"One-Hit-Wonders of My Life, pt. 4"

Welcome back, readers, fellow music fans and trivia geeks!

There are so many acts that have made it to the Top 40 only once, never to do so again. There have even been several people who have charted only once as a solo artist and only once again as part of a group or duo. But there is one artist who holds a very distinctive record among "One-Hit-Wonders".

Tony Burrows, a British session singer, has sung the lead vocals on 4 songs that certainly qualify as "One-Hit-Wonders"! And, if the rules can be bent just a little, he would have 5! The songs and acts in question (along with their U.S. chart position) are as follows:

"Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" by Edison Lighthouse, #5

"United We Stand" by Brotherhood of Man*, #13

"My Baby Loves Lovin'" by White Plains, #13

"Gimme Dat Ding" by The Pipkins, #9

"Beach Baby" by The First Class, #4

The first four of those hits all occurred within four months, April to July of 1970! The last came in October of 1974.

* The original line-up of Brotherhood of Man actually disbanded in 1972, but its creator, producer Tony Hiller, assembled a completely new line-up under the same name, and it was this incarnation of the band that had the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest winner "Save Your Kisses For Me", which peaked at #27 in the U.S. (#1 on the Adult Contemporary chart).

Tony Burrows may not be a household name, but he is definitely entered into the annals of rock history as King of the "One-Hit-Wonders"!

"One-Hit-Wonders" of My Life, pt. 3

Welcome back for the third installment of the series.

In 1967, The Summer of Love, protest songs were a dime a dozen. But one of them has most definitely survived the test of time and is even now still much played and well known on classic rock channels across the country. The fact that it was a one-hit-wonder is somewhat of a surprise when you consider the talent of the musicians involved.

Of course, I'm talking about the song "For What It's Worth" by a band that took it's name from the manufacturer of a steamroller which had been parked in front of their producers' house, Buffalo Springfield. The band consisted of Steven Stills (later of Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)), Neil Young (also of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, as well as a solo artist of great renown afterwards), Jim Messina (who would go on to form Poco, then become half of Loggins & Messina), Richie Furay (also a member of Poco, then Souther Hillman Furay band), drummer Dewey Martin, and bassist Bruce Palmer. Due to many internal troubles and various legal issues, the band only made three albums between 1966 and 1968 before breaking up. However, "For What It's Worth", written by Stills, was the only Top 40 hit they would have, climbing to #7 in 1967.

The little trivia nugget I found most interesting about this particular song and group is that the entire thing hinged on a chance encounter and breaking the law. Stills and Young had met briefly in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada in 1965. They hit it off quickly and knew that they wanted to work together. But Steven's band split after that tour, and he went to Los Angeles. Young eventually also ended up there, and they were looking for each other without success. Stills was about to give up and head for San Francisco. Stills, their eventual producer Barry Friedman, and Furay were stuck in traffic on Sunset Boulevard, when they recognized Young's black 1953 Pontiac hearse going the opposite direction. After an illegal u-turn, they caught up...and history was made.

"One-Hit-Wonders" of My Life, pt. 2

Welcome back for the second installment in the series!

If you grew up during the 1980's, you were more than likely exposed to the genre of rock music known as "Hair Metal". MTV put this music right out front, back in the days when they still did little more than music videos. American radio stations followed suit, and it became very popular.

In 1983, a band named Autograph was formed in the Los Angeles area. The name evolved from the Def Leppard song "Photograph". The band consisted of Steve Plunkett on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Steve Lynch on lead guitar, Randy Rand on bass, Steve Isham on keyboards, and Keni Richards on drums. They recorded some rough demos, which were brought to the attention of a friend of theirs named Andy Johns, a record producer of some fame. Andy invited the band to the famous Record Plant studio to re-record and upgrade the demo tapes, with him producing, for free!

It was the new demo tape that Keni played for his close friend, David Lee Roth of Van Halen. David was so impressed that Autograph was invited to play as a supporting act for Van Halen's 1984 tour. Interesting trivia tidbit number one: Autograph played as their opening act 48 times! This was almost unheard of for an unsigned band. Following a show at Madison Square Garden in New York, the band was finally signed by MCA. Their first album, Sign In Please, was released in October of 1984. In 1985, came the release of "Turn Up The Radio". It went to #29 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Autograph released 2 more albums, in '85 and '87, and while MTV continued to play their videos, they never hit the Hot 100 again.

Here's todays other trivia nugget: Steve Lynch had a distinctive, two-handed fretboard tapping technique, and this song's solo actually won Guitar Player magazine's "Guitar Solo of the Year" award!

"One-Hit-Wonders" of My Life

This is the first in a new series of weekly blog posts that will feature a "One-Hit-Wonder" and anecdotal references or trivia regarding the particular song. If you are a fan of rock and roll music, as I am, then you should enjoy having this all in one spot!

I always wondered what it would be like for an artist to have one song hit the charts, climb like a rocket, and think that your career was "made", only to never be able to repeat it. Lack of talent? No, I really doubt that would be the reason. Changing attitudes? Maybe, but I doubt that's really it either. But to have gotten that big break, and then..."poof"...it's over? Man, that would be harsh!

I have decided that I would start with 1965, the year I was born.

The theme to the James Bond movie Goldfinger turned out to be the only 'hit' ever released in the U.S. for Shirley Bassey. It was released in 1964, but peaked at number 8 on the Billboard charts in 1965. It was the one and only time that she made the top 40 in America, though she'd been to #1 in the UK twice, and the top 10 on 7 other previous occasions.

But wait! There's more!

The song was originally recorded by Anthony Newley, who'd help write it. But it was re-recorded by Shirley Bassey, with the legendary George Martin producing. Here is the real "nugget" of trivia, though. A young, aspiring guitarist sat in on the recording sessions for this song. He later would go on to become a legend in the world of rock and roll, but at the time, he was only a respected session man.

His name? Jimmy Page!

Censorship

I was crawling around the web this morning and came across a fly that looked too juicy to pass up, despite the nearly nine years it had been hanging there.

If I were a spider, that would work really well as an opening line, wouldn't it?

The story you are about to read is true. No names will be changed, as there are no innocents involved.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, executives of Clear Channel Communications, the largest operator of radio stations in the USA, compiled a list of some 150 songs that had what they considered to be "questionable" lyrics or themes, as an advisory (stations were not forced to abandon playing them).

I read over this list, and could not help but laugh out loud! Keeping in mind that this was an advisory, and not a forced banning of these songs, I was very glad that the government did not follow this with an actual "forced" action. I am not anti-government, but I am definitely not pro-censorship. I believe that if an artist makes a song that can even remotely be considered "dangerous", they have a right to do so under the constitution. If you don't like it, turn it off!

I have added a link to the complete list at the end of this blog entry. But I will throw a few of these out here that made me wonder what the hell these corporate executives decided were in some way subversive. Get ready to laugh out loud. As usual, comments are welcome, so let me know what you think!

By the way, several of these songs are on my previous blog entries of the greatest of rock music.

Here we go:

AC/DC, who I consider to to be one of the greatest rock bands in history, had seven songs on this list, including Highway To Hell, Hell's Bells, TNT, (and get this!) Safe in New York City! Highly subversive, eh?

All Rage Against The Machine songs!

Godsmack's Bad Religion.

Megadeth's Sweating Bullets.

Metallica's Enter Sandman, Fade to Black, Seek and Destroy, and Harvester of Sorrow.

The Steve Miller Band's Jet Airliner.

Queen's Another One Bites the Dust and Killer Queen.

Van Halen's Jump.

Dust in the Wind by Kansas.

Now you can kind of tell I have a sense of humor that could be considered as slightly "dark", right? I mean, come on, unless you heard these songs at the time you heard the news or watched the World Trade Center buildings burning and collapsing, would they really be reminders of that fateful day? And there were other songs that brought guffaws from me. I couldn't believe it when I read that Frank Sinatra even made the list with New York, New York! WHAT!!!???!!!

And how about these classics:

Knockin' on Heaven's Door, On Broadway, even the emotionally charged What A Wonderful World! This has to be a joke, right?

Even The Beatles were represented, with A Day in the Life, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Ticket to Ride, and Obla Di, Obla Da. Huh? Questionable?

I was surprised at one of the omissions from the list. Judging by the theme of the songs that were there, it was a shock to discover that Elvis Presley's Burning Love (you know the lyric...a hunk, a hunk of burning love...) was omitted, though he was represented by (You're the) Devil in Disguise?

I have to stop now, as it's hard to reach the keyboard while I'm rolling on the floor!

The full article can be found at:

http://www.thisdayinrock.com/index.php/government-censorship/