Yeah, it's been awhile.
Marvin Gaye, “Sexual
Healing, “ #3 1/29/83
The last of 56 chart pop hits during his lifetime (Erick
Sermon’s 2001 hit “Music” contains vocals Gaye did in 1982 for his own album),
this one is a song to remember. Written
in late 1981 and early 1982 while Gaye was living in Belgium and trying to rid
himself of his decades-long drug habit, the song (co-written with musician
Odell Brown, although author David Ritz has claimed to have helped out with the
lyrics) became the centerpiece for his final studio album (at least while he
was still alive), Midnight Love.
Gaye, of course, never completely overcame his drug issues, and after another
downward spiral, was shot and killed by his father after an argument in April
1984, just short of his 45th birthday.
Kenny Loggins, “Heart
to Heart,” #15, 1/29/83
Second chart hit from Loggins’ High Adventure album, and a jump back from the rockers “I’m
Alright” and “Don’t Fight It” into more comfortable midtempo territory. Not sure who plays on this track – there is a
lengthy roster of guest artists on the album, including Steve Lukather and
David Paich from Toto, Michael McDonald, and Pat Benatar’s husband Neil Giraldo
– but since David Sanborn is the only sax player listed, I’m pretty sure that’s
him at the end.
Tom Petty & The
Heartbreakers, “You Got Lucky,” #20, 1/29/83
First single from the band’s album Long After Dark, written by Petty and guitarist Mike Campbell. Long
After Dark is most notable in the history of the band for being the first
album with Howie Epstein on bass, replacing Ron Blair. After Epstein’s death in 2003 due to
complications from drug use, Blair came back to the band, and he’s been there
ever since. (Bad news: there's about a minute 20 seconds useless setup for this video, so feel free to skip.)
Juice Newton, “Heart
of the Night,” #25, 1/29/83
Third and final chart single from Newton’s 1982 album Quiet Lies, co-written by John Bettis
and Michael Clark. Bettis had a hand in
a bunch of familiar 1980s songs, writing the lyrics for everything from Madonna’s
“Crazy for You” to Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.” He also wrote lyrics for a few of the
Carpenters’ later hits, along with the theme to Growing Pains, “As Long As We Have Each Other.” This song reached #4 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the
sixth and last top 5 hit for Newton on that chart.
Peter Gabriel, “Shock
the Monkey,” #29, 1/29/83
15 years into his music career with Genesis and then solo,
Gabriel finally chalked up an American Top 40 hit. (His previous solo peak was with 1980’s “Games
Without Frontiers,” while Genesis never notched a Top 40 hit when Gabriel was
with the band.) According to Gabriel,
the song is not about animal cruelty, but jealousy in human relationships. I guess we’ll have to take his word for it.
Ray Parker Jr., “Bad
Boy,” #35, 1/29/83
One of two new songs from his 1982 greatest hits set (the
other, “The People Next Door,” only hit the R&B chart), this also displayed
Parker’s occasional foray into lyrics that weren’t palatable to all listeners (“Spank
me, whup me/Let me come back home”). I
had a friend who loved Parker’s music until she listened to the hits set, which
included these lyrics on “Let Me Go”: “I know that when a woman gets in her
20s/She starts to feel like she’s running out of time”; she had no use for him
after that. In any case, it’s a
reasonably catchy song if the lyrics aren’t taken seriously.
Lanier & Co., “After
I Cry Tonight,” #48, 1/29/83
Another old-school R&B act (they started out in 1968 as
The Jacksonians, playing backup on a number of southern soul releases for the
next decade) that got their own chance on a tiny record label, in this case
LARC Records, which was distributed by MCA for about a year before going
under. According to the book Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside
the Music Business, the same label organizers made a comeback shortly
thereafter as a boutique label with the Columbia/Epic group named Private I,
but apparently Lanier & Co. didn’t make the transition. The band dissolved shortly after a 1988
release on Waylo Records, Dancing in the
Night; this was their only chart single.
Chaka Khan, “Got to
Be There,” #67, 1/29/83
I love Chaka Khan, I really do. Outstanding singer and personality
galore. But she isn’t a prolific
songwriter (most of her albums, both solo and with Rufus, only had one or two
cowrites), so she’s always been at the mercy of her label and whoever’s in the
producer’s booth. I’m not sure who
decided her remake of the 1972 Michael Jackson hit with a nearly identical
arrangement would be a good idea, but it certainly didn’t help boost her career.
Chicago, “What You’re
Missing,” #81, 1/29/83
Third single from the band’s comeback LP Chicago 16, this one’s a rocker
(although still with Peter Cetera on lead vocal, like the ballads before it),
but it didn’t get much chart action. We
can bitch about Chicago’s 1980s transition from a genuine rock band to nothing
but AC-friendly ballads – but they did usually release one rocker per album,
and those songs always charted the lowest.
In this case, not making a video for the album, which might have helped get them on MTV, certainly didn't help. Cowritten by Jay Gruska and Joseph Williams (the latter was later one of
Toto’s many lead singers).
