Phoenix was so big that there were a few stations you could pick up well on one side of town but not on the other, especially FM back in the '70s and early '80s. I think most of them had boosted their power - or relocated their transmitters to South Mountain - by the time I got my own decent stereo with a radio around '80-'81.
I love love love "Sweet City Woman", and not just because it reminds me of an old flame who used to (you guessed it) bake me the best macaroons. It's just such a positive, joyful track - guaranteed to lift yr spirits.
I have a 15 minutes live performance of Bill Withers and his musicians a the Germany TV show "Hits a Gogo" from November 16, 1972. A great performace. Schaut euch mal dieses Bild an! Schaut euch mal dieses Bild an!
Re: "Lovely Day" - I don't recognize the song from the title. It's possible I did hear the song at the time. It's also possible the stations I was listening to (I was choosing them by 1978) weren't playing it. I'll have to listen to the song to figure all of that out (but I'm not going to do that right now). I think "I Know" is repeated 26 times (consecutively) on Wither's version of "Ain't No Sunshine".
I also like "Sweet City Woman", but I think I heard it too often back at that time. Fortunately I haven't heard it that often the last 40 or so years, and so it has become a "welcome listen" again.
I remember Lovely Day from that time, but I totally forgot it because I don't think the Oldies Station in my area played. But one day in the 90s or so I heard it. I was upset because I really liked Bill Withers and missed hearing the song.
This is one other 1971 song that I really loved, that only went to #60.... should have gone much higher.
Actually, Use Me was a #2 record while Ain't No Sunshine stopped at #3 so strictly speaking it was a higher, if not bigger, hit. Of course, ANS is the more iconic of the two. And I must say I'm amazed at the number of posts we have about Bill Withers, especially since we'll get to him soon enough. Whatever will be left to say?
I had almost forgotten how many hits Bill Withers had...he seemed to come out of nowhere circa the fall of 1971, and was really a unique, down home talent. Just a few weeks ago I heard a song of his that I'll post here, an incredibly powerful song about a war veteran from Bill's superb album "Live at Carnegie Hall". I heard the song on NPR, "I Can't Write Left-Handed".
I haven't said anything about the "upcoming song". And I will have something to say about it at that time.
Yeah, I know I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I goofed.
That's probably another reason you didn't hear the song. It had a pretty strong signal all across the state. Wikipedia is wrong. The guy who wrote it has a bad memory, or faulty information. Either that, or the guy who wrote the Wiki page has a strange idea of what constitutes easy listening. I wonder if he thinks Alice Cooper is easy stuff. You have to go to the people who actually listened to the station during the 70s. That would be people like me. I wish I had my aircheck tapes to prove it.
They were big hits. So is the disco song "No More Love At Your Convenience", which seems to have been a cancelled single. Some radio stations played it, but quickly switched to "You And Me". I love to pull those three songs out and play them for millennials who think he only did songs like "Lost In America". They don't even know it's him! But, remember, at the same time, Cooper had radio staples like "It's Hot Tonite". Man, KBBC played R&B, disco, pop, and countryish pop songs in the 70s. They were a true top 40 station. Doobie Brothers, Earth, Wind & Fire, Labelle, America, Ohio Players, Chicago, Average White Band, Herbie Mann, David Ruffin, Wings...you name it. I listened to that station for years.
Another anti-war song hence the backlash? I can't speak definitively to that but I can say it's her second biggest chart hit (#12) and also went gold as did Band Of Gold.
Oh, forgot about 'Sweet City Woman' it's one of moms Al time favorite songs, such a beautiful tune. Forgot that was in '71.
No More Love at your Convenience was the follow up to You and Me (which made #1 here) in Australia but they banned the video (which had Alice in bed with a woman) so it flopped badly.
It also must be mentioned that in 1971, an artist that blow up later in the decade was languishing in obscurity over at Motown on the Rare Earth label. But made some AWESOME music for a debut album.
Unlikely - the Phoenix FM transmitters were typically on South Mountain. They were blocked by mountains east of Phoenix, north of Phoenix and northwest of Phoenix and by the mountains north of Tucson. They were also 70 or so miles away. Unless they had a Tucson repeater, it would have been in the reception fringe for the northern edge of Tucson, like this coverage map for legacy Phoenix station KZZP: KZZP-FM Radio Station Coverage Map
Well, i'll bet that would have been accepted if it had been shown today. I think the plan up here in the states was to test the waters for a single release, but my bet is that there was a backlash. NMLAYC is a very good song, and it's on his "Lace And Whiskey" album, but it sounds nothing like him. It's straight-up disco. I was shocked to discover it was him when I bought the album. Alice Cooper always said he kinda liked disco, particularly in the early days.
Well, then, you tell me how my little transistor radio picked it up just fine 300 miles away? You can't speculate about this stuff. I lived it. I was a teenager back then.
