Super Hits 1982, Part 2

An occasional look back at the hits and misses of a memorable year for somebody.  Chart positions and dates are from Billboard.

Billy Squier, “My Kinda Lover,” 1/16/82, #45

Ugh.  I’m sorry, I mean, third single from his album Don’t Say No, which has sold over 3,000,000 copies.  Not terribly dissimilar to “The Stroke” and “In the Dark,” I suppose.

Balance, “Falling in Love,” 1/16/82, #58

Followup to the near-perfect pop single “Breaking Away” is a drippy ballad, and not surprisingly, didn’t do nearly as well.  No hits after that, either.  Interesting band membership, however – lead singer Peppy Castro was part of the Blues Magoos, guitarist Bob Kulick played with Kiss (his younger brother Bruce was a member of Kiss for years), and drummer Chuck Burgi is now with Billy Joel’s band.

Patti Austin, “Every Home Should Have One,” 1/16/82, #62

First and fourth single from the album of the same name, which was also her biggest.  Fortunately for her, the third single, “Baby, Come to Me,” with James Austin, hit #1 after its use in General Hospital  - which is why this was also the fourth single; Warner Brothers rereleased it after the duet became a hit. Produced by Quincy Jones.  Patti Austin’s still recording and touring today.

The Carpenters, “Those Good Old Dreams,” 1/16/82, #63

Third single from Made in America, notable because Richard Carpenter did a cowrite with John Bettis.  Not as rocking as The Carpenters early hits (I know, I know, but fans freaked out after the guitar solo in “Goodbye to Love”), and representative of their continuing struggle to hit the pop charts (they only broke top 20 once after 1976’s “There’s a Kind of Hush”).

“Southern Pacific,” Neil Young, 1/16/82, #70

From the album Re-ac-tor, with Crazy Horse.  Neil’s songs were never huge hits – his only solo Top 30 hits were “Heart of Gold” and a song from his album with Pearl Jam, “I Got [Id]” – but this one doesn’t even get much radio play nowadays.  Shame, since it’s a good rocker.

“Leather and Lace,” Stevie Nicks and Don Henley, 1/23/82, #6

Why did Stevie Nicks’ solo work do so much better on the charts than Lindsey Buckingham’s?  Was it because hers was so much more accessible (and his much, uh, weirder)?  Was it because she used lots of guest stars (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Don Henley here, and an uncredited Prince on “Stand Back”), and he did almost all the instrumental work himself?  Or was it because of her looks and that most radio programmers in the early ‘80s were men?  Hmmm, let me think…

“Someone Could Lose a Heart Tonight,” Eddie Rabbitt, 1/23/82, #15

Second single from his album Step by Step, and this broke a short streak of three consecutive top 10 pop hits for Rabbitt (although this would be his 16^th straight country top 10).  Less interesting to me than his 1980-81 hits “Drivin’ My Life Away” and “I Love a Rainy Night” – maybe somebody there told him to stick with the softer material.

“She’s Got a Way,” Billy Joel, 1/23/82, #23

Long story.  Billy Joel’s first album, “Cold Spring Harbor,” was mastered at the wrong speed, so Joel’s voice was much higher than it should have been.  As a result, it sounded lousy.  (And while there’s a version out today at the right speed, it’s also remixed and suffers horribly for it – I did have the original version on an eight-track tape slowed down to the correct speed, and it was far better.)  Anyway, Joel recorded two of the album’s songs on his live album, Songs From the Attic, which had nothing but music from his pre-The Stranger years.  The liner notes say “Written in 1970.  I still feel the same way.”  That refers to his wife, Elizabeth.  Of course, within a couple of years he would divorce Elizabeth, date Elle MacPherson, and then marry Christie Brinkley, so maybe not so much.

“More Than Just the Two of Us,” Sneaker,  1/23/82, #34

Not a reference to a ménage a trois.  String-slathered ballad from a California-based band; this was their biggest hit.  Produced by former Steely Dan and Doobie Brother guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, but this one doesn’t sound much like either of them. 

JohnE's Photo Album, Pt. 1

DC area outings.

Happy 100th to Tricky Dick!

King Kismet

Let Us Now Ponder A Few Of The Seven Ages Of The King Of Rock & Roll ... on what turns out to have been his 78th birthday. [I swear I didn’t plan this.]


It is bizarre to realize that less than a decade separates hillbilly raveups like “Baby, Let’s Play House” and the shamelessly beautiful torch ballad “I Need Somebody To Lean On,” the kind of song you can't imagine Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman really wrote for Elvis Presley and not, say, Julie London. That the song was recorded for a stupid but less-bad-than-the-rest Elvis movie makes its beauty all the more sublime. Every few months, I get it stuck in my head to the point that I consider overriding my loathing of owning a lot of books [and being one cheap bastard] to buy the sheet music for it so I can at least pretend playing it over and over is constructive.

“Somebody To Lean On” and the movie’s title track more or less cap off a sweet spot in Elvis’ career — after his Army hitch but before he abdicated all professional responsibility in Hollywood — when he made some truly great, probably underrated pop records, many of them written by Pomus & Shuman: “It’s Now Or Never,” “(Marie’s The Name of) His Latest Flame,” “Little Sister,” “Suspicion,” “Ain’t That Loving You Baby,” “I Feel So Bad” [find me a wilder drum ride just before the sleaziest-sounding saxophone solo, and I’ll kiss your ass on the courthouse steps] and “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” which was recorded a lot later in his career than one might assume.

Speaking of this moment in Elvis’ career:


I recently rediscovered how funny and cruelly incisive Albert Goldman can be -- I know, I know, it was great when he wrote about Lenny Bruce being a drug-addled shithead who had serious problems with women but it was the worst thing ever when Goldman dared to write about Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Bruce Lee being drug-addled shitheads who had serious problems with women. Hey, three out of four died of drug overdoses but that don't mean nothin’ -- and besides, who am I to judge you for your obvious anti-Semitism.

What reintroduced me to Goldman was one of my periodical flare-ups of interest in knowing more about the late Scatter Presley:

Scatter was the ideal frat-house mascot. A forty-pound, three-foot-tall chimpanzee, he had been trained by his first owner, a Memphis cartoonist who used him on his local TV show, to wear clothes, drink whiskey and raise hell with women. When Elvis first brought the beast out to Hollywood, he was enthralled with his antics. Elvis would treat him like a baby, carrying him around on his shoulders, showing him off for company and even changing his diapers. What tickled the Guys must about Scatter was the fact that he was so damn horny. Just let a girl step in the house and old Scatter would be hot on her tail. He would lift up her skirt and stick his head up toward her crotch. He would follow women to the bathroom or try to get inside while they were on the toilet. He would also chug-a-lug a few drinks at the bar and then turn around on his stool and start whacking off in some girl's face.

Elvis was always thinking of fresh ways to use Scatter as a device for driving people crazy. He would have the chimp dressed up in his cute little middy suit and tennis sneakers. Then Scatter would be enthroned in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud and driven about by one of the Guys wearing a chauffeur's cap. That night Elvis would scream with laughter as the chauffeur, generally Alan Fortas (who has a somewhat simian build), would recount the stories of how this motorist almost ran off the road staring at the chimp or how that old lady looked shocked or a cop on a corner did a triple take as the car went by. What really bugged Elvis was that they could never find one of those trick cars, like they have in the circus, that can be driven from the rear by a hidden operator while the ape sits up front turning the driving wheel. To roll down Hollywood Boulevard on an afternoon with Scatter at the wheel of a big costly Cad, casting looks to right and left with a driver's cap on his head and his long funky fingers wrapped around the wheel -- oh, God! Wouldn't that be heaven!

Short of the ultimate thrill, however, there were lots of other tricks you could play with the chimp. One of his most celebrated exploits was the time he got loose at the Goldwyn Studio and climbed up the drainpipe to the second-floor office of the boss, Sam Goldwyn. When Scatter came swinging through the window, Goldwyn's secretary screamed in horror and fled from the room. Scatter kept on going until he was in the Big Man's private office. Before the astonished movie mogul could utter a word, the ape had leaped on his desk and was cavorting among his contracts, pub shots and pictures of his grandchildren. Fortunately, the animal was well diapered, so he couldn't do anything totally outrageous.

The best fun Elvis had with Scatter was always some stunt involving sex. It was as if Elvis were using the beast as his proxy, as the perpetrator of all those crazy sex pranks he would have liked to have played but didn't dare. There was a little stripper, for example, who was a regular at the Presley parties. Elvis would entice this girl to come up to the house; then he would persuade her to get down on the floor and wrestle with Scatter. She wasn't much bigger than the chimp. If you didn't look too carefully, you would swear that the horny ape and the hot little chick were getting it on. That killed Elvis.

Another time, when one of the Guys went upstairs with a young woman who was an aspiring songwriter, Elvis got Alan and Sonny to slip Scatter into the bedroom after the couple had started balling. Scatter outdid himself on this occasion, eliciting from the girl some of the loudest and most piercing screams of his entire career. Sad to say, the guy was so outraged that he picked up the beast and hurled it about ten feet down the hall.

Poor Scatter! He soon suffered the fate of all Master Elvis' other toys. He lost his charm and was shipped back to Graceland, where he was installed at the back of the house in an air-conditioned cage. Neglected after all the attention he had received for years, he pined and drooped and turned vicious. Late in the Sixties, he bit a maid who was feeding him. Two days later, he was found dead in his cage.

How can the thumbnail of a life — even a chimp’s — be so funny, revolting, sad and somehow uplifting in spots? I fully accept that this might say more about me than Scatter, but you have no joie de’vivre if the image of a fully dressed chimp chug-a-lugging a few drinks while seated at a bar, then pivoting on his stool to start whacking off in a lady's face doesn’t make you laugh a little. Clearly, you forgot to imagine the tiny sneakers he’s wearing at the time.

“Elvis Moving a Small Cloud: The Desert Near Las Vegas, 1976"

- after the painting by Susan Baker

“Stop this motherfucking limo,” says the King,
And the Caddie, halting, raises fins of dust
Into a landscape made of creosote,
Lizards, dismembered tires. The King’s been reading again -

Mind Over Matter: Yogic Texts
On Spiritual Renewal by Doctor Krishna
Majunukta, A Guide on How to Tap the
Boundless Mental Powers of the Ancients.

Bodyguards and hangers-on pile out.
His highness, shades off, scans the east horizon.
“Boys, today I’m gonna show you somethin’
You can tell your grandchildren about.”

He aims a finger at Nevada’s only cloud.
“Lo! Behold! Now watch that fucker move!”

David Wojahn.

So Come On Dig, Dig, Dig In Until It Hurts. Just Remember Pearl Harbor

How in hell Elvis ever got through songs (and scenes) like this is way beyond me.

Elvis and I

He says "Do I look fat to you?"
I say "No, King, it's not true. You just have very big bones."

Oh and My Electric Surges Free

40 years ago today.

Super Hits 1982, Part 1

By Curt Alliaume

An occasional look back at the hits and misses of a memorable year for somebody.  Chart positions and dates are from Billboard.

Neil Diamond, “Yesterday’s Songs”, #11, 1/9/82

First single from On the Way to the Sky, Diamond’s first album following The Jazz Singer soundtrack.  A trifle at best, Neil was using a lot of cowriters by this point (which he never did early in his career), indicating the songwriting well was running dry.  

Queen and David Bowie, “Under Pressure,” #29, 1/9/82

How did this song just barely scrape into the top 30?  Have to wonder what the radio stations were thinking; it’s a great song (Vanilla Ice’s lift for “Ice Ice Baby” notwithstanding), and for a long time it was unavailable anywhere except a Queen greatest hits set.  Maybe the fans were sick of Queen at that point.

Rush, “Closer to the Heart” (live) #69, 1/9/82

Well, they sure did try.  Live version of a well-known album track released on A Farewell to Kings, and this charted only slightly higher than the original (Rush only had one top 40 hit in the states, although they made the Hot 100 ten times in all).  I didn’t like the band in their heyday, not sure why now. And they’re still selling records – how many other bands on this list can say that?

Kano, “Can’t Hold Back (Your Loving),” #89, 1/9/82

Catchy, but America really wasn’t in a mood for what’s now referred to as “post-disco” music, unless it was really, really good.  I like this video, though – it looks like a cheapie version of Solid Gold.

The Kinks, “Better Things,” #92, 1/9/82

Second single off the Give the People What They Want album (first single in the U.K., where it was a much bigger hit), and an unusually cheery song for Ray Davies.  Named Favorite Breakup Song by American Songwriter, and got a remake a couple of years ago by Pearl Jam.

Lindsey Buckingham, “Trouble,” #9, 1/16/82

Odd that Lindsey Buckingham’s solo career would yield one top 20 hit while Stevie Nicks had eight, but that’s the way things works sometimes.  A lot of other players on this video (the actual record was pretty much all Buckingham), including Walter Egan (“Magnet and Steel”), and what looks like Bob Welch, who Buckingham replaced in Fleetwood Mac (if it’s him, he was wearing a different rug than the brown thing he’d utilize later). Mick Fleetwood (who actually did play drums on the records) is there too.

Ronnie Milsap, “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World,” #20, 1/16/82

After Urban Cowboy happened, there were a lot of crossover hits from country to pop/AC, and Ronnie Milsap was one of the biggest beneficiaries.  Having notched just one top 40 pop hit in his career up till that point, he racked up four in the space of 18 months (this was the third).  I think he was still trying to bury the pseudo-disco embarrassment “Get It Up” from two years before.

Lulu, “If I Were You,” #44, 1/16/82

Followup to her last US Top 40 hit, “I Could Never Miss You (More Than I Do)” (although I doubt most people stateside remember any of her songs aside from “To Sir With Love”).  Continued to chart in the UK for years after that, and still tours today. (Note to the person who made this video - you might want to find some slightly better JPGs.)

METAL

"Why does the Monsters of Rock stage require the presence of carbon units?"

10 Great Buddy Holly Cover Versions

1. "Love's Made A Fool of You" Lemmy and friends
2. "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" Marshall Crenshaw
3. "Words of Love" Paul McCartney
4. "I'm Gonna Love You Too" Blondie
5. "Rave On" John Fogerty
6. "Peggy Sue Got Married" John Doe
7. "Oh Boy" Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
8. "Everyday" Fiona Apple
9. "True Love Ways" Erasure
10. "Blue Days, Black Nights" John E. Williams (hey, how did THAT get there?)

Rockin' DC: Rubbin' Sticks 'n' Stones Together

I have made Washington, DC my home for over 18 years, having decided one fateful, fitful night that I'd had just about as much of New Jersey as one man could stomach, and within three months I was gone baby gone. They all laughed and said I wouldn't do it, but they were WRONG! (They're all still laughing now, but for different reasons.) The verdict: I like it here. A lot. It isn't Manhattan, which is both a plus and a minus, and it's downright beautiful in places, especially in the spring. I know my way around pretty expertly and it's a great walking city. And for all its faults, it's a great town for live music.

DC has a great if small musical history: it's the home of Go-Go master Chuck Brown (and the Searchers), it played a little-known but substantial role in the growth of modern bluegrass, and its punk scene during the 80s rivaled those of New York and L.A.  Its legendary clubs include the Bayou, the Black Cat, the Birchmere, the 9:30 Club, and the Tex-Mex Grille (that last one is nowhere near legendary but it was my main gig for a few years, so it counts).  But perhaps DC's most notorious historical claim is as the home of one of the stupidest, cheesiest and most ear-worming hits of the 1970s: Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight".



The story goes like this: the Starland band members were friends and performers living in the DC area and based the song on either a menu item or the name of a happy hour at a bar called Clyde's in Georgetown. (You can read more about it at the website of the band's leader and songwriter, Bill Danoff.) Clyde's is still in business -- the food is terrible, but you can see copies of the gold record of the single hanging on the wall.

Dig It

Spirit

The Winteriest of Winter Albums

Happy New Year! And now for another boring look back at one of my favorite records.

At this time of year in 1983, I was attending a nearby university (Seton Hall; go Pirates!) and literally living in my parents' basement. Oh yes, William Shatner would be proud. It was a great setup -- I had a corner of the room all to myself and I built a little practice apartment out of it, complete with TV, drawing table, crummy bed, boombox, guitar, and comic books. All the essentials. I even smoked like a chimney down there late at night, even though I wasn't supposed to, but my parents slept three stories up and I discovered that the smell dissipated somehow by morning, so they never knew.

That winter was particularly dark and cold and bracing, even for New Jersey. I looked it up, so I know this isn't just middle-aged memory. I spent those long icy nights drawing comics, reading, watching late night TV, and of course listening to music. Of all the albums I associate with that winter, the standout is Dire Straits' Love Over Gold, which first caught my ear with the catchy "Industrial Disease", but the entire album soon had me enthralled. The song I returned to again and again (and still do) was the masterpiece and album centerpiece "Telegraph Road". Clocking in at over fourteen minutes, it's a long and sumptuous piece, more orchestral in structure than it is rock 'n' roll, but there is plenty of that, especially in the last section, or movement, or whatever it is. And it tells of dark, cold winters and of being overtaken by forces beyond one's control.

And my radio says tonight it's gonna freeze/people driving home from the factories/six lanes of traffic/three lanes moving slow 

I don't have to point out the obvious, that the guitar work is beyond superb, but the rest of the instrumentation and arrangement is just as great. Knopfler was about to embark on his side career of composing soundtracks, and Love Over Gold was probably his dry run for that work.

A song that was written for the album but omitted for release was "Private Dancer", which was a hit later that year for Tina Turner. Parts of Knopfler's version survive in the title track, especially the identical chorus.

Lastly, here's "It Never Rains", which is one of the sweetest songs you could ever sing to anyone nursing a broken heart.