I'm actually posting songs from opposite ends of the 70s
again this week...Magnet and Steel was from 1978, and this one...B J
Thomas's follow up to 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head'...is from
1970
Ok, recording a follow up to a mega-hit like
'Raindrops...'' can't be but so easy because you pretty well know
it's probably not going to be as big if it was a hit at all...but
then again B J managed to follow it up with another feel-good
classic...'I Just Can't Help Believing'.
B J Thomas was not the first artist to record the
song...Barry Mann and Bobby Vee both recorded it before he did, but
the B J Thomas version is the one everyone remembers from the early
seventies, and it’s the one that still shows up on Oldies stations
pretty regularly. Listen to 103.7 out of Richmond, Va all day and I
can guarantee you'll hear it. And it's a good bet that a lot of
people will get a smile on their faces and start swaying to the
rhythm of that strong organ and drum intro, and sing that first line
right along with him. This was a feel good song of massive
proportions and you couldn't help but smile when you heard it!
The song cracked the top 10...reaching # 9 on the
Billboard Hot 100...and was covered by none other than The King
Himself, Elvis Presley. The King did an awesome job with it...after
all, it was Elvis Presley, he could have sung the phone book and made
a hit out of it...but I gotta say I prefer the original B J Thomas
version hands down.
So enjoy! 'I Just Can't Help Believing' by B J Thomas
And as a Bonus (Ya knew this was coming!) The King's
version of 'I Just Can't Help Believing'
It's
kind of amazing that Walter Egan only had one song crack the Hot
100...he really is that good. And if you were around in the late
summer of 1978 and heard that guitar start up, leading into Stevie
Nicks' velvety smooth vocal intro, ya knew you were getting ready to
hear Walter Egan's lone Hot 100 chart entry, Magnet and Steel. And he
wrote it for...none other than Stevie Nicks, who he had a serious
thing for at the time. (And who can blame him?).
Stevie
performed the backing vocals on a couple of Walter Egan's songs, and
his feelings for her really took hold when she was doing the backing
tracks for one of his songs called 'Tunnel of Love'...he didn't tell
her about them, and headed for home at Oh Dark Hundred after the long
studio session ended. He was following a custom Continental with the
vanity plates 'Not Shy'...and the lyrics to 'Magnet And Steel' began
to take root. I don't know if Walter ever actually told Stevie Nicks
about his feelings fr her, but those feelings sure made for a classic
love song.
A lot
of people hear Magnet and Steel and get a definite '50s vibe from the
song, and when you listen to it, you can definitely feel that same
vibe...the rhythms and backing vocals seem to be straight out of 1958
rather than 1978...a very smooth, pleasant, soulful melody that's
become timeless. And, I might add, a very pleasant change from the
Disco craze that was sweeping the music world in the late '70s.
Magnet
and Steel was used in the movie Boogie Nights...and an interesting
little factoid abut Walter Egan, In 1986 he appeared as a contestant
on a game show called 'Scrabble'. He introduces himself as a
singer/songwriter, and the host asked if the audience would know any
of his songs. So he sang 'em the main hook from Magnet and Steel. I
think the answer to that question was a resounding 'Yes.
Magnet
and Steel hit #8 on the Hot 100 in August 1978, and was all over Top
40 radio in the Summer and Fall of that same year and I still hear it
regularly on 107.3, Richmond Va's Oldies station.
Bet
ya sing along with it...and sway to it a little too!
So
enjoy! Magnet and Steel by Walter Egan and Stevie Nicks
And
as a bonus, a live performance of Magnet and Steel...unknown year and
venue, but it sure sounds awesome! Walter Egan's still recording BTW.
His latest album was released on Spectra Records in 2011
If
you were a teen in the early Seventies, you heard Jim Peterik
belting
out the opening lines of The Ides of March's One Hit Wonder 'Vehicle'
until the words and the melody were indelibly etched into your mind.
Trust me, say the words 'I'm
The Friendly Stranger Inthe
black sedan...'
to anyone who grew up in that era, and they can finish the first line
you...and probably keep on going for the next several lines while
they're at it.
'Vehicle'
hit number two on May 23rd,
1970 after Jim Peterik
exclaimed 'You know, I'm just your vehicle' in good natured
semi-frustration to a former girlfriend turned platonic friend who
hit him up for rides all of the time...and the idea for the song
clicked. The idea for the iconic first line came from an antidrug
pamphlet that a friend of his showed him. (The line as originally
written was 'I got a set of pretty wheels won't you hop inside my
car') It not only hit #2, it became Warner Bros fastest selling
single...but it had a rough road getting there.
The
first hurdle was a near game ender...during an overdub session a
sound tech accidentally erased thirteen seconds of the song...keep in
mind this was in 1970, long before digital recording and Pro-Tools
and the like. The saving grace was the 'Take One' tape, and the
members of Ides oif March waited while the techs sweated out splicing
the missing 13 seconds into Take Two's multitrack, hoping that the
tempo, attitude, tuning, and feel were, as Jim Peterik
put
it, 'Even in the same zip code as take two'. They got real
lucky because it was almost perfect...you have to know to listen for
it and listen extremely closely to hear the splice. You can find it
starting at the second 'Great God
in Heaven' all the way up to the first note of the guitar solo. All
Peterik had to redo was the vocals. Had the erasure lasted another
few seconds...into the guitar solo...Peterik's not sure he could have
reproduced it because he wasnt even real sure how he played it.
SO they
breathed a sigh of relief, added it to their playlist, and decided it
was an awesome live song, but didn't think it would go over well as a
single. It was the forth of four songs that were on a demo tape sent
to Warner Brothers. Warner Bros ditched the first three songs, and
went absolutely giddy over 'Vehicle'...they declared it a potential
hit, but wanted the group to add the answers...the background
vocals...to the 'Love ya...Need ya's So Ides of March went
back into the studio and wild tracked the background vocals in. The
stereo and mono versions are different for this very reason...they
were recorded separately, the background vocals aren't on the master.
As an interesting note, when the song was used in 'Lock Up', with
Sly Stallone in 1990, the background vocals weren't there because
they used the master.
'Vehicle'
was released in May 1970, and reached number 2 on the 23rd
of that month.
What of the
young lady who inspired the song? Her name was Karen, and Peterik
got back together with her shortly after the song charted. He's been
with her ever since, and they;'ve been married for thirty-plus years.
She hates it when she's in the audience and he tells the story of hw
the song came about!
The
primary focus of this blog's the songs of The Seventies, and that
being the case we gotta answer the question 'Just where and when did
The Seventies start?...Musically speaking of course. What was the
first hit song of The Seventies (And what was the last.)
B.
J. Thomas...who had a string of well known and well loved hits in the
sixties and seventies...grabbed that very first Billboard Hot 100
Number 1 hit of the 70s with a song written for a hit movie in 1969.
The song was Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, and the movie was
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, which as we may recall had some
small success itself...with a shade over 100 million dollars at the
box office, it was that year's top grossing film
Raindrops
Keep Falling On My Head was written specifically for the movie by Hal
Davis and Burt Bacharach and B. J. Thomas was not
the first person they offered the song to. They first took it to Ray
Stevens, who turned it down in favor of singing a Kris Kristofferson
tune named 'Sunday Morning Coming Down'. After he rejected it they
offered it to Bob Dylan who also turned it down. Third time's a
charm...after some persuasion they then offered it to B. J. Thomas
who sang it for a movie, and a classic was born. You may have heard
of the lady who did the persuading too, BTW...Lady by the name of
Dionne Warwick. It ended up being a good decision by everyone
involved. Not only did the song become a huge hit (And ultimately a
beloved classic) it also won the Oscar for Best Original Song Form a
Motion Picture in 1970.
It
was recorded in seven takes, and the movie version of the song, and
the version heard on the 45RPM single are somewhat different.
B.J.Thomas was recovering from laryngitis when he recorded the song
for the movie, giving his voice a huskier, more raspy quality than it
has in the single and an instrumental break was added when Paul
Newman was doing the bicycle stunts for the movie scene. The single
was recorded seven weeks after the movie version, released in October
1969, hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on January 3rd
1970, and stayed there the whole month. Even after dropping out of
the top spot, it stayed on the Hot 100 for another 18 weeks.
The
first time I heard it was while watching Butch Cassidy at the old
Lyons State theater in Franklin Virginia, and if I had a dollar for
every time I've heard it since I would have probably paid off my car
with some change left over. 'Raindrops Keep Falling' On My Head' has
become a part of American Music History, and is one of those songs
that everyone likes (Whether they admit it or not...I've heard sworn
Metal-heads humming along with it on the radio at work...Hey, don't
no one touch my Oldies when I'm at work! ;)
Ya
can't help but get a smile on your face when you hear that classic
ukelele intro!
So
Enjoy! (Don't even think about saying ya didn't sing along with it!
;) )
Raindrops
Keep Falling On my Head, by B J. Thomas
As a Bonus...the scene from Butch Cassidey and The Sundance Kid.
Everyone
who was alive in 1979 and able to comprehend the concept of 'Music'
knows this one...and I bet most of them (OK, Us) have sung along with
the chorus more than a a few times. You only have to hear the
first few notes of the intro of this one to know exactly what song
I'm talking about. If the intro doesn't clue you in (And you have
never listened to the radio at all if it doesn't) the first line of
the song should.
'If
You Like Pina Coladas!'
Escape
(The Pina Colada Song) was a huge hit for Rupert Holmes, and became
his best known song, something he actually regarded with a little
chagrin because he felt it took attention away from his more serious
songs.
'Escape'
was written for Holmes' 'Partner’s In Crime' album, and almost had
nothing to do with Pina Coladas...the first line was originally 'If
You Like Humphrey Bogart...' with the emphasis on 'like' instead of 'you', but Holmes didn't like the feel of it
and decided to change it at the last minute, using the first exotic
drink that came to mind. Millions of lovers of the song are glad he
did...'If You Like Humphrey Bogart' just would not
have sounded right!
The
song was released on Sept 21, 1979 and hard as it may be to believe,
sales of the single started out slow. It took a title change to fix
it. See, people loved the song but when they looked for it at the
record stores (Remember record stores? ) they didn't realize that the
title was 'Escape'. Pina Colada is repeated numerous times very
prominently during the song, and most people assumed that was the
title...or at least that the name of the drink was in the title
somewhere,
so they asked for 'The Pina Colada Song' or 'That song about Pina
Coladas. So Holmes reluctantly agreed to a title change,
'Escape' became 'Escape (The Pina Colada Song), and record sales
immediately went through the roof. As in it climbed the charts
fifteen to twenty points a week, hitting number one on The Billboard
Hot 100 on December 22nd
1979 and hanging on until the year wound down, becoming the last
Number 1 song of The Seventies.
And
it gets better! Escape (The Pina Colada Song) dropped to number 2 in
the first week of January 1980...then had a resurgence and climbed
back
to number one on the Hot 100 chart that was released on January 12th,
1980, making it the only US single to climb to Number 1 in two
separate decades.
It
became one of those songs that everyone's heard, everyone knows at
least the chorus to, and just about everyone likes. And it became the
song that ended out the decade that my generation became teenagers
in, went to middle school, high school and college in, and made most
of our best memories in.
