March 1 – Nik’s Career Went Racing Early On

”Wouldn’t It Be Good” if artists who hit the ground running and have massive initial success could sustain that or grow upon it for decades? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case as today’s birthday boy, Nik Kershaw, has found. Nevertheless, he’s had a pretty fine career and we wish him a happy 66^th birthday today.

One would guess Nik grew up in a pretty musical household, since he says his dad played flute and his mom was an opera singer. Young Nik taught himself guitar and later learned a host of other instruments including bass, keyboards of both conventional and synthesizer varieties. He quit school to take a job at an unemployment office by day (that seems somehow ironically amusing, doesn’t it?) and sing in bands around his Ipswich home by night.

They didn’t amount to much, but by 1982, he’d gone solo and gotten a contract with MCA. His first two albums, 1983’s Human Racing and ’84’s The Riddle, both did very well for him. In fact The Riddle got nominated for Album of the Year, Producer of the Year (Peter Collins) and Nik himself for Best Male Artist in 1985. No wonder, both albums went platinum there and were top 10 hits, plus between them they generated five top 10 singles – “Wouldn’t It Be Good?”, which hit #4 and #2 in Germany (plus #9 in Canada, his one big hit in North America) , “I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” – a #2 hit at home – “The Riddle”, “Wide Boy” and “Don Quixote”. Combined, his singles spent more time on the UK charts for 1984-85 than any other solo artist, Phil Collins, Madonna and Prince not withstanding. Not surprisingly then, he got to play Live Aid at Wembley Stadium, doing four songs after Elvis Costello but before Sade during the afternoon. He says it was “absolutely terrifying.” By that time he was married to Sheri Pogmore, a Canadian singer and guitarist who’d sang backing vocals on The Riddle.

Unfortunately, after back-to-back platinum albums and playing in front of an audience, with TV included that numbered in the tens of millions, it’s hard to keep going upwards. Kershaw found that out in 1986, when his third album, Radio Musicola got fine reviews but only got to #47 and outside of Ireland (where it launched two top 20 singles, “Nobody Knows” and “When a Heart Beats”), its songs didn’t garner much notice. Since then he’s done seven more studio albums but not come close to his success on his first couple of albums.That’s not to say he hasn’t tasted some success though; he’s actually been a part of two more big hits.

In 1985, he worked with Elton John and played guitar on his hit “Nikita” (also singing with George Michael on backing vocals there) and later he’d do another song with Elton, “Old Friend” which he wrote and played the instruments on. Another song of his, “The One and Only” was used in the movie Doc Hollywood, and made into a #1 song in the UK by Chesney Hawkes. Outside of that, he’s had songs recorded by the likes of Kim Wilde and collaborated extensively with Genesis’ Tony Banks on his solo record, Still.

Outside of recording, he’s been involved with Mencap, a British charity designed to help those with learning disabilities, perhaps inspired by having a child with Downes Syndrome himself. That happens to be the same charity that hosted a concert in which Robert Palmer met Duran Duran and they came up with the idea of Power Station, in case you’re keeping track.

Although he put out a new album in 2020 and says there are some new songs waiting to see the light of day, he knows what side his bread is buttered on, musically. He’ll be touring Australia this month with Go West, and Britain in October to celebrate the 40^th anniversaries of Human Racing and The Riddle.

November 11 – Twins Trio’s Triumph Turns 40

One of the great new wave tunes of all-time came out this day in 1983. The trio known as the Thompson Twins (named for detectives in the Tin Tin comics) put out the first single from their Into the Gap album, “Hold Me Now.”

It was the type of song everyone liked and it found its place on mainstream radio, college stations and even in dance clubs, getting to #3 in the U.S. and Canada, and #4 in their homeland of the UK. L.A .alt rock pioneers KROQ had it as one of the top 10 songs of 1984 and it made #1 on Billboard‘s dance charts. It was new-wavey enough to appeal to the fans of the, well, new sounds but was a traditional enough pop love song to fit right in on the “music at work” style stations along with the Phil Collins, Totos and Lionel Richies of the day.  It helped the Twins make a major name for themselves and the Into the Gap album go platinum or better in all of the countries mentioned, while the single itself got them gold records at home and in Canada.

It was their second album as a trio, earlier incarnations of the group had as many as seven members including two guitarists and a separate bassist. Although the new version concentrated more on keyboards, the hit did feature real – and sometimes odd – instruments including Allanah Currie playing the xylophone. singer Tom Bailey said he wrote the lyrics thinking about Currie and himself, something of an on-again, off-again couple at the time. “What it feels like to get back together again after separation, and the kind of ideas that come up and the way that emotion and physicality somehow are brought together,” he describes it as. The previous album, Side Kicks had given them a couple of hits at home, notably “Love On Your Side” but Into the Gap lifted them into the pop music stratosphere.

By 1985 they’d be playing Live Aid, joined by Madonna on stage, but their fame was relatively short-lived. As Allanah of the group noted, “Hold Me Now” was a mixed blessing. It earned them money and fame but also pigeonholed them. “It was really big all over the world which is great, but it was just an accidental thing…(after) we got everybody on our back to write ‘Hold me Now, Part 2’, but we can’t…we’ll never find a ‘formula’ for what we did.”  And while the follow-up album, Here’s to Future Days, did reasonably well for them, with a couple of moderately popular hits (most notably in North America, “Lay Your Hands on Me”), they never did find that magic formula again.

While the Thompson Twins are no longer an entity, “Hold Me Now” lives on both as a popular radio hit and in use in a number of movies and TV shows including The Wedding Singer, New Girl and The Carrie Diaries.

July 13 – 007 Put Them In Number 001 Position

What a way to celebrate! On stage in Philadelphia as part of Live Aid were Duran Duran. There they got to play the song that hit #1 on Billboard on this day in 1985, “A View To A Kill.” They followed Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to the stage and opened their four-song set with it.

“A View To a Kill” was the theme to the 14th James Bond movie and came about apparently when John Taylor of the band let it be known he was a huge fan of 007 but didn’t like most of the music used in the movies. John Barry, who’d composed music for 11 Bond movies, worked with Duran Duran (Simon Le Bon recalls him “virtually a sixth member of the group” and having “a great way of working brilliant chord arrangements”) to create this striking theme. The pairing worked well – although “Goldfinger” and “Live and Let Die” had gotten to #2 in the U.S., “A View to a Kill” was the only James Bond song to ever hit #1. It was the band’s second and last chart-topper in the U.S., hitting #1 in Canada and Ireland as well.

Over 30 years later, both the James Bond franchise and Duran Duran are still rolling. No Time To Die was the latest Bond movie, in 2021, with Billie Eilish singing the theme song while Duran Duran put out their 15th studio album, Future Past the same year, one year before being named to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

June 3 – A Return To Avalon ?

Close to three years to the day after Roxy Music’s final studio album, Avalon, we look at the closest thing to its follow-up… Bryan Ferry‘s Boys and Girls. That album came out this day in 1985.

While labeled as just Ferry, it had more in common with the previous couple of Roxy albums than it did with the majority of his prior solo works, of which there was no shortage. His previous solos had been put out as a side-project to his Roxy Music work, and most had consisted mainly of Ferry’s own take on various oldies. He’d had hit singles, for instance with covers of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall” and Willie Harrison’s “Let’s Stick Together.”

This record however, followed along with the sonic landscape Avalon had painted – romantic, sultry, sometimes danceable, well-crafted pop. And while it lacked core Roxy Music members Andy MacKay and Phil Manzanera, it did have a rather accomplished band backing up his velvety voice and keyboard work. Andy Newmark, a part time member of Roxy, did the drums, and there were David Gilmour, Nile Rodgers and Mark Knopfler adding guitar work, and Dire Straits’ keyboardist Guy Fletcher amongst others. The result was one of the best-recorded and played records of the decade and more or less the ultimate late-night, candlelight and wine accompaniment.

The album didn’t have any significantly weak songs, but the standout was his first single from it, “Slave to Love.” Rolling Stone singled that one out and considered that the album was “too fluffy” but “it does have one of the greatest love songs ever, the hypnotic, slow dance ‘Slave to Love.’” Later, allmusic would grade it 4-stars, saying it has “Aged well”, especially that track which they describe as “Samba-derived”.

The album didn’t match the success of Avalon three years earlier, but did quite well for him. In his native UK it was his first solo record to hit #1 and go platinum (with “Slave to Love” being his fifth top 10 single and “Don’t Stop the Dance” also hitting the top 30), in Canada it topped out at #11 with the first single being his first to make the charts at all. In the States, it eventually sold enough to go gold, largely thanks to heavy MTV play of “Slave to Love” and a prime-time appearance at Live Aid which showcased three of the songs on the album including the title track and “Sensation”.

Ferry continues to record, putting out a new release about every three years it seems, and has toured with a re-formed Roxy Music several times. This spring they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Duran Duran welcoming them to the stage mentioning “without Roxy Music, there’d be no Duran Duran.”

February 17 – Turntable Talk 11 : They Were The Champions, & They Rocked Us

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, this is our 11^th instalment! But for new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columns from other music fans and writers, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is A Really Big Show. We’ve asked our guests if they had a time machine, and could go back and see one concert what would it be? It could be a show from before they were born, one tey missed or one they actually attended and would like to relive. Big festival, small club show, you name it.

Today we wrap up this round, with a few thoughts from me here at A Sound Day.

A big thanks to my guest contributors again! I hope you’ve enjoyed their columns and thoughts as much as I have and I have to admit, I’ve been surprised at the range of shows they’d have liked to go back and see. From Count Basie in a swingin’ pre-war show in the Big Apple to the post-modern Talking Heads at their creative zenith in California to a huge hard rock festival I’d never heard of, we saw some great shows through their eyes (and ears).

If asked the same question myself, I’d be quite torn… so many good choices. First let me say, that honestly I would not have picked some obvious choices. Beatles? No thanks. Hey, I love their music and think they influenced modern music more than anyone else but, let’s face it – they quit playing live when they were coming into their real peak period and the shows they played leading up to that – Shea Stadium, etc –  had a poor sound system and the fans in the stands were screaming so much you could barely hear the Fab Four. Their rooftop show, documented in Get Back, a cool idea and some fine tunes, but I’d probably be with the few other amused fans and passersby on the street below, in the cold, not being able to see them and hearing it amidst the other street noise. Woodstock? Certainly a historic event, and some fantastic bands, but honestly, quite a few acts that were just a bit before my time and didn’t wow me all that much. Not enough to endure all that rain and mud… plus, I’d not like that some of the better artists were showing up onstage literally in the middle of the night!

I’d also consider going back to re-live a few concerts I did go to, to appreciate them more. U2 on The Unforgettable Fire tour at Maple Leaf Gardens. Powerful, brilliant rocking show finishing with all 18000 or so of us singing the chorus to ’40’ as we exited the building onto Carlton Street in Toronto. Today’s other column’s subject, The Stranglers, in a mid-sized bar in Toronto promoting the Norfolk Coast. Unlike their ’80s concert I saw in a big theater, this time the sound was perfect and they picked a great set of both their old ‘punk’ singles and newer, refined tunes. Frontman JJ Burnel even posed and grinned for a few photos for me while I was only feet from the stage – a marked contrast to the band’s ’70s behavior when he’d likely have cut the song and jumped off the stage to kick my camera out of my hands. This time around I wouldn’t end up losing the SD card! And R.E.M., my favorite band of my own generation. I’ve seen them several times but would probably go back to the Up tour show. Oddly, it was the first album of theirs I’d bought that under-whelmed me a little, and was the first without drummer Bill Berry but the concert was aces. Michael Stipe was chatty and humorous, they played some old nuggets I’d not heard them do before like “Cuyahoga” and they had an incredible, gaudy, fun backdrop of dozens of bizarre neon signs, flashing and looking like a Las Vegas cartoon. And as a bonus, Wilco opened the show! At the time (1999) I remember thinking they were quite good, but only knowing two songs they played. Twenty-odd years later, I’d appreciate their set more too I bet. But for all that, there’s really only one show that would win the “time travel trip” for me. The ultimate live music event of Gen X and in fact, of many of our lifetimes – Live Aid. Set the Time Travel dial to July 13, 1985, destination, London, England.

First off, it was a piece of History. I mean, you can’t think of ’80s music and not think about Live Aid and the fundraising records for the same African charities, notably “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and “We Are The World.” People (like me) who weren’t there on that – happily – sunny day, were able to watch on TV for the most part. It was shown on television in over 150 countries and the audience was estimated at over a billion people! Talk about an event bringing the world together. As co-organizer Bob Geldof said, “thru the lingua franca (common language) of the planet – which is not English, but rock’n’roll – we were able to address the intellectual absurdity and the moral repulsion of people dying of want in a world of surplus.” Which brings me to another point – it was for good. George Harrison had started the ball rolling over a decade prior, with his Concert for Bangladesh; Bob Geldof and Midge Ure drove it home this day. Rock and pop music can bring about change for the better in the world both by raising money for worthy organizations that help and, more importantly by shining a light on serious problems many might not have known about. Obviously, the African situation – millions starving, droughts, civil wars – was complicated and throwing a few million dollars at it wasn’t going to solve all the troubles. But at least it helped a little, fed some and made people think about the world scene and how they could make a difference more than they had before.

All that aside, the day was about great music first and foremost and boy, did it deliver. I might add that of course a companion show took place closer to home, in Philadelphia. It too had a great lineup, including the Four Tops, Neil Young, Tom Petty, the Thompson Twins (oddly since they were London-based), riding high still from their Into the Gap, and a perhaps less-than-all-that reunion of Led Zeppelin with Phil Collins on drums. But still, for a non-stop tops show, the London one was it. No doubt to the delight of Princess Diana and not so much for Prince Charles (now “King Charles”) who were in attendance.

It kicked off at high noon with the Royal Coldstream Guards playing a little royal salute and part of “God Save the Queen” – the one Elizabeth would approve of, not the Sex Pistols one – before turning over the stage to Status Quo. No disrespect to them, but that would probably have been my cue to try to get to the snack bar to pick up a bite to eat and some drinks, because after that… it was a pretty jam-packed list of great music I liked, starting with the Style Council. Geldof’s own Boomtown Rats were up next and brought down the house with “I Don’t Like Mondays”. That awed Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp who said “you would follow (Geldof). He has just great charisma. He’d make a frightening politician.”

Spandau Ballet were on themselves soon after, but not before a brief appearance from Adam Ant and a longer one from Ultravox, the other organizer ‘s (Midge Ure) band. They kicked off their set with my two favorite songs of theirs, “Reap the wild Wind” and “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes”. It was barely 2 PM when Elvis Costello came on to do a “little northern folk song”, which turned out to be “All You Need is Love.” Next up, Nik Kershaw, one of the more promising newcomers from the New Wave who was hot at the time but seemed to close to disappear from the scene not long after. Stylish Sade came on and then a super-pairing of Sting and Phil Collins. They cranked through eight songs including “Roxanne” and “In the Air Tonight” before dueting on “Every Breath You Take.” As Phil no doubt ran offstage to catch the Concorde – remember he also appeared at the Philly show later in the day – Howard Jones was on. Unfortunately, he did just one song, and honestly, “Hide and Seek” wasn’t one of his best.

No time to worry about that, because then Bryan Ferry, fresh off the release of his first post-Roxy Music record, Boys + Girls, was up with a new guitarist … David Gilmour of Pink Floyd! Continuing in the stylish vein, Paul Young appeared, joined by the great voice of Alison Moyet for one song. By the time he’d cleared off, I might be getting a bit hungry, but I wouldn’t have been going anywhere because it was U2. More than anything else, their short-ish but express train-energetic set of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and a long take on “Bad” with bits of other tunes worked in was probably what made them rise from popular to contenders for “biggest band in the world.” Remember, they were on in a great time slot and about a billion pairs of eyes were watching Bono & Co.

Speaking of bands who were at the top back then, next up – Dire Straits, who brought Sting back out to help deliver “Money For Nothing.” By the time they were done, the sun would have been dropping in the sky a little. It was nearly 7 and coming on were some ’70s favorites who’d not been making much impact lately on my side of the ocean. But let’s hope no one looked away or dashed to the bathroom, because Queen put on their performance of a lifetime.

Following that was an unenviable task, but David Bowie tried and put on what Rolling Stone said was “arguably his last triumph of the ’80s”. He was in turn followed by The Who. There are people around who like The Who more than I do, but it’s always been a band who knew how to put on a power-packed, entertaining show, and in this case they played one of their (to me) under-rated songs, “Love Reign O’er Me.” It brought to mind a hypothetical question – if you had that time machine, could you take modern equipment like digital cameras with you? Hope so, because I’d want momentos of the day and would have tried to record a bit of the Who for our friend Max from Power Pop Blog.

Not many could properly come on after Queen, Bowie and the Who … but Elton John could. And he did with the longest set of the show, six songs and over half an hour. Interestingly, he brought George Michael on to do “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” which they put out as a single in the ’90s. Also unexpected, he finished with a Marvin Gaye cover, “Can I Get A Witness?”. No chicken suit for Elton but a pretty great set nonetheless, all the more surprising since we now know his mental state and addictions in that period.

Well, it would be almost time to go home with a headful of magic and music, but before doing so, Brian May and Freddie Mercury of Queen came back to sing “Is this the World We Created?” (I wondered if that was scheduled or a  last-minute kind of encore for them after seeing how well their own set went over), and a grand finale. And for a British rock show, what could be more fitting that than The Beatles? Sadly we didn’t get a reunion of ¾ of the Fab Four but did get Sir Paul doing “Let it Be” with a little help from his friends, including Bowie, Pete Townshend, Moyet and Gedof. Sure, Paul’s mic was wonky and the sound for it wasn’t great but hey… after that day, who’s complaining?

Live Aid ’85. The Show of Shows, and one I rather think, regrettably, will never be matched. It’s hard to imagine these days how one could get 30 or more top name acts together for a big concert that would appeal to over a billion people and have a lasting generational impact. I was there, via the TV screen. If I had a time machine, I’d have been there with 71 999 others at Wembley Stadium.

December 17 – Temptation To Call Him Birmingham’s Favorite Singing Son

One of Motown’s great voices was born 83 years ago today. Eddie Kendricks (actually born “Kendrick”) grew up in Alabama, singing as a child in Birmingham church choirs.

He formed an R&B group, The Cavaliers in 1955 and they moved to Cleveland soon after, thinking Northern audiences were a bit more receptive to Black musicians in that era. A couple of name changes and another move, to Detroit, got them a deal with Motown as Mary Wells backing band, called The Temptations. Motown soon realized they had talent in their own right and soon they were one of the label’s top acts, with Kendricks’ adding a falsetto-take to his deep tenor voice on songs like “The Way You Do the Things You Do” and “I Can’t Get Next To You”- as well as picking out the snazzy wardrobe the group was noted for!

Unfortunately, he didn’t like the band’s shift in sound in the late-’60s nor Motown itself (he later said of Berry Gordy “I know he didn’t particularly care for me”) yet signed a contract with them again when he left the Temptations in ’71. He had minor solo success in the ’70s, most notably with his ’73 American #1 single “Keep on Truckin’” and briefly returned to the Temptations in 1982, even appearing with them on stage at Live Aid with Hall & Oates. Unfortunately years of smoking had hurt his voice and ultimately cost him his life. He died of lung cancer in 1992.

As time has passed, his reputation has grown somewhat. During his tenure with the band, he was often seen as a “minor” singer, and compared negatively to David Ruffin. Rolling Stone for instance, have Ruffin on their list of 100 greatest singers, but not Kendricks. But recently many, like Soulful Detroit have re-thought that. That publications says they “think he’s under-rated compared to David (Ruffin)… the two men shouldn’t be compared. Vocally they are very different…Eddie’s tenor was brilliantly sweet (at its) best conveying love and romance.” His native Birmingham love him though and dedicated a park , complete with sculpture of the Temptations, to him a few years later.

December 5 – Neil Showed ‘Who Needs C, S Or N?’

Neil Young‘s first American top 40 solo hit, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” peaked at #33 in the U.S. this day in 1971. In his native Canada, he’d scored a hit earlier in the year with “Cinnamon Girl” as well.

Young was already well-known to international audiences through his work with Buffalo Springfield (who had a Top 10 in 1967 with “For What It’s Worth”) and Crosby Stills Nash and Young. Stills helped out Young on After the Gold Rush, the album which the single came from and that set the table for huge success with the 1972 album Harvest. Stills wasn’t getting along well with people at the time, so it was rumored the song might be about him, but later on Young confirmed it was actually about or for Graham Nash, after he’d broken up with another Canadian folkie, Joni Mitchell.

The song has become rather iconic. Artists who’ve covered it include Natalie Imbruglia, St. Etienne, Everlast and Nils Lofgren (now with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band) , who appears on Young’s record. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young played the song on their Live Aid reunion. Even scholars have weighed in. An Indiana University text mentions it and how it’s a “seemingly simple song which actually displays considerable attention to detail in deployment of instruments.” After the Gold Rush is also notable for the angry song “Southern Man” which references crosses burning and bullwhips cracking…and prompted a response from Lyrnyrd Skynyrd in the form of “Sweet Home Alabama”! While the album is great, it is largely acoustic (as were his subsequent hits in the following months, “Old Man” and “The Needle and The Damage Done”) and biographer Jimmy McDonogh has suggested that has perhaps harmed Neil’s career. Though Ol’ Neil has gone on to dabble in most every form of pop music known to man, from country to hard rock to electronica , many still typecast him as an angry folk singer with an acoustic guitar and miss a good deal of what he’s done. Not so the the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame though; they’ve inducted him twice, as a member of Buffalo Springfield and for his solo work.

As much as for his folk songs, he might be known for his conscience and speaking out whenever he sees fit. His strong social conscience shows in projects he’s involved with like Farm Aid , which he started along with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson, and the Bridge School Concerts (fund-raisers for a school for disabled youth.)

November 8 – Modern Music’s Best Year?

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! As by now, regular readers know, that’s when I have several interesting guest writers sound off on one topic related to the music that we look at here daily. This is our eighth round of it, and if you’re new here, I recommend taking a look back at some of the earlier topics we’ve covered like why the Beatles are still relevant, or “did video kill the radio star?” or the one dealing with one hit wonders we ran at the start of last month.

This month, a simple category…but one which is challenging and should bring up some interesting memories : Those Were The Days My Friend. Simply put, we’re asking the contributors to write about “music’s best year.”

Obviously, that’s a pretty subjective choice. A few executives might try to look at sales charts and give a statistical answer based on album sales or concert grosses, but to most it comes down to the year that seemed to be when the best music was played, or when the most really good records came out. We’ve not limited it but I would expect that most are going to pick a year from the ‘rock era’ in the second half of the 20^th Century. But if someone opines it was 1804 because that was when Beethoven started working on his 5^th Symphony, that’ll be interesting to read about. Today we wrap it up, with some thoughts on the topic from me here at A Sound Day.

First, I’d like to thank again all seven of the contributors who took the time to write and tell us about their favorite year in music. I figured that it might be a Beatles-centric list – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but I was a bit surprised six of seven opted for the 1964-71 period. That obviously shows how enduring the music of that era is. Of course, to be fair, it also represents something of the makeup of our guests here…most of us are, to be honest, middle aged. If we’d put the same question to a group of Gen Z’s or twenty-somethings, we might have gotten an entirely different set of picks. Although in my personal experience I do wonder how many of our young who fit that category have such passionate feelings about the music of their lifetimes to begin with.

Anyway, for me there is no “right” answer to the “best” year for music. When I was pondering it myself, a couple of years quickly popped into my head as “important”, in the frame of pop/rock at least – 1967 then 1977. ’67 of course was “the Summer of Love” and seemed like the time rock really went off in all directions, including psychedelic ones. It was the year the Beatles put out my favorite album of theirs, and one of the best ever – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Then they put out Magical Mystery Tour a few months later the same year for good measure. It was the year the Doors opened their own door to our stage and minds and the one Otis Redding became known outside of the R&B stations with his appearance at Monterrey Pop and his recording “Dock of the Bay” (which as Max pointed out became a massive hit early in ’68). Frankly I was surprised no one picked 1967!

Skip ahead a decade and we came to 1977. Music was at a crossroads. Fleetwood Mac put out maybe the best “California sound” album ever, the enduring, 40-million selling Rumours. Crosstown the Eagles rose to mega-stardom with Hotel California, which arrived just in time for last minute Christmas shoppers in ’76 and shared the top of the charts with the Mac for much of ’77. But there was an undercurrent of youth who were tired of the slick production values and what to them seemed mundane topics and lack of edge on hit radio. Hence punk rock smashed its way into the public consciousness. Sure the Ramones and Pistols had been at it for two or three years, but few in the masses had noticed… until ’77 when Never Mind the Bollocks arrived. So too the debuts by The Clash, The Stranglers and The Damned, all three about as angry and in-yer-face as they come, even though all three later showed they possessed a good amount of musical prowess. Punk woke up the music world and brought low-production, low-budget, fun rock back into the vocabulary, and soon the likes of Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and Blondie had emerged with their own takes on a new sound.

Those years produced great records and changed the trajectories of popular music, but weren’t my personal favorites as much as I liked much of the music that came out. No, to me, two other years duked it out.

First there was 1972. That was my first thought, actually. No doubt that was partly nostalgia. I was only five or so but it was the first year I was given my own radio – a tiny transistor radio with the thumb-knob to tune those AM stations and a single ear bud if quiet was called for. I soon found CHUM radio in Toronto, then the top “hit” station in the land. I saved my allowances and bought 45s at the Eatons department store, probably at about 59 cents a piece. I didn’t yet have my own record player, but I could sneak them onto my dad’s in the living room and enjoy at times. I can’t say for sure what the first record I bought was but I recall having Jim Gold & the Gallery’s “Nice to Be With You”, Bread’s “Guitar Man” and the Carpenters “Hurting Each Other” back in that time period. I like all three songs still, maybe more than I would otherwise for the sentimental reasons.

1972 had an extraordinary run of great singles. It might have been AM radio at its very best. I looked at an archive of CHUM’s #1 songs that year…. talk about solid gold! Among them : “American Pie” by Don MacLean, “Heart of Gold” by Neil Young, the soulful “Oh Girl” by the Chi-lites, Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me”, Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out” for a little rock, “Summer Breeze” by Seals & Crofts, “I’d Love You To Want Me” by Lobo,  “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” , one I still consider Motown’s finest, by the Temptations. And that’s the short list. Granted there were a few that didn’t quite match up – Chuck Berry might be a great and a living legend but his “My Ding-a-Ling” wasn’t his finest hour. Likewise, “Coconut” probably wasn’t the epitome of Harry Nilsson’s talent. But overall, it was a great percentage of songs I still love. Add in others like “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green, “Taxi” by Harry Chapin, “The City of New Orleans” by Arlo Guthrie, “Rocketman” by Elton John, “Space Oddity” by David Bowie, (which had come out years earlier but only hit the charts in ’72), the country stylings of Mac Davis and his “Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me” and there was an embarrassment of musical riches in that year. Not to mention the arrival of some pretty great acts on the scene – Steely Dan, Roxy Music, the Eagles and Jackson Browne all put out their first records, for example.

As much as I love almost all the hits from ’72, I decided to ultimately buck the trend and be a bit of a disrupter here and go for…

April 26 – Taylor Tailored Drumming After Thompson & Thompson

What’s more coincidental than being a famous drummer with the same name as another famous drummer? Maybe having the same last name as two of your bandmates but not being related to either of them. Both apply to Duran Duran’s “quiet one”, Roger Taylor, whom we wish a happy 62^nd birthday to today.

Roger was born near Birmingham, and like many other British lads of the ’60s, growing up he had two big loves -”football” (which is soccer to us North Americans) and rock music. His early ambition was to be a professional footballer for his favorite club, Aston Villa, but when that became increasingly unlikely, he turned his attention to music. He saved up his allowance for months to buy himself a drum kit at age 13, and then taught himself to play, practicing relentlessly, copying the drums on records he loved. “I had very good neighbors,” he joked in a recent interview. “I used to come home from school every day at 4:00 and practice until 6:00.”

One could imagine that with his name, he’d have been a big fan of the other Roger Taylor, Queen’s drummer. But he gives no indication of that being the case. Instead he said the main influences on him were Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, Paul Thompson, Roxy Music’s main drummer in the ’70s, and Tony Thompson of Chic. He also liked one more drummer. “Ringo was doing exactly what was required for the Beatles. I’ve always gone towards more song-oriented players.”

He joined a local punk band called Scents Organs in the late-’70s, but they didn’t last long. But it was long enough to get invited to join Duran Duran (along with unrelated Andy Taylor and John Taylor.) His influences worked out well since Duran Duran drew heavily on both Roxy Music and Chic for inspiration. Soon after beginning their career, they went to New York and met Thompson, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic. “They were like gods to us…they taught us so much about playing and production.”

As we know, Duran Duran took off quickly, becoming bigger than Roxy Music or Chic for several years in the early-’80s. Which Taylor enjoyed…for awhile. But soon, “we had people camping outside our front doors…it was very difficult to live a normal life.” So, after playing in front of hundreds of thousands of fans at Live Aid, on the same day their single “A View To A Kill” hit #1 in the U.S., he quit the band and “retired” to a 150 acre farm. But not before helping out a little on side-projects. Even the others were seeing “the fame and celebrity of Duran Duran kind of overtook the music,” he recalls, and they decided to take a break. He joined Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon of the group on the new band Arcadia, and also played drums on one song for the other spin-off band – Power Station with the two other Taylors. In so doing he was the only person to work with both.

After that, it was to the farm. The UK’s Sun dubbed him a “hermit” but he says “I needed to get some space. It sounds like a cliché, but I needed to get to know myself.” After a few years he did so, it seems, married and got back into music in a small way, joining a band called Freebase which had a European dance hit with their take on Sweet’s “Love is Like Oxygen.” He did a couple of tracks for Duran Duran and one TV appearance with them in ’94 and finally rejoined them again in 2001, staying with them since and no doubt enjoying their more relaxed work schedule.

As well as new technology. Surprisingly perhaps for a “new wave” band, Roger was pretty conventional when it came to his instruments. Back in the day he used a normal drum kit and they used to record his drumming in real time. “We even used to record our 12” dance mixes live…it the track was ten minutes long, you had to play the whole thing (in one take).” Now he mixes old with new, saying he uses a conventional Tama acoustic drum kit with a V-drum TD20 drum machine to his left, and adds in a sampler. Duran Duran put out their 15^th studio album, Future Past, late last year.

April 23 – Chart Topper One For Four Tops

The Four Tops were heading to the top on this day in 1965 with the release of one of Motown’s biggest, and best singles – “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch.)” It would go on to be their first #1 single and one of the defining ones of the whole Motown sound of the ’60s.

The quartet had “paid their dues” as they say, having been around for over a decade at that point, and having put out their first single way back in 1956 on Chess Records. They signed to Motown in ’63 and had decent success with “Baby I Need Your Loving” on their first album, with it getting to #11 in the U.S. and making their name known among the growing roster of stars on the Detroit-based label.

Like most of that company’s hits in the first half of the decade, “I Can’t Help Myself” was written by the great trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland, with Lamont Dozier seemingly the chief creator of this one. He admitted the melody was similar to the one in the Supremes “Where Did Our Love Go?”, and when someone had pointed it out to him when tooling around with the new song, he answered “I can’t help myself” – from writing the same tune over again basically. He liked the way the phrase sounded and worked it in, as well as the parenthethetical one, “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch.” That one dates back to his childhood.

“I stayed with my grandmother when I was a kid. She owned a home beauty shop, and when the women would come up the walkway to get their hair done, my grandfather…was a bit of a flirt (and he) would say ‘How you doin’, sugar pie?’ ‘Good morning, honey bunch’…just flirting with a big smile.”

They recorded it with the Funk Brothers – an unfortunately rather anonymous set of Detroit studio musicians including great bassist James Jamerson – playing the music and Levi Stubbs of the group singing lead…against his wishes. He apparently hated the song, thinking it too lightweight and “sugar”y.

He was in the minority though. At the time Billboard called it a “spirited, fast-paced wailer performed in their unique style”; years later allmusic would simply classify it as “magnificent.” The public agreed, with it spending two weeks on top of the charts that summer and nine weeks at #1 on the R&B one. It also became their first top 40 in the UK, where it eventually was certified gold. And like it or not, 20 years later it was a highlight of their set at Live Aid. At that time, Stubbs seemingly couldn’t help himself from enjoying the moment.