Anyways, you people are shooting your ONJ wad before we've even properly gotten to her first #1! Patience people, it won't be long.
It’s my fault. I tend to turn any thread I enter into an ONJ one. I’m surprised I haven’t been banned.
I don't blame you at all - wait, isn't that a Smokey Robinson tune? - I guess people are champing at the bit to get to her songs! This is getting way ahead but I remember really liking this early 90s recording that unfortunately, went nowhere. Guess her time had passed.
Deeper Than A River came out around the time she was diagnosed with breast cancer and kind of got lost in all that.
Meanwhile, let's focus, focus, focus on this period. A song that made it only to #7 here, but whose singer would lead on a #1 coming up:
Barry’s songs all sounded the same to me. Though I have a fondness for You’re The First, The Last, My Everything.
True. But Traffic's UA stuff was available on Island/Warner Communications by the 80's and their core albums remained in print. Some of Kenny Rogers's albums became part of Liberty/EMI and of course his Greatest Hits albums of the era stayed in print. Of course Rogers was a bigger act, so he's not going to be as forgotten like most. War on the other hand had albums like War, The World Is A Ghetto, All Day Music and Deliver the Word out of print for 20 years, that's a long stretch and practically a generation.
One act whose music truly sounded the same from one song to the next was Al Green. Round this time he had a #1 on the R&B charts that missed the Top 10 here: "Livin' For You." Listen to this and you'll see, or hear, why: By then Mr. Green was an institution. But I'm reminded of a famous comedian's quote: "Marriage is a wonderful institution. But who wants to live in an institution?"
Isn't this the third or fourth time in the past few months where an artist has died just after we mentioned them in this thread? It's creeping me out!
Or more specifically, his producer Willie Mitchell. And that sound was typical, really, of all Hi Records acts. (Think, for example, Ann Peebles' "I Can't Stand The Rain.")
Seriously! I mean, the odds of it happening are greater since most of the folks we're discussing are senior citizens (including the elder Jackson and Osmond siblings) but it's still eerie.
I still don't see why a few label buyouts would have made the bigger artists slip from memory. ELO, Bobby Womack and Ike & Tina Turner are three more who are still remembered long after UA got swallowed up by EMI.
I absolutely LOVE Al Wilson, This may be his only #1, but I thought he deserved much more success than he got, for my money, his voice is superior to that of both Marvin Gaye and Al Green. I have his Searching For The Dolphins album from 1967, and it's an amazing piece of work. 1974 would be his most successful year, with this song reaching #30 later on in the summer:
Finally another beautiful #1! Love this deeply soulful track, surprisingly gritty for a chart topper in this era, but with a great pop hook. I only got into this track through 90s compilations, no recall of it from childhood.
You aren't missing anything! Terrible album imo of course (though I think it sold all of 12 copies in the US) and the last one that any effort was made to sell to the same main stream audience. Glad she still tries though.
If this was a UK hit it must have been a minor one. I have no memory of it at all. The differences between the US and UK charts was often huge. The Al Wilson single is good, but it's like a new song to me.
They just released a 20th Century hits comp on vinyl and we finally have decent sounding material! I agree a lot of his stuff is repetitive sounding but I still enjoy his material. I guess we won't discuss him much...I don't recall many number ones!
