Forever #1 - Tito Jackson (Jackson 5)

[Gary]

[Gary]

[Gary]

Meat Loaf, ‘Bat Out of Hell’ Rock Superstar Dies at 74
The legendary rocker died on Thursday (Jan. 20).


By Associated Press

01/21/2022

Meat Loaf, the heavyweight rock superstar loved by millions for his Bat Out of Hell album and for such theatrical, dark-hearted anthems as “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” and “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” has died. He was 74.

01/21/2022
“Our hearts are broken to announce that the incomparable Meat Loaf passed away tonight,” the statement said. “We know how much he meant to so many of you and we truly appreciate all of the love and support as we move through this time of grief in losing such an inspiring artist and beautiful man… From his heart to your souls…don’t ever stop rocking!”

No cause or other details were given, but Aday had numerous health scares over the years.

Bat Out of Hell, his mega-selling collaboration with songwriter Jim Steinman and producer Todd Rundgren, came out in 1977 and made him one of the most recognizable performers in rock. Fans fell hard for the roaring vocals of the long-haired, 250-plus pound singer and for the comic non-romance of the title track, “You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth,” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” and “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” an operatic cautionary tale about going all the way. “Paradise” was a duet with Ellen Foley that featured play by play from New York Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, who alleged — to much skepticism — that he was unaware of any alternate meanings to reaching third base and heading for home.

After a slow start and mixed reviews, Bat Out of Hell became one of the top-selling albums in history, with worldwide sales of more than 40 million copies.

Bat Out of Hell spent 82 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 14, and spawned three top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” going highest at No. 11. Meat Loaf scored another slew of hits when he reteamed with Steinman for the sequel, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which topped the Billboard 200: that album’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” became his solo Hot 100 No. 1 for five weeks in 1993, also earning him a Grammy Award for best rock vocal performance, solo; the album also produced two more top 40 hits in “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” and “Objects In the Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are.” The hot streak continued in 1995 with the No. 13-peaking “I’d Lie for You (And That’s the Truth),” which would be his final appearance on the Hot 100.

Meat Loaf wasn’t a consistent hit maker, especially after falling out for years with Steinman. But he maintained close ties with his fans through his manic live shows, social media and his many television, radio and film appearances, including Fight Club and cameos on Glee and South Park.

Friends and fans reacted to the death on social media.

“I hope paradise is as you remember it from the dashboard light, Meat Loaf,” actor Stephen Fry said on Twitter.

Meat Loaf’s biggest musical success after Bat Out of Hell was Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, a 1993 reunion with Steinman that sold more than 15 million copies and featured the Grammy-winning single “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).”

Steinman died in April.

Aday’s other albums included Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose, Hell in a Handbasket and Braver Than We Are.

A native of Dallas, Aday was the son of a school teacher who raised him on her own after divorcing his alcoholic father, a police officer. Aday was singing and acting in high school (Mick Jagger was an early favorite, so was Ethel Merman) and attended Lubbock Christian College and what is now the University of North Texas. Among his more notable childhood memories: Seeing John F. Kennedy arrive at Love Field in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, then learning the president had been assassinated and driving to Parkland Hospital and watching a bloodied Jackie Kennedy step out of a car.

He was still a teenager when his mother died and when he acquired the nickname Meat Loaf, the alleged origins of which range from his weight to a favorite recipe of his mother’s. He left for Los Angeles after college and was soon fronting the band Meat Loaf Soul. For years, he alternated between music and the stage, recording briefly for Motown, opening for such acts as the Who and the Grateful Dead and appearing in the Broadway production of Hair.

By the mid-1970s, he was playing the lobotomized biker Eddie in the theater and film versions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, had served as an understudy for his friend John Belushi for the stage production of National Lampoon and had begun working with Steinman on Bat Out of Hell. The dense, pounding production was openly influenced by Wagner, Phil Spector and Bruce Springsteen, whose bandmates Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg played on the record. Rundgren initially thought of the album as a parody of Springsteen’s grandiose style.

Steinman had known Meat Loaf since the singer appeared in his 1973 musical More Than You Deserve and some of the songs on Bat Out of Hell, including “All Revved Up With No Place to Go,” were initially written for a planned stage show based on the story of Peter Pan. Bat Out of Hell took more than two years to find a taker as numerous record executives turned it down, including RCA’s Clive Davis, who disparaged Steinman’s songs and acknowledged that he had misjudged the singer: “The songs were coming over as very theatrical, and Meat Loaf, despite a powerful voice, just didn’t look like a star,” Davis wrote in his memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life.

With the help of another Springsteen sideman, Steve Van Zandt, Bat Out of Hell was acquired by Cleveland International, a subsidiary of Epic Records. The album made little impact until months after its release, when a concert video of the title track was aired on the British program the Old Grey Whistle Test. In the U.S., his connection to Rocky Horror helped when he convinced producer Lou Adler to use a video for “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” as a trailer for the cult movie. But Meat Loaf was so little known at first that he began his Bat Out of Hell tour in Chicago as the opening act for Cheap Trick, then one of the world’s hottest groups.

“I remember pulling up at the theater and it says, ‘TONIGHT: CHEAP TRICK, WITH MEAT LOAF.’ And I said to myself, ‘These people think we’re serving dinner,’” Meat Loaf explained in 2013 on the syndicated radio show In the Studio.

“And we walk out on stage and these people were such Cheap Trick fans they booed us from the start. They were getting up and giving us the finger. The first six rows stood up and screamed. … When we finished, most of the boos had stopped and we were almost getting applause.”

He is survived by Deborah Gillespie, his wife since 2007, and by daughters Pearl and Amanda Aday.

[Gary]

Artists who have hit #1 and who have passed since this thread started in 2019

- Dary Dragon, Captain & Tennille
- James Ingram
- Peter Tork, Monkees
- Hal Blaine (session drummer on 39 #1 hits)
- Doris Day
- Kenny Rogers
- Bill Withers
- Wayne Fontana
- Ronald Bell, Kool & The Gang
- Edna Wright, Honey Cone
- Pamela Hutchinson, Emotions
- Helen Reddy
- Mac Davis
- Eddie Van Halen
- Johnney Hash
- Mary Wilson, Supremes
- Les Mckeown, Bay City Rollers
- Lloyd Price
- Pervis Staples, staples SIngers
- John Davis, Voice of Milli Vanilli
- BJ Thomas
- Dennis Thomas, Kool & The Gang
- Don Everly
- Brian Travers, UB40
- Charlie Watts, Rolling Stones
- Terence Wilson, UB40
- Michael Nesmith, Monkees
- Meatloaf

[Gary]

Forever No. 1: Meat Loaf’s ‘I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’
The theater-rock classic was one of the biggest and least-likely comeback singles of the '90s.


By Andrew Unterberger

Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late Meat Loaf with a look at his first and only Hot 100 No. 1, the over-the-top 1993 epic ‘I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).’

Meat Loaf
SEE LATEST VIDEOS, CHARTS AND NEWS

Meat Loaf should’ve ruled the ’80s. His breakthrough album Bat Out of Hell had been one of the great success stories of the late ’70s, a fully formed debut that married prog-rock pomp with E Street Band urgency and operatic stakes, carried by the actor/singer’s larger-than-life voice and personality. It sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, reached the year-end Billboard 200 albums charts for both 1978 and 1979, and made Meat Loaf a superstar. The next decade would see pop and rock only further embracing Bat Out of Hell’s sense of over-the-top melodrama, while the 1981 introduction MTV gave popular music’s most visually and theatrically inclined artists a platform to present their widescreen visions to the world in heavy rotation. Everything was set up for the artist born Marvin Lee Aday to become one of the defining artists of the era.

However, Meat Loaf’s attempts to follow up Bat Out of Hell were unfortunately waylaid. At the end of the decade, the singer lost his voice due to a combination of tour exhaustion and drug abuse, and primary artistic partner and songwriter Jim Steinman decided to use the songs he’d penned for the project for his own debut album as a performer, 1981’s Bad For Good. By the time singer and songwriter reconvened for the Dead Ringer album later that year, public enthusiasm had dimmed and the material wasn’t as strong — especially without Bat producer, ’70s hitmaker and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Todd Rudngren, behind the boards — leading to the set peaking at No. 45 on the Billboard 200 and generating no major hits. Meat Loaf and Steinman’s professional relationship would splinter shortly after, and while the latter would pen sizable smashes that decade for Bonnie Tyler (“Total Eclipse of the Heart”) and Air Supply (“Making Love Out of Nothing at All” — both of which Loaf claims were originally offered to him — the singer would go the rest of the ’80s without so much as a top 40 Billboard Hot 100 hit or RIAA gold-certified album, seemingly a has-been in the decade he helped set the table for.

By late 1993, the ’90s were already, well, the ’90s. The crescendoing grandiosity of the ’80s had largely faded out in popular music, with the joint takeovers of grunge and alternative in rock and West Coast G-funk and East Coast boom-bap in rap making the decade’s musical identity simpler, edgier, and significantly less fantastical. The biggest top 40 stars were in the pop/R&B hybrid hitmaking mold of Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson. It would not have seemed like the ideal time for Meat Loaf, once again reunited with Steinman and ready to journey Back Into Hell with the long-delayed official sequel to his 1977 blockbuster. But journey the pair did, and the singer was rewarded with the first and only Hot 100 No. 1 of his career, thanks to the set’s return-to-form lead single — the epic-even-when-radio-edited “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).”


In truth, Meat Loaf’s return wasn’t totally without precedent or peer, even in 1993. That was the year that Aerosmith, fellow ’70s rock survivors who’d since fallen on hard times — albeit ones who had started their comeback a little earlier, returning to pop prominence in the late ’80s — started enjoying their greatest success of the MTV era, with their multi-platinum Get a Grip album and a trio of plot- and action–heavy videos starring teen actress Alicia Silverstone. It was also the final year of Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion cycle, when the once raw and raunchy hard-rock band got big and weird, culminating in the nine-minute psychodrama of “Estranged” and its music video, one of the most epic and expensive (if also largely inscrutable) clips ever aired on MTV. There was still counter-programming available for those who missed the large-scale, panoramic rock renderings of the late ’70s and ’80s — and Meat Loaf was prepared to give it to ’em bigger and more colorfully than anyone.

As the opening track and lead single to Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” makes its intentions clear right away, with guitar chopped up and distorted to sound like a revving motorcycle — like the one on the Bat cover — giving way to a downpour of dramatic piano plinks (which starts the song’s radio edit) and crashing guitar and drums. Soon, the singer appears, launching right into the song’s chorus: “And I would do anything for love/ I’d run right into hell and back/ I would do anything for love/ I’ll never lie to you and that’s a fact/ But I’ll never forget the way you feel right now, oh no, no way/ And I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” (That the first lyric you hear on the song is “And” really makes it seem like Meat Loaf is picking up right where he left off 17 years ago, with the two eras barely even separated by an ellipsis.)

Despite coming so strong out of the gate, “I’d Do Anything For Love” still has a ways to go. The full album version is a staggering 12 minutes long, while the edited MTV version runs a somewhat more manageable 7:40 and the radio edit gets in and out in a brisk-by-comparison 5:16. As was typical of classic Meat Loaf, there are a variety of shifts in tempo, tone and intensity — and, in an echo of Ellen Foley duet (and signature Bat hit) “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” a female co-star in studio singer Lorraine Crosby, though on the album version she doesn’t even enter until almost the 9:30 mark. But it always circles back to that immediately unforgettable chorus, a pledge of eternal and unconditional devotion — well, except for one lone condition.

And what was that exception? The mystery behind the “That” in “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” certainly played a large part in making the song a phenomenon, a common subject of casual listener debate that lingers to this day. (The 2020 Oscar-nominated drama The Sound of Metal features its two main characters — metal bandmates and romantic partners — singing along to the song while driving and trying to divine the “That” meaning, with one quipping, “Anal.”) In truth, the mystery was no mystery at all: As Meat Loaf would frequently point out, often seemingly to his great frustration, the answer is laid plain in that opening chorus, and again (with different but similarly themed lyrics) in every subsequent chorus: “I’ll never forget the way you feel right now… I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” (Talking to journalist Dan Reilly, Loaf blamed Steinman’s writing for hammering home the “I would do anything for love” part of the chorus with so much repetition that listeners always forgot the lyrics that came immediately before it.)



Regardless of the reason for the confusion, the seeming ambiguity of the chorus helped make the song a mid-’90s pop culture fixture — as of course, did the song’s video, directed by future action feature auteur Michael Bay. A Beauty and the Beast-themed love story featuring Meat Loaf in monster makeup and actress Dana Patrick in Lorraine Crosby’s co-starring role — with heavy visual echoes of Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun” and the GnR Illusion mini-epics (and no shortage of motorcycles, natch) — the clip finally brought Meat Loaf fully to life on MTV, as none of his ’80s clips had been able to do. It briefly made the then-46-year-old singer as big a star on the channel as Eddie Vedder or Snoop Doggy Dogg, finishing at No. 11 on the channel’s top 100 videos of the year list for 1993.

While the singles on the original Bat Out of Hell may have ultimately proven too unwieldy to threaten the top of the Hot 100 — proto-power ballad “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” was the album’s biggest hit, peaking at No. 11, while “Paradise” and “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” scraped the bottom of the top 40 — the pop mainstream seemed to have no such concerns in embracing “I’d Do Anything For Love.” The song debuted on the Hot 100 at No. 68 on the chart dated Sept. 16, 1993; a mere seven weeks later, it replaced Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover” at the chart’s apex, staying there for five weeks before being booted by Janet Jackson’s “Again,” a rare rock detour in a year where the Hot 100 was largely dominated by pop and R&B. In 1994, it also won Meat Loaf his lone Grammy, for best rock vocal performance, solo.

Meat Loaf never reached the chart’s top 10 again, though he did notch two more top 40 hits off Bat II in 1994 with “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” (No. 13) and “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are” (No. 38), and made one final visit to the region in 1995 with Welcome to the Neighborhood lead single “I’d Lie For You (And That’s the Truth).” Steinman would return to the chart’s top tier in 1996 with the Celine Dion-sung, No. 2-peaking “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” — another stadium-sized power ballad whose sound (and music video) were deeply reminiscent of “Anything For Love.” Loaf and Steinman together would try to recapture the Bat magic one more time a decade later, with 2006’s Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, which debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 but received mixed reviews and failed to generate a hit single.

Today, the original Bat Out of Hell is the work most closely associated with Meat Loaf, still inescapable on classic rock radio and at karaoke nights and inspiring its own (Steinman-helmed) theatrical adaptation in 2017. But “Anything For Love” stands alone as Meat Loaf’s global pop peak — going to No. 1 in over two dozen countries, restoring the rock icon’s legacy, and making up for nearly his entire lost ’80s with one super-sized single.

[Gary]

Forever No. 1: C.W. McCall’s ‘Convoy’
The sole Hot 100-topping hit for the ad exec-turned-hitmaker arrived at the center of a number of mid-'70s trends.


By Andrew Unterberger

04/4/2022

Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late C.W. McCall with a rearview mirror glance at his lone Hot 100-topper, the unstoppable country novelty hit “Convoy.”


If you didn’t recognize the name Bill Fries as it popped up in obituary headlines over the past weekend, after Fries’ death at age 93 following a cancer diagnosis, you might have had more luck with the name that followed: C.W. McCall. That was the identity assumed by the performer-songwriter Fries back when he was still an ad executive for the Bozell and Jacobs agency in Omaha, Nebraska in 1973. With commercial truckers then in the news more than usual, thanks to a fuel shortage and nationally imposed 55-MPH speed limit that made their struggles (and communal attempts to navigate those struggles, particularly with the use of CB radio) a public concern, Fries created the McCall character as a musical narrator for trucker-centered advertisements, winning a Clio in the process. A few years later, McCall would earn Fries an even more prestigious distinction: a Hot 100 No. 1 single, with the CB radio anthem “Convoy.”

McCall is often remembered as a one-hit wonder, but in fact, “Convoy” wasn’t his only hit, or even his first hit. He first cracked the Hot 100 in 1974 with the No. 54-peaking “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On-a-Truckin’ Cafe,” a rest-stop ode that in fact had originally been used by Fries to anchor a series of commercials for Old Home Bread, before being partially combined and recorded as a standalone single under the McCall name. He bettered that with his next release, “Wolf Creek Pass,” another road mini-odyssey that just cracked the Hot 100’s top 40 — and which also titled the first C.W. McCall album, a No. 4 hit on Billboard‘s Country Albums chart. Third single “Classified” just missed the Hot 100 but made for the performer-songwriter’s third straight top 20 hit on the Country Songs listing, all co-written by eventual Mannheim Steamroller founder Chip Davis.





Referring to McCall as a “performer-songwriter” is something of a necessity, because he didn’t technically do much singing on any of these singles. As Johnny Cash and Charlie Daniels had done on Nixon-era hits of their own, McCall tells his stories in straight-faced, spoken-word narration, with a sonorous baritone that motors as fast and steady as the truckers he’s talking about. But where those country greats were certainly capable of singing on their songs’ choruses — and had other hits where they were primarily serving as crooners — McCall mostly stuck to his rat-a-tatting on the verses, and let his backing singers take the lead when it came time for the more melodic chorus hooks. The same was true for “Convoy” when it arrived in 1975, also co-penned by Davis, as the second single from McCall’s sophomore album Black Bear Road.

While “Convoy” today is inextricably associated with memories of the CB radio fad — which by ’75 had expanded in popularity from trucker necessity to national craze, with prognosticators quoted in Forbes even predicting CB to be a billion-dollar industry by the next decade, according to Fred Bronson’s The Billboard Book of No. 1 hits — its quick rise up the charts is also linked to two other major pop trends of the mid-’70s: crossover country and story songs. Though country No. 1s on the Hot 100 are a rarity in the 21st century, and were scarcely seen in the ’60s and early ’70s, they were essentially commonplace around ’75, with stars like John Denver and Glen Campbell reaching the chart’s apex multiple times with pop-friendly twangers. And both inside and outside of country, the decade had been littered with hit story songs: FM radio-ready narratives that told a relatively full and coherent story within the confines of a (sometimes lengthier than average) pop song, making for one-off chart-toppers from Vicki Lawrence and Paper Lace and further No. 1 hits for more regular hitmakers like Helen Reddy and Cher.



But it was of course the CB radio usage that propelled “Convoy” to the next level, as the song’s tale of a rebel trucker cavalcade electrified audiences, along with its fictional CB names of “Sodbuster,” “Pig Pen” and “Rubber Duck” (the latter McCall’s own handle), use of “10-4” and “10-9” call signs, and deployment of deep trucker lingo (“bear in the air” for police helicopter, “swindle sheets” for falsified trucker logs). With the martial beat, tensely plodding piano and over-enunciated narration of its verses, “Convoy” generates a decent amount of suspense, especially with the added drama of faux-CB transmissions being interspersed throughout — all of it making the single perhaps feel more like the intro credits to a TV serial than a top 40 fixture.

The chorus, however, is where everything comes together for “Convoy” as a pop song — as the beat lightens up, the melody shifts, the piano softens, sweet strings fly in from overhead, and McCall’s terse spoken word is replaced with his backing vocalists gently exclaiming, “‘Coz we got a great big convoy, rockin’ through the night/ We got a great big convoy, ain’t she a beautiful sight?” It’s an easily understood and joined-in singalong moment, punctuated by one final, suddenly minor punch of the title phrase — “CON-VOYYYYY!!” — that sends the song hurtling back to its verses. It’s a chorus of cleverly designed contrast, one that interrupts the verses just in time to keep them from being unbearably anxious and foreboding, but which gets back out of the way before undoing all the momentum they’d been building. And it’s also just instantly memorable, the kind of chorus that can still be used for a mostly random Simpsons gag two decades later and still translate on some level.

The timely lyrical novelty of “Convoy,” combined with it fitting snugly at the cross-section of a couple other major waves of ’70s pop music, resulted in it speeding to the top of the charts — debuting at No. 82 on the Hot 100 on the chart dated Dec. 6, 1975, and replacing the Bay City Rollers’ “Saturday Night” at No. 1 on the Jan. 10, 1976 chart just five weeks later, an incredible trajectory for a mid-’70s hit by a relatively unproven artist. The song lasted just the one week on top — part of a run of six straight single-week No. 1s at the turn of the calendar year — before giving way to Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs.” ultimately spending 16 total weeks on the chart and ending up as the No. 57 song on Billboard‘s year-end Hot 100 for 1976. (The single also marked the final Hot 100 No. 1 for the once-mighty MGM Records, home to chart-toppers like Connie Francis and Herman’s Hermits in the ’60s, who were fully absorbed into Polydor records in ’76 and mostly left as a label for soundtracks and reissues until operations ceased in the early ’80s.)



The CB radio trend didn’t continue growing as Forbes‘ sources had predicted, instead mostly becoming a relic of the “Me” Decade by the start of the ’80s. McCall’s pop career didn’t fare much better, as he reached the Hot 100 just one more time — with the No. 73-peaking and exceedingly ’70s-titled “There Won’t Be No Country Music (There Won’t Be No Rock ‘n’ Roll)” in 1976 — though he did manage one more major country single with the No. 2-peaking Country Songs hit “Roses For Mama.” (He also tried a sequel song, “Round the World With the Rubber Duck,” shorly after “Convoy,” with limited success.) Fries ultimately left C.W. McCall behind altogether, getting out of music and into politics, serving two terms as mayor of his adopted town of Ouray, Colorado, beginning in 1986. (“Well I haven’t got anything else to do… why not?” he recalled a quarter-century later about being asked to run for the office.)

But “Convoy” endured, for better and worse. The song inspired a Sam Peckinpah-directed 1978 movie of the same name, in the vein of prior ’70s road chase movies like Smokey and the Bandit and White Line Fever, receiving mixed reviews but decent box office returns. It’s also continued to be parodied and covered well into the 21st century, including a 2004 rendition from Canadian country hitmaker Paul Brandt — a top 10 country hit in his homeland — and a 2010 remake from conservative singer-songwriter Colt Ford. And just this year, “Convoy” was used as a rallying cry for the groan-worthy Freedom Convoy, a series of anti-vaccination mandate protests in Canada, an unfortunate use of the song that nonetheless showed its unlikely rallying powers (and Fries’ spokesperson prowess) to be just as potent nearly a half-century later.




Hot 100 Flashback - January 10, 1976





TW LW Two Weeks Ago Weeks Title, Artist peak

1 6 7 6 Convoy, C.W. McCall 1

2 2 6 9 I Write The Songs, Barry Manilow 2

3 3 5 11 Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To), Diana Ross 3

4 4 4 9 Love Rollercoaster, Ohio Players 4

5 1 2 14 Saturday Night, Bay City Rollers 1

6 7 8 9 Fox On The Run, Sweet 6

7 9 10 11 I Love Music (Part 1), The O'Jays 7

8 8 3 12 That's The Way (I Like It), KC & The Sunshine Band 1

9 11 15 6 Love To Love You Baby, Donna Summer 9

10 12 14 9 Times Of Your Life, Paul Anka 10

[Gary]

Country Singer C.W. McCall of ‘Convoy’ Fame Dies at 93
Gil Kaufman
Mon, April 4, 2022, 1:35 PM·3 min read
In this article:

C. W. McCall
American singer, activist and politician

C.W. McCall, the baritone country singer best known for his CB-inspired 1976 chart-topping hit “Convoy” has died at age 93. The death of the performer born Bill Fries — who recorded under the McCall moniker — was confirmed by his son, Bill Fries III; the singer announced in February that he was receiving cancer treatment in hospice.

Best known for his outlaw country anthems, Audubon, Iowa-bred Fries rose to musical prominence through his day job as a creative director at the Bozell & Jacobs advertising agency in Omaha, where in 1973 he wrote a Clio award-winning TV campaign for Old Home Bread. The jingle told the story of trucker C.W. McCall, who hauled the goods from the Metz Baking Company in his 18-wheeler as he romanced a waitress named Mavis, who worked at the Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Cafe in Pisgah, Iowa.

The ads clicked and bread sales went up as fans became fascinated by the fictional couple, prompting Fries to spin them off into a modestly selling promotional single for Metz called “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe.” The song was written by Fries and Bozell’s in-house jingle writer, Chip Davis, who would go on to found Mannheim Streamroller and collaborate with Fries on a number of other songs over the next half-decade. Soon enough, MGM Records in Nashville got interested and Fries cooked up his iconic truck life story song, “Convoy,” which was larded with a string of CB radio buzzwords.

“Ah, breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck/ You gotta copy on me, Pig Pen, c’mon?/ Ah, yeah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure/ By golly, it’s clean clear to Flag Town, c’mon/ Yeah, that’s a big 10-4 there, Pig Pen/ Yeah, we definitely got the front door, good buddy/ Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy,” Fries talk-sings in the intro of the song, which balances his deep, froggy vocals with a bright chorus of female voices chirping, “‘Cause we got a little ol’ convoy/ Rockin’ through the night/ Yeah, we got a little ol’ convoy/ Ain’t she a beautiful sight?/ Come on and join our convoy/ Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way/ We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy/ ‘Cross the USA.”

The song rose to No. 1 on the Billboard pop and country charts in 1975-76 at a time when CB radios were gaining wider cultural prominence, popping up in consumer cars as well as in the films White Line Fever (1975) and Burt Reynolds/Sally Field smash comedy Smokey and the Bandit (1977). The were also front-and-center in a big-screen spin-off of Fries’ song, the 1978 Sam Pekinpah-directed film, also Convoy, which starred country singer/actor Kris Kristofferson as a trucker trying to pull together a nationwide convoy to outwit a cop played by Ernest Borgnine; Fries re-recorded some of the original’s lyrics to more closely follow the movie’s plot.

Under his McCall stage name Fries would score a handful of other charting country hits before stepping away form his performing career by the late 1970s after releasing 9 studio albums, beginning with his 1975 debut, Wolf Creek Pass, through his final album of originals, 1979’s C.W. McCall & Co. Among his other memorable songs were the 1976 environmental anthem “There Won’t Be No Country Music (There Won’t Be No Rock ‘n’ Roll),” the emotional 1977 ballad “Roses for Mama,” as well “Four Wheel Cowboy” (1976) and 1978’s “Outlaws and Lone Star Beer.”

Billie Dale Fries was born on Nov. 15, 1928 in Audubon, Iowa and spent one year at the University of Iowa before returning home to launch a sign-painting business. Following his retirement from music, Fries served as mayor of Ouray, Colorado from 1986-1992.

[inverse]

Idk if it's ironic or unironic at this point but i don't really care I've been jamming to this one for like 5 years at this point ngl

hope there's miles of empty highway in heaven :) 10-4

[Gary]

Convoy was of course the #1 hit he was known for


Here is is other top 40 on the Hot 100





This was a #2 on the country chart

[onebuffalo]

Convoy was a six week #1 country hit between late 1975-early 1976. Billboard named it the biggest country single of the year for 1976. R.I.P., C.W. McCall.

[garrettlen]

Full disclosure: I had this single when it came out in late 1975. I guess I just got caught up in the national novelty of the song. Besides, that chorus is pretty catchy.

Ahh, the 70’s.

[Gary]

Hi-Five Member Roderick ‘Pooh’ Clark Dies at 49
A cause of death was not disclosed for the singer who passed away on Sunday.


By Gil Kaufman

04/19/2022

Roderick “Pooh” Clark, of the Texas R&B group Hi-Five, died at age 49 on Sunday (April 18). Though no cause of death was announced at press time, in a post on the group’s official Instagram, they wrote, “OUR BROTHER OG RODERICK POOH CLARK,” followed by a string of flower, heart, praying hands and crying emoji.

Clark was best known as one of the founding members of the 1990s Waco, Texas vocal group, who scored a No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1991 with “I Like the Way (The Kissing Game).” He performed in the band alongside late member Tony Thompson, Marcus Sanders, Russell Neal and Toriano Easley. Hi-Five’s Teddy Riley-produced eponymous debut was released by Jive Records in 1990 and including top 10 R&B singles “I Just Can’t Handle It” and “I Can’t Wait Another Minute.”

Shortly after the release of their second album, 1992’s Keep It Goin’ On, Clark was paralyzed from the chest down after a 1993 car accident on the way to a radio appearance by Hi-Five. A third album, Faithful, dropped later that year, but it would be more than 12 years before they released a follow-up, 2005’s The Return.

Clark was honored by former bandmate Marcus Sanders, who posted a number of pictures of the singer along with a video of Clark laying in bed clowning around, while their former musical director, Martinez Little wrote, “I am saddened to find out that Roderick ‘Pooh’ Clark another member of the famed singing group ‘Hi5’ passed away on Easter Sunday,” he said of the singer who was born on Feb. 27, 1973. “Pooh was the most athletic of them all. In basketball he could stand right under the basket and jump straight up and dunk the ball. Our play fights and Super Soaker battles were epic. We also used to battle each other hard on the Bball court in most cities. I still miss the fun times touring with my little brothers as Musical Director. My condolences to Hi5 and his family. R.I.P. Pooh.”

In prayer hand-embellished comments on the Insta post, Clark was remembered by many of his musical contemporaries and other artists, including Anthony Hamilton, DJ Spinderella, Silk, H-Town and Trina Braxton, among others. Another of the group’s founding members, Thompson, died at 31 in June 2007 of an apparent drug overdose.

See the group’s tribute below.

[Gary]

Earth, Wind & Fire Saxophonist Andrew Woolfolk Dead at 71 After 6-Year Illness: 'Great Talent'
Jack Irvin - 17m ago


© Provided by People

Andrew Woolfolk, former Earth, Wind & Fire saxophonist, has died. He was 71.

The musician, who performed with the band for two years-long stints from 1973 to 1984 and again from 1987 to 1993, died Sunday after a six-year battle with an unknown illness, according to Earth, Wind & Fire vocalist Philip Bailey.

"I met him in High School, and we quickly became friends and band mates. Andrew Paul Woolfolk was his name," Bailey, 70, wrote in an Instagram caption alongside a photo with his former bandmate. "We lost him today, after being ill of over 6 years."

"He has transitioned on to the forever, from this Land of the dying to the Land of the Living," continued the singer. "Great memories. Great Talent. Funny. Competitive. Quick witted. And always styling."

Bailey concluded his post, writing, "Booski… I"ll see you on the other side, my friend."

The official Earth, Wind & Fire account also shared Bailey's post, while drummer John Paris, who's performed with the band since 2001, posted his own tribute to Woolfolk on Instagram. "Rest well brother Andrew🙏🏾❤️" he wrote alongside a photo of the saxophonist.

During Woolfolk's time with Earth, Wind & Fire, the band earned many of their well-known hits including "Shining Star," "Sing a Song, "Got to Get You into My Life," "September," "Boogie Wonderland," "After the Love has Gone," and "Let's Groove," among others. The group also won six Grammy awards with Woolfolk as a member.

RELATED: Earth, Wind & Fire's Biggest Songs: A Look Back

[Gary]

Vangelis, Oscar-Winning Composer of ‘Chariots of Fire’ and ‘Blade Runner,’ Dead at 79
Daniel Kreps - 1h ago



Vangelis, the Greek prog-rocker and Oscar-winning composer for films like Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, has died at the age of 79.

The influential artist born Evángelos Papathanassíou died late Tuesday night, a statement from Vangelis’ “private office” announced to his Elsewhere fan page Thursday. The Athens News Agency also confirmed news of Vangelis’ death. No cause of death was provided, but Greek newspaper OT reports that Vangelis died at a hospital in France where he was being treated for Covid-19.

“Vangelis Papathanassiou was a great Greek composer who excelled at a global level,” Greek foreign minister Nikos Dendias wrote in a translated tweet. “We say goodbye with a big ‘thank you’ for what he offered to Music, Culture and Greece.”

Born in Agria and raised in Athens, Papathanassíou learned piano at a young age, though despite being enrolled in an Athens music school, he never formally learned how to read or write music. His first band, as a teenager, was the pop group Formynx, but he left his native country in 1968 amid a coup attempt in Greece. After settling in Paris, Vangelis — a variation of his first name, which he said translates to “an angel that brings good news” — formed the cult progressive rock band Aphrodite’s Child alongside fellow expatriate Greeks. The group released three albums, most notably 1972’s 666, an epic double-LP inspired by the Book of Revelations.

In addition to releasing his own pioneering albums of electronic music, Vangelis branched off in the 1970s into film composing, creating music for documentaries for the French filmmaker Frederic Rossif. One of those scores, 1979’s Opera Sauvage, became a surprise success in the U.S. and led to what became Vangelis’ greatest triumph: The score for 1981’s Chariots of Fire.

Propelled by the film’s instantly iconic theme, Chariots of Fire topped the Billboard 200 for four weeks. Vangelis, who played all the instruments on the soundtrack, would go on to win Best Original Score at the Academy Awards.

While Chariots of Fire earned all the accolades, Vangelis’ next score was perhaps even more influential: In 1982, he created the electronic soundscape that accompanied Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir classic Blade Runner, with Vangelis’ synthesizer radiating the director’s bleak urban future. Scott and Vangelis later reunited for 1992’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise.

Over his prolific career, Vangelis also create the music for international events like the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2012 FIFA World Cup in Japan. Vangelis and Yes singer Jon Anderson also enjoyed a long collaboration (Jon & Vangelis) that resulted in three albums; in the mid-Seventies, Vangelis was rumored as a replacement for Rick Wakeman in that prog-band, but when that pairing didn’t work out, Vangelis and Anderson continued to record together.

“I’ve always tried to extract the maximum out of a sound’s behavior,” Vangelis told Prog in 2016. “I think it’s more important to achieve a harmonious result without giving any importance to the source from which a sound originates. I can remember as a child putting chains in my parents’ piano just to see how it would affect the sound! This kind of attitude has always remained with me.”

[Gary]

[Gary]

Forever No. 1: Vangelis’ ‘Chariots of Fire’
The Greek musician-composer's unexpected Hot 100 topper (and sports soundtrack staple) was one of the final instrumental No. 1s of the 20th century.


By Brad Shoup


05/23/2022


ecords in London on Dec. 7, 1981.
David Corio/Redferns
Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late Vangelis with a flashback to his lone Hot 100-topper, the perennially rousing and graceful early-’80s athletics anthem “Chariots of Fire.”


A wonderful irony of American sports – jingoistic during Olympic season, mostly provincial otherwise – is that so much of it has a European soundtrack: the English grandiosity of “Heavy Action” and “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions”; Zombie Nation and Darude’s hard trance chant-alongs; the Low Country hip-house that’s stlil synonymous with jock jams. By contrast, “Chariots of Fire” – the surprise Hot 100-topping single by Greek musician/composer Vangelis, who died last week (May 17) at the age of 79 – is much less energetic. But its slo-mo triumphalism, made for TV replays rather than in-arena hype, made it a staple of highlights packages for decades afterward.

Unlike, say, “Sandstorm,” “Chariots” was composed specifically with athletics in mind, and not the charts. Vangelis, the self-taught keyboardist born Evángelos Papathanassíou in the coastal town of Agria, had tried his hand at pop stardom in the ‘60s, forming a couple of rock bands while also composing for the odd film. After the dissolution of his popular prog/psych act Aphrodite’s Child in the early 1970s, Vangelis moved to England, where he picked up a regular set of collaborators, both musical (Jon Anderson of Yes) and visual (commercial and film director Hugh Hudson). At the close of the the decade, Hudson was directing a modestly budgeted period film about two British Olympic athletes titled Chariots of Fire; Vangelis had agreed to score the film.

One key scene, featuring actors and local runners running on a Scottish beach, was filmed with Vangelis’ “L’enfant” (from a previous soundtrack, 1979’s Opéra Sauvage) booming out over the sands. Hudson and producer David Puttnam (The Duellists, Midnight Express) planned to add “L’enfant” to the final edit, but Vangelis maintained that he could write something even better, while maintaining the same tempo. “My father is a runner,” Hudson recalled to Runner’s World of Vangelis saying at the time, “and this is an anthem to him.”

After completing the theme, Vangelis hopped into his Rolls-Royce and drove to a London restaurant, where Puttnam and his wife were dining. Vangelis urged them outside, then pumped hs new composition through the car speakers. His audience was suitably impressed. It made no difference that the theme, like “L’enfant,” was composed on Vangelis’ beloved Yamaha CS-80 polyphonic synthesizer, which provided him with rich timbral possibilities and the feel of an acoustic keyboard. Though filmed historical fiction typically eschewed modern instrumentation – especially synths – Vangelis had concocted something suitably neoclassical, with a stately melody introduced on piano, then ported to a variety of synthesized voicings.



On the Chariots of Fire soundtrack album, the composition was listed as “Titles”; as a single, it was alternately called “Chariots of Fire – Titles” or just “Chariots of Fire”. No matter the name, the song made an instant impression in Great Britain, where the film saw first release. The opening scene – a contemporary memorial service for gold-medal sprinter Harold Abrahams – dissolves to that beach-set shot: a couple dozen young men running down that St. Andrews seaside, in matching white togs and clashing expressions of determination, effort and ecstasy. The playback is slowed to meet the theme’s tempo; the theme, in turn, grants these runners both a reliable cadence (that one-note synth pulse, the percussive footfalls) and a commemorative flourish (that two-note, anticipatory French horn approximation).

The result was a sort of love theme for the then-nascent MTV Age: an easy-listening earworm given an indelible visual dimension. (And that’s leaving aside the iconic-in-its-own-way music video, which featured Vangelis playing the entire arrangement while a cigarette smolders on his piano.) As the movie opened in North America, the beach scene reached untold numbers of parodists: Chevy Chase, Michael Keaton, Hall and Oates. In no time at all, “Chariots of Fire” and a footrace became comedy shorthand, a sardonic way to play up small stakes.



It didn’t hurt the film’s performance, as Chariots of Fire ended its theatrical run as the highest-grossing foreign film ever. (It was also fortuitous that Chariots, released after the heavily boycotted 1980 Moscow Games, depicted the triumph of Anglophonic Olympians.) The film cleaned up at the 1982 Academy Awards, winning four Oscars, including best picture – and best original score. Vangelis’ win only goosed the already-impressive chart performance of “Chariots of Fire,” which had been hanging around the Hot 100 since the middle of winter. When the song hit the number-one spot on the chart dated May 8th (ending the seven-week reign of “I Love Rock & Roll” by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts), it was its 22nd week on the chart, at the time one of the longest climbs ever to pole position.

“Chariots of Fire” was a rare Hot 100 No. 1 in several respects. It was the first instrumental No. 1 of the post-disco era – the previous one being Herb Alpert’s 1979 slow-groover “Rise” – and it would be the next-to-last one of the century alongside Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme.” It was the first (and to date, only) Hot 100-topper by a Greek artist – though George Michael, a Londoner of Greek-English heritage, would visit the top spot several times later that decade. And it’s arguably the only No. 1 that could be classified as new-age. (The closest anyone’s gotten since were Enigma’s two top five singles in the ‘90s, depending on how prominent you feel Enya’s contribution is to Mario’s 2004 No. 2 hit “I Don’t Want to Know”.)



Along with fellow turn-of-the-’80s soundtracks to Thief (Tangerine Dream), The Shining (Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind), and Midnight Express (Giorgio Moroder, who also won an Oscar for his score), the success of Chariots of Fire’s accompanying LP pointed to the synth’s viability as a primary compositional instrument. Vangelis was now scoring with house money. His next soundtrack assignment — Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner — wouldn’t sell nearly as well as Chariots, but its skewed-neon ambience would prove massively influential to generations of producers making everything from techno to synthwave. For the rest of his life, he would produce great work – at turns cosmic, operatic, melodic, irruptive – for a variety of media, but the relatively straightforward and bell-clear Chariots remained his high-water chart mark. (His only other entry on the Billboard 200 albums chart would be a 1987 CD reissue of Opéra Sauvage.)

No matter: his “Chariots” theme had legs. It has remained a sitcom go-to, recently making appearances on Fresh Off the Boat, Young Sheldon, and 2 Broke Girls. It accompanied the introduction of the Macintosh and batted middle of the order on the blockbuster new-age compilation Pure Moods. And, of course, Olympic telecast producers proved powerless before its romantic determinism. “Chariots” became a perennial staple of highlights and medal presentations, both in America and its native Britain. Three decades on, Chariots of Fire’s story of English determination and triumph was familiar enough that the signature composition was tabbed the official theme of the 2012 London Games. (The theme’s comedic potential had not dimmed either; a Rowan Atkinson sendup was prominently featured in the opening ceremony.) Vangelis’ time atop the Hot 100 was brief but spectacular: a podium stand on some bygone, golden afternoon.

[Gary]

Alan White, Longtime Yes Drummer, Dies at 72
"The news has shocked and stunned the entire YES family," the band wrote in a statement.


By Anna Chan

05/26/2022

Alan White, longtime drummer of Yes, has died at age 72 “after a short illness,” the English prog rock band announced on Thursday (May 26).

“The news has shocked and stunned the entire YES family. Alan had been looking forward to the forthcoming UK Tour, to celebrating his 50th Anniversary with YES and their iconic Close To The Edge album, where Alan’s journey with YES began in July 1972,” the band shared on Instagram alongside a photo of their drummer of 50 years. “He recently celebrated the 40th Anniversary of his marriage to his loving wife Gigi. Alan passed away, peacefully at home.”

His family also confirmed his death with a message on his Facebook page.





The band’s tribute noted that White was “considered one of the greatest drummers of all time.” White — who was born in County Durham, England, on June 14, 1949 — joined Yes in the summer of 1972, after original drummer Bill Bruford left to join King Crimson. Prior to that, John Lennon in 1969 invited him to join the late Beatle and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band; White contributed to Lennon’s Imagine album, including the iconic title track. His work with Lennon also resulted in White’s collaboration with another Beatle — he played drums on George Harrison’s 1970 release All Things Must Pass.

Yes found chart success in the United States with hits such as “Owner of a Lonely Heart” off 1983’s 90125; the song reached the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1984. Other hit singles include “Roundabout” — from 1971’s Fragile — peaking at No. 13, and “Leave It,” also from 90125, which reached a high of No. 24. While Yes did not have any No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, the band did land seven albums in the all-genre chart’s top 10: 1972’s Close to the Edge (No. 3), Fragile (No. 4), 1974’s Relayer (No. 5), 90125 (No. 5), 1973’s Tales From the Topographic Ocean (No. 6), 1977’s Going for the One (No. 8), and 1978’s Tormato (No. 10).

White and the band were also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

In announcing White’s death, Yes noted that the band’s 50th anniversary Close to the Edge tour in the U.K. would be dedicated to its beloved drummer.

White is survived by his wife Gigi, his kids Jesse and Cassie, and two grandchildren.

See Yes’s full tribute to its longtime drummer below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CeB2N3PMlzS

[Gary]

[phieaglesfan712]

Owner of a Lonely Heart is okay, but Roundabout is easily the best Yes song ever, with I See All Good People a close second.

[Gary]

Alec John Such, Founding Member of Bon Jovi, Dies at 70
"As a founding member of Bon Jovi, Alec was integral to the formation of the band," Bon Jovi wrote. "To be honest, we found our way to each other thru him."


By Ashley Iasimone

06/5/2022

Alec John Such of Bon Jovi speaks onstage during the 33rd Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on April 14, 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Alec John Such, bassist and an original member of Bon Jovi who was credited as bringing the band together, has died at 70, Bon Jovi announced on Sunday (June 5).

“Alec, you will be missed,” Bon Jovi posted on social media.

“We are heartbroken to hear the news of the passing of our dear friend Alec John Such,” the group’s statement said. “He was an original. As a founding member of Bon Jovi, Alec was integral to the formation of the band. To be honest, we found our way to each other thru him – He was a childhood friend of Tico and brought Richie to see us perform. Alec was always wild and full of life. Today those special memories bring a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. We’ll miss him dearly.”

Bon Jovi also posted a tribute video to Such, which featured memories of his years with the band. “We had so many great times together and I just love them to death, always will,” the bassist can be seen saying in a clip.

“RIP Alec” trended on Twitter on Sunday.

Such was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1951 and joined Bon Jovi in 1983, when the band formed in Sayreville, New Jersey. As manager of the Hunka Bunka Ballroom in Sayreville, Such had booked Jon Bon Jovi’s earlier act, Jon Bon Jovi & The Wild Ones, before becoming a part of the band.

Such was a member of Bon Jovi when they released the No. 1 albums Slippery When Wet (1986) and New Jersey (1988), both of which topped the Billboard 200. He remained with the group through 1994 and was replaced by bassist Hugh McDonald.

He was one of the members of Bon Jovi inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Howard Stern in 2018. Such was inducted alongside Jon Bon Jovi, David Bryan, Hugh McDonald, Richie Sambora and Tico Torres.

His cause of death has not been reported.

[Gary]

Olivia Newton-John, Beloved ‘Grease’ Actress & Singer, Dies at 73
Newton-John had been open about her breast cancer journey since she was first diagnosed in 1992 at the age of 43.


By Rania Aniftos

08/8/2022

Olivia Newton-John, beloved actress and singer best known for her role as Sandy Olsson in Grease and for hits such as 1981’s “Physical,” died on Monday (Aug. 8). She was 73 years old.

Her official Facebook page confirmed the news, writing in a statement, “Dame Olivia Newton-John (73) passed away peacefully at her Ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends. We ask that everyone please respect the family’s privacy during this very difficult time.”

RELATED
Pop Shop Podcast Olivia Newton-John
Pop Shop Podcast: Olivia Newton-John Interview, Oscar Noms & Favorite Movie Musicals
08/08/2022


The post continued, “Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer. Her healing inspiration and pioneering experience with plant medicine continues with the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund, dedicated to researching plant medicine and cancer. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any donations be made in her memory to the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund (ONJFoundationFund.org).”

[Gary]

#1 hits for Olivia Newton-John



I Honestly Love You (2 weeks)
Have You Never Been Mellow( 1 week)
You're The One That I Want (1 week)
Magic (4 weeks)
Physical (10 weeks)

[Gary]

[Push The Button]

Several of her songs from the ‘70s (most notably “I Honestly Love You”) were not available for streaming last year for a period of time. I hope all of that has been resolved.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

I thought I would share with you with this video, which I had never seen myself until today. The Megamix itself was released on 1990, to commemorate Grease's release to video. It used to get played on the radio station I used to listen to then.

[Gary]

Grease Megamix hit #25 on Radio Songs in 1996

[HolidayGuy]

Polydor took its sweet time promoting/finding a home for the megamix in the USA, some six years after it peaked at No. 3 in the UK.

There was also The Dream Mix in 1991, that included "Hopelessly Devoted to You."

[Juanca]

Grease megamix was huge in Peru in 1991. The romantic one (with Sandy and HDTY) was a minor hit.
Before the megamix, she had another minor hit with The Rumour, whose video also had some good rotation (I liked it).
The number of posts in Facebook from my contacts in Peru lamenting her passing is one of the highest I’ve seen. But she was an icon, with strong recurrent airplay even now. (Plus she married in Cuzco!)

[rockgolf]

Olivia Newton-John's all-time greatest hits on the Hot 100:
Rand is where the songs are on the Hot 100 Greatest of all-time list.

Rank	Artist - Song	Total Points	H P	Wks	Peak Yr.
12	Olivia Newton-John | Physical	1,305,184	1	26	1981
403	Olivia Newton-John | Magic	759,776	1	23	1980
727	John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John | You're The One That I Want	665,888	1	24	1978
927	Olivia Newton-John | A Little More Love	630,912	3	20	1979
1097	Olivia Newton-John | Please Mr. Please	594,800	3	15	1975
1129	Olivia Newton-John | Have You Never Been Mellow	588,240	1	16	1975
1145	Olivia Newton-John | I Honestly Love You	585,568	1	24	1974
1419	Olivia Newton-John | Let Me Be There	534,160	6	19	1974
1458	Olivia Newton-John | Hopelessly Devoted To You	529,056	3	19	1978
1626	Olivia Newton-John | Heart Attack	502,240	3	21	1982
2137	Olivia Newton-John | Twist Of Fate	437,152	5	18	1983
2307	John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John & Cast | Summer Nights	415,744	5	16	1978
2383	Olivia Newton-John | If You Love Me (Let Me Know)	407,600	5	20	1974
3075	Olivia Newton-John | Make A Move On Me	337,248	5	14	1982
3940	Olivia Newton-John And The Electric Light Orchestra | Xanadu	250,016	8	17	1980
5316	John Denver | Fly Away (Olivia had uncredited feature vocals)	155,600	13	12	1976
5570	Olivia Newton-John | Something Better To Do	144,320	13	11	1975
5892	Andy Gibb & Olivia Newton-John | I Can't Help It	133,376	12	13	1980
5944	Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard | Suddenly	131,392	20	19	1981
6517	Olivia Newton-John | Soul Kiss	116,000	20	15	1985
6557	Olivia Newton-John | Deeper Than The Night	114,816	11	13	1979
7162	Olivia Newton-John | If Not For You	100,992	25	17	1971
7317	Olivia Newton-John | Sam	97,696	20	13	1977
7668	Olivia Newton-John | Come On Over	91,680	23	12	1976
9831	Olivia Newton-John | Let It Shine/He Ain't Heavy...He's My Brother	60,600	30	9	1976
10455	Olivia Newton-John | Livin' In Desperate Times	54,912	31	10	1984
10654	Olivia Newton-John | Don't Stop Believin'	53,200	33	9	1976
11442	Olivia Newton-John | Tied Up	46,688	38	11	1983
13887	Olivia Newton-John | Every Face Tells A Story	32,048	55	9	1976
16093	Olivia Newton-John | Landslide	22,208	52	8	1982
17483	Olivia Newton-John | Totally Hot	17,344	52	6	1979
18048	Olivia Newton-John | The Rumour	15,640	62	6	1988
18769	Olivia Newton-John | I Honestly Love You (David Foster version)	13,780	67	12	1998
18993	David Foster And Olivia Newton-John | The Best Of Me	13,240	80	8	1986
23720	Olivia Newton-John | Making A Good Thing Better	5,152	87	4	1977
24344	Olivia Newton-John | Banks Of The Ohio	4,416	94	4	1971
25777	Olivia Newton-John | Dancin' 'round And 'round	3,008	82	2	1979
28072	Olivia Newton-John | I Need Love	1,280	96	2	1992
29160	Glee Cast ft. Olivia Newton-John | Physical	820	89	1	2010

That's a staggering 25 songs in the all-time top 10,000. Four in the top 1,000.

One of my favorite singers of the 70s & 80s. She could take on pop, dance, country, even rock. Don't Stop Believin' is a different song than the Journey song of the same title.) The 2-CD Olivia Newton-John | Gold collection is almost 3 hours of her hits, here and in the UK and there is hardly a weak track on it.

[Gary]

Forever No. 1: Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Have You Never Been Mellow’
The soft-rock superstar's second Hot 100 No. 1 was irresistible enough to worm its way into the heart (and record collection) of one young Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath fan.


By Michele Catalano


08/9/2022

Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late Olivia Newton-John, who died this week at age 73, with writer Michele Catalano’s account of how much Newton-John’s second Hot 100 No.1, 1975’s “Have You Never Been Mellow?,” meant to her as a 13-year-old with conflicted music tastes.

S

In 1975 there were two factions of popular rock music in the American landscape. There was hard rock bursting its way into the bedrooms of teenagers: Black Sabbath and The Who and Led Zeppelin, who were all massive in the moment. But that kind of music was not really reflected on the singles charts of the day. Instead, there was a decidedly soft rock bent to the list of then-current radio hits: Linda Rondstadt, The Eagles, The Carpenters were in constant rotation. The “cool” kids were listening to the harder rock, leaving the softer tones for the adults and decidedly less cool teens.

I was 13 in 1975 and was aligning myself with the cool kids. I listened to Sabbath and Zeppelin. Their music made me feel like I was living dangerously; there was a primal urge to scream along with the songs, a ferocious need to spring from the manicured lawns of suburbia into a sort of rebellion, just by blasting “Paranoid” out of my bedroom. Despite that rock and roll posturing, I felt like a fraud because hidden under my bed were albums by The Carpenters and Paul Simon and Elton John. I secretly loved that kind of music in the same all-encompassing way that I loved listening to Black Sabbath. There was something about it that made my heart want to experience the same love and loss they were all singing about.

I sat differently with those records than I did the hard rock albums. While Zeppelin made me want to scream and wail and maybe burst out of my perceived confinement, the softer rock made me sigh, made me cry. I felt wistful and melancholy, though I didn’t have the words to describe it then. I just knew it made me have emotions that I had no real world experience with. I liked feeling sad. I liked imagining being lovelorn.

It was in March of ‘75 that my friend Debby – the only friend who knew of and shared my love for soft rock – showed up with a new copy of Olivia Newton-John’s Have You Never Been Mellow, her fifth studio album. Newton-John had been on the charts in recent years so I knew some of her songs, most notably “I Honestly Love You,” which had become her first Hot 100 No. 1 hit the past November. It was one of those songs I sang under the cover of darkness and headphones, a favorite that I hid away from my friends. I was eager to listen to something new by Olivia. It had been a long, cold winter and Olivia Newton-John’s voice was a summer breeze that I desperately needed. I wanted some new music to move me, to make me feel something.



Debby dropped the needle on the first song and “Have You Never Been Mellow” started up. I was immediately enraptured. There was something about Newton-John’s voice that felt so vulnerable and real. I felt her pleading, reaching out to me. I was yearning for something I was unsure of; I didn’t know of love, I didn’t know of feeling so much for someone that you would write a song about them. I just knew that this song was beautiful, that Newton-John sang it with grace and humility, that I wanted to listen to it forever. When she sang “Now I don’t mean to make you frown/ I just want you to slow down” I imagined her singing this to a friend or lover, taking great care to make sure they enjoyed life for what it was. It made me wish she was my friend.

I begged Debby to leave the album with me when we were done listening. She did, and I spent an entire night listening to that first song, picking up the needle as soon as it ended and dropping it back at the beginning. The softness of her vocals, the restrained way in which she tries to get someone she loves to slow down, enjoy life – it just spoke to me in such a way that I knew Olivia Newton-John was a good person, that this song marked her true self. I wanted to know her, I wanted to be her, with her perfect looks and beautiful voice and the adoration of millions of people. She was pure and America – still reeling from Watergate and still a month away from the end of the Vietnam War — really needed something pure right then, something to make us sigh and forget the ugliness of the world for a few moments.



“Have You Never Been Mellow” hit number one on the Hot 100 on the chart dated March 8, 1975, taking over from another pillowy rock ballad in the Eagles’ “Best of My Love” and ruling for one week, before giving way to the Doobie Brothers’ rootsier but similarly laid-back “Black Water.” It was everywhere; blaring out of radios, a standard on the jukebox in the firehouse club my parents took us to every weekend. I didn’t care if anyone saw me singing, or caught me knowing all the words. I had the company of so many other Olivia Newton-John fans.

My secret was out, and I embraced it. I had my mother buy me an iron-on T-shirt with Olivia’s face on it. I got my own copy of the album and I left it out with my Black Sabbath records, much to the dismay of my “cool” friends, who endlessly razzed me about it. I realized there was no reason my love for beautiful soft rock couldn’t intermingle with my love for hard rock. Olivia didn’t exactly bridge that gap, but her popularity made it okay to like both. She may have been Australia’s daughter, but for a while she was America’s sweetheart.

Newton-John may have had bigger hits in the years to come — her songs from “Grease” and synthier early-’80s smashes would form her most enduring impressions on the collective consciousness of America. But “Have You Never Been Mellow” is the song that immediately comes to mind when I think of her, and of those days spent listening to it, feeling guided by her voice. The sincerity with which she sang in turn made me more sincere about the music I loved but kept hidden. And for that I’ll always be grateful.