(Edited to fix buy link.)
Well, here we are again, Memorial Day weekend, which traditionally makes me all moony and stupid about high school graduation, which happened to me the Tuesday after Memorial Day 30 years ago. I’m going to refrain from navel-gazing, however, and just go trolling for a few tunes on the radio that week.
“Jack and Jill”/Raydio. Raydio was fronted by Ray Parker Jr., who would score several hits under his own name in the 80s, including the Number One hit “Ghostbusters.” This, his first-ever hit, analyzes the subtext you didn’t know existed in the famous nursery rhyme with a smoothly groovin’ synth-driven backing track that’s pure 70s. “Jack and Jill” never fails to take me back to the spring of ‘78, a season which was full of personal subtexts. We’re not talking about that this year, however. I mean it.
“The Groove Line”/Heatwave. Heatwave was composed of musicians from several European countries; Englishman Rod Temperton would become the most famous after playing keyboards on Michael Jackson’s Thriller. “The Groove Line” is the least well-remembered of the group’s three Top 40 hits (”Boogie Nights” and “Always and Forever” were the others), but it’s the best of ‘em, with a relentless groove that sounded as good on the radio as it did on the dance floor.
“Warm Ride”/Rare Earth. This may have marked the moment at which the Bee Gees achieved maximum cultural penetration, when, after a hit drought of a few years, this respectable veteran rock band recorded a tune written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb and invited them in for backing vocals, with results you can predict. If it could happen to them, it could have happened to anyone.
“Where Have You Been All My Life”/Fotomaker. Two ex-Rascals, Gene Cornish and Dino Danelli, teamed with ex-Raspberry Wally Bryson and two other guys to create a power-pop supergroup. How could it miss? Well, it did, mostly. “Where Have You Been All My Life?” was their debut single. It has a ton of pop gloss, but at the same time it fails to leave much of an impression. It got only to Number 81 in Billboard, and I don’t remember hearing it on the stations I listened to. A second single from a second album, “Miles Away,” was slightly more memorable, enough to propel it to Number 63. (That one I remember playing on the radio.)
“Mama Let Him Play”/Doucette. If we lived in a just universe, this record would have been a monster in 1978, and would have remained a staple of rock and roll radio down unto this very day—which it was not, and has not. The fact that it reached only Number 72 on the Hot 100 was a crime against both commerce and art, because “Mama Let Him Play” leaves no ass unkicked. Click below, then turn your speakers up as far as they will go.
If anybody’s got an mp3 of that, help a brother out. I’ll owe you one. At least one. I am now the happy owner of three mp3s of it. Thanks, everybody.
“Jack and Jill”/Raydio (buy it here)
Filed under: Record Charts, Tracks, YouTube
