince’s backing band later on. They formed Lipps Inc. ( the name a play on words for “lip synch”), adding in various singers and musicians including David Rivkin, a drummer who’d done some work with Gram Parsons. They recorded their first album, Mouth to Mouth, in 1979, with Greenberg producing. While sounding quite highly synthetic and produced, they did utilize seven ordinary musicians, two more additional backing singers and a real quartet of violinists on the album.. which was perhaps better described as an EP. The release, on Casablanca which was hot at the time selling Donna Summer records, was a four-song, 30-minute dance affair.

The standout, and first single was “Funkytown”, a nearly 8-minute dance workout on the album cut in half for the 7” single and radio version. Sung by Johnson and written by Greenberg, it had her asking you to please take her to “Funky Town”, which to the pair was New York City. Although Minneapolis had a happening scene back then, to Lipps Inc., New York was where it was at.

The song would go on to spend four weeks at #1 in the States and end up as the eighth biggest hit of the year. As Time Out put it, “’Funkytown’ came late to the disco party but it gave it a jolt of electricity.” Indeed it did, being one of the very last major hits that fell clearly into the “disco” category. It also hit #1 in Canada. And Australia. And New Zealand. And Switzerland, where it was the #2 song for the year. And it made the top of the charts in some 23 other countries. That set a record. The 28 countries it topped charts in was the most by any song, ever, at that point. Take that “Hound Dog” or “Hey Jude”! It would hold on to the distinction until 2005, when Madonna’s “Hung Up” eclipsed it by getting to #1 in 41 lands – ironically, the U.S. not being one of them.

VH1 listed Lipps Inc. as their 36^th greatest “one hit wonder” ever, and while the term generally fits, “Funkytown” wasn’t the only thing Lipps Inc. did that was popular. The song “All Night Dancing” was a dance chart #1 hit soon after “Funkytown”, and a year or so later they’d hit the top 30 again in most European nations with their take on the Ace hit “How Long.”

Lipps Inc. called it quits in 1985 after four albums, but several members had decent careers afterwards. It would seem no story about dance or funk music in Minnesota would be complete without mentioning Prince. Perhaps too, no story about June 7 in music is complete without the Purple One, who was born this day in 1958. At least a couple of members of Lipps In. went on to work with Prince in the late-’80s and ’90s, including singer Margaret Cox and drummer David Rivkin, who would later go by “David Z.” He is given a writing credit on Prince’s hit “Kiss”, and suggests he actually was a major collaborator on the Parade album which it appeared. Rivkin would also be very successful producing for the Fine Young Cannibals. And Steve Greenberg himself went into the music business, rising to VP level of Mercury Records, and signing another major “one hit wonder”, Hanson.

March 13 – Where Maxine Started From

There were elements of R&B and ’60s Motown in a fair bit of disco and we got a great example of that in 1976, when “one hit wonder” Maxine Nightingale appeared on the scene. Her major international hit “Right Back Where We Started From” hit the U.S. top 40, a few months after it had been a hit in her native Britain.

Nightingale was by then 23 years old and a veteran of the British scene, albeit a rather anonymous one. She’d begun singing in clubs as a teen and at the start of the ’70s had played in the London productions of the trifecta of rock operas – Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. Around that time she’d also put out a trio of singles over there, including “Don’t Push Me Baby”, but they’d gone unnoticed. However by the mid-’70s she’d gotten a contract with UA Records and this was her second “debut.” She worked with producer Pierre Tubbs who co-wrote the song with Vince Edwards. Tubbs wanted it to reflect a Holland-Dozier-Holland style Motown sound. Maxine was said to be only lukewarm on the song, but recorded it, with a roomful of session players including ex-Animals keyboardist Dave Rowberry, ELO bassist Mike de Albuquerque, Tubbs himself (a multi-instrumentalist) and Pete Hughes on sax. Albuquerque said it only took minutes to get down and probably cost no more than 100 pounds (about $700 now.) Upon hearing it, Nightgale really didn’t like it, thinking the production too excessive and disliking the keyboards. But Tubbs and UA over-ruled her and put it out, with it quickly catching on in Britain, first in the discos then on the BBC.

Eventually it came out in North America and started rising up the charts, causing the label to call Nightingale back from an Asian holiday to record and put out an album, also called Right Back Where We Started From. It was a 13-song effort, a mix of cover songs and more Tubbs ones, and among the musicians brought in were future sax star Raphael Ravenscroft (who’d rise to fame on Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” soon after). Perhaps true to form, Nightingale didn’t like the product, saying fairly enough “the album had to be completed in two weeks – they wanted to rush release it in North America.” Not the best way to craft a quality record. As an album it didn’t do a whole lot, doing best in Australia where it got to #25. However, the song itself made it to #2 in the U.S., #8 in her homeland and #4 Down Under. In the U.S. it was certified gold. It’s lived on well being used in a number of films including Shrek Forever After, Slapshot and The Family Stone.

She went on to record five more albums, but to little commercial note. But although considered a “one hit wonder”, she did have another North American top 5 hit, “Lead Me On” two years later. She still works in music but primarily is a jazz vocalist now.

February 10 – Hot Chocolate Was A Winner

A little hot chocolate to go with that apple, perhaps? While Rod Stewart was topping the chart this day in 1979, another British act were doing very well here too – Hot Chocolate. Their dance song “Every 1’s A Winner” peaked at #6 in the U.S, their third top 10 single and second one to go gold, “You Sexy Thing” being the first (with a title that sounds like a Rod Stewart song, come to think of it.) It also got to #5 in Canada.

While not a “one hit wonder”, Hot Chocolate weren’t really piping hot on this side of the Atlantic. However, at home, they were one of the top acts of the ’70s. They’d formed in 1968 and signed to Apple Records by 1970. Their first song recorded was a cover of John Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance” and their name had even been suggested by the Beatles secretary, Mavis Smith, although she dubbed them “Hot Chocolate Band.”

Their dance-funk sound fit the times well, and they managed to score a chart hit every year of the decade in the UK, something only Elvis and Diana Ross did as well. They outlived those two, streak-wise, having hits annually through 1984. By the time this song came out, they had signed to RAK Records at home and an MCA subsidiary, Infinity, here.

Singer Errol Brown wrote the lyrics after their producer Mickie Most suggested the title. The song also featured guitarist Harvey Hinsley and keyboards of Larry Ferguson prominently.

Hot Chocolate had a resurgence in popularity in the ’90s due to their music being used in The Full Monty, and continue on to this day. Although Brown left the band in the ’80s and has since died, three original members carry on the name and funk. Brown did live to receive a lifetime achievement Ivor Novello Award though, in 2004.  So maybe a cuppa tea isn’t necessarily Britain’s favorite hot drink!