One Hit No More, No. 48: Free and the Time-Bomb Called "All Right Now"

Yep, that's presence.

The Hit
After passing through doo-wop (e.g., Don & Juan), Motown (e.g., The Exciters), surf rock (e.g., The Surfaris or The Chantays), garage rock (e.g., The Standells or ? and the Mysterians), a whiff of folk-rock (e.g., Buffalo Springfield), plus this weird phase of record labels swooping into then-thriving Ohio industrial towns for the next bubblegum pop star (e.g., The Lemon Pipers or Crazy Elephant), this project arrives at its first clear example of what I’d call 70s roots rock. All right, maybe Mountain/”Mississippi Queen” slips under the same bill, but still, it's fun ticking through music history.

Free’s “All Right Now” is a no-frills, all-balls rocker, not a word in mix about revolution or warm feelings from anywhere but the loins. It’s basically a vignette - a guy sees a girl, he chats her up, gets her to “his place,” and the negotiations begin - set to music: a steady rhythm pumping under it and fuzzy guitar licks purring around the narrator’s lyrics. After laying all that out there, the song gets coy about how things ended up…but “all right now” hints at satisfaction with the chase, if nothing else…

…all that’s noted without endorsing one-night stands, or pressuring a woman into one - and the “she” in the song hardly sounds entirely up to calling his bullshit - but the young men of this generation received clear and loud signals that “chasing” women was very much what they were supposed to do (e.g., Elvis Presley’s “Power of My Love”).

To close this section with a funny footnote, Free’s Paul Rodgers claims that a woman named Marsha Hunt inspired the song, and doing nothing more than literally “standing there, in the street.” Hunt was performing in a London production of Hair at the time. And dating Mick Jagger…Rodgers was struck “by her presence.”

Crash-Course, No. 21: Chaka Khan ft. Rufus...or at least that's what happened...

For anyone interested in the “how I got here,” my look at The American Breed pointed me toward Rufus – or Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan. Because that’s how things worked out for the most part.

“The thing back then was to have a white band with a black chick out front – that was major money, made the club owners interested. Another racist phase that passed through Chicago.”
- Chaka Khan, providing quality framing

 Rufus formed in Chicago, circa 1970, with several members of The American Breed - e.g., Charles “Chuck” Colbert (bass), Lee Graziano (drums), brought in Kevin Murphy (keys), Paulette McWilliams (vocals) - pulling in members of Chicago bar-band, Circus, e.g., James Stella and Vern Pilder. Now, forget all those names because, apart from Murphy, no other member stuck with Rufus from start-to-finish. Only Chaka Khan came close; then again, her (probably wise and necessary) decision to go solo probably broke the band.

After losing members here and gaining them there, plus a couple name changes (they started as “Smoke”), the band attempted to launch of “Ask Rufus” a nod to an advice column in a trade mag of the same name, Mechanics Illustrated. They became Rufus by 1971, and even recorded a lost debut for Epic Records, but didn’t truly hit their stride until McWilliams made room for her friend, Yvette Marie Stevens, who became Chaka Khan. Stevens picked up Chaka through a naming ceremony at the Affro-Arts theater in Chicago (her mother was active there), and picked up the surname Khan when she married Hassan Khan, while still 17, so she could sign the recording contract her mother refused to sign for her. (Chaka Khan had a chaotic childhood in a stable setting, including sometime with the Black Panthers).

While the charismatic shadow cast by Chaka Khan grew quickly - their label pushed them as Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan as early as their second album - they made their name on the 1972-1975 line-up of Khan on vocals, Al Ciner on guitar, Murphy and Ron Stockett on keyboards, Dennis Belfield on bass and Andre Fischer on drums. They didn’t have to shop demos for long before ABC Dunhill offered them a contract; Ike Turner caught wind of them all the way out in Los Angeles, and invited them out to record at his studio (where he could try to talk Khan into becoming an “Ikette”). Their 1973 eponymous debut didn’t go anywhere, but the power and potential of Chaka Khan’s vocals inspired Stevie Wonder to write songs for her (“Tell Me Something Good” was the first and biggest), and their follow-up album, 1974’s Rags to Rufus, blew all the way up to platinum (“You Got the Love” was the other big single). Rufusized followed in 1974 and, on the back of “Once You Get Started,” “I’m a Woman (I'm a Backbone)” and others, that went platinum too.

Crash-Course, No. 20: I'm Not On Drugs, You're on Drugs!

Third image, first best.

Where’d I hear about On Drugs? No goddam idea, which is exactly the problem with moving fast. Then again, they committed to treading lightly onto the internet - and by choice - and it hardly helps their name gets buried under a bigger act like War on Drugs. On the plus side, I might finally know how Kurt Vile had that huge head start I missed…

As hinted at above, finding much of anything beyond bare-bones promotion is damn near impossible with On Drugs. You have to double-check every headline just to find the band members - Elias Avila, Derek Housh, Cameron Gates, and Steve Gartman, which I found on something like the third link I found (a San Diego Reader plug), and without any mention of who does what - so they really do live the brand. On the other hand, a whiff of novelty isn’t the worst selling point:

“From their experimental punk drone to their intentional lack of an internet presence, they're the band you may not have known existed until you saw them…”

Because they titled an album titled Uckhole Futah, I assumed On Drugs came out of Utah, but, nope, they started in Portland, Oregon. I have a loose sense they relocated to San Diego, California upon signing with Postmark Records - none of the entries on that site last real long - but, based on the venues they played on a 2019 tour, where they come from matters less than where they can play. (Something I mean in the best possible way, because that’s where I’ve found most of the bands - i.e., people who play off the beaten path, but not too far.)

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the “experimental punk drone” holds up because they have a decent range - included in the sampler - between something that fits that bill to circle-into-a-circle perfection like “Squish,” to a pure old-school punk number like “Tony Hawk,” to the dreamy lo-fi number “Scaredy Cat” (which gave me Modest Mouse with less distortion and gave my wife, “I don’t know, something 80s, but also boring”), to garage-rock tear/cover like “Tequila.” Even if those aren't the hardest genres, there’s some decent musicianship going on, basically, a band with the chops to build a live-set around a couple spins around the genre-wheel, only without using the internet for promotion.

Crash-Course, No. 19: The King, the Colonel & the Comeback

Yes, but also no.

[Ed. - This is the first of several rewrites I’ll be posting in order to salvage this project. It originally went up as a post tied to a playlist, only I shoved Elvis Presley together with Julie London (sure), and The Kinks (why not?), so it was too much and too little at the same time; a unique feat, even for me. At any rate, I’m going back to posting on just one artist/band at a time and carrying forward the format that always worked so well for this site’s One Hit No More Project…gods only know why this didn’t come to me sooner. And this is the one time I’ll mention it. Now…The King.]

I can’t fucking believe I thought I’d just casually climb the mountain of iconography around The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. In practical terms, most people of a certain age (and maybe beyond) have absorbed the key highlights through cultural osmosis – e.g., “the pelvis,” “Hound Dog” (or “Heartbreak Hotel” (quietly brilliant lyrics, btw), “Love Me Tender,” and “Jailhouse Rock,” which still fucking rips), the movies, the cultural appropriation, the Vegas residencies, the thing with Dick Nixon, Fat Elvis….where he (reportedly) died, the fact that - wait, hear me out - Elvis did not die, etc. So, rather than climb that mountain, I wanted to focus on a some things I’ve learned outside that top-line stuff, and also how Elvis reclaimed his career…if only until his pill addiction carried away both it and him.

Ed Ward’s The History of Rock & Roll, 1920-1965 (yes, no typo) has some…just fantastic, touching snippets on Elvis as he tried to break in to the business. In Ward’s telling, Elvis had a reputation for flamboyant style – i.e., he wanted to stand out – but he also talks about how, after his first pay-to-play recording, he checked back every day to see if anything happened. Sam Phillips (who got hella lucky as an amateur producer; also, you’ve probably had some personal experience with his later investments) took some time to like what he heard, there were some snafus between Perkins and his secretary, etc. Other charming details included Elvis’ devotion to his mom, and how shyly he approached…the young Priscilla Beaulieu, later Priscilla Presley, and their subsequent several years of “living in sin” while Beaulieu was still a teenager. They met during Elvis’ stretch in Germany serving in the U.S. Army - she was the daughter of an Air Force colonel (who disapproved of the relationship) - and that wasn’t the only meaningful encounter from those years: a sergeant Elvis served with introduced him to amphetamines, which Elvis liked enough to become “practically evangelical about their benefits.” Still, he focused on being a regular soldier during his time in the Army, which provides a good way to introduce another key player in the story: Colonel Tom Parker.

One Hit No More, No. 47: The Five Stairsteps, A Happy Place, and Several Surprises

It's fine. But their dad was a cop. I'm still...

The Hit
The Five Stairsteps, “O-o-h Child” recalls such a vivid memory for me that it’s pretty much all I think of when I hear the song. A friend of mine went to Evergreen State College and, on one of the many visits, we went on a road-trip with a bunch of friends - think this was to the Oregon Coast, actually. Because we piled God knows how many people into too few cars, I had no seat, so I lounged across the back. That was first time I’d heard “O-o-h Child,” and when it came on, my head was resting in a woman’s lap, someone I’d just met. She was singing along, like everyone else, but watching her sing is the only thing I remember.

There’s no story after that; she never became a friend or a girlfriend (though I did meet her once later and that weekend came up, and there was a definite, "oh, shit, why didn't we?!" conversation); it was just that moment, watching a young woman sing a beautiful, heartwarming, hopeful song flush with the optimism of youth. She sang it like she believed it, and that felt very true in the moment…

…what was I talking about again? In all seriousness, I love this one. Great instrumentation, great open spaces for the vocals, a killer chorus, and an outro that sends you to the moon. And yet there's more...

The Rest of the Story
I almost covered The Five Stairsteps in a train-wreck I cobbled together about Super K Productions/Buddah Records, but I held back when I spotted them on the list of one-hit wonders I’m mining for all this. That’s probably for the best because The Five Stairsteps make for an odd fit in the Buddah Records extended universe (e.g., a lot of white garage bands from Ohio).

The Five Stairsteps came out of Chicago as a family act under the guidance of their parents, Betty and Clarence Burke Sr. Clarence Sr. was a detective with the Chicago P.D., but he also played a couple instruments (he backed The Five Stairsteps on guitar and bass, apart from managing them) and he knew some helpful people - notably, Fred Cash of The Impressions (theseguys). Their kids formed the band - in age order, Clarence Jr., Alohe, Dennis, James, Kenneth “Keni,” and, much later, Hubie - with Clarence Sr. and Clarence Jr. writing their material with help from a guy named Gregory Fowler. The name for the act came to Betty Burke when she saw her kids standing lined up by age; they looked like five stairsteps, you see…

One Hit No More, No. 46: Bobby Bloom, Who Will Always Have Montego Bay

The Hit
In keeping with a new pattern, who the Hell is Bobby Bloom? And didn’t The Beach Boys do “Montego Bay” with Jon Stamos slapping away at the congas?

Of course not, that was two decades after Bloom rose to very brief fame when this tune shot up to No. 8 on the U.S. charts (it made it all the way to No. 3 in the UK). "Montego Bay" was a fun, bubbly number that dances over a loping beat and boasts one of a great, super-sticky hook in the chorus. Bloom has a unique voice - a mix of husky and warm that clicks perfectly with the lazy and carefree spirit of the song - but I can’t sell Bloom’s hit any better than a blog I found called 7 Inches of 70s Pop:

“And ‘Montego Bay’s” mix of pop and calypso along with the pleasurable images of laying on the beach during the day, drinking silver rum and driving your MG to an all night party did more for Jamaican tourism than anything their consulate had dreamed up.”

That post provides a decent glimpse into Bloom’s works and collaborations, even if it sells him a bit short by calling him “a struggling songwriter” (we should all be so lucky…mostly), but its author, Adrianqiano, ends with a deft, telling touch:

“When you hear Bobby break into 'Oh What A Beautiful Morning' at the end of the song and he gets to the line 'Everything’s going my way,' tell me that you don’t get the chills."

The Rest of the Story
While Bobby Bloom didn’t quite struggle, he comes off as someone lurking in the orbit of some of the biggest names of the era. A Brooklyn kid, he got into the industry about a half decade prior, but on the wrong-end of the doo-wop era with a group called The Imaginations that didn’t go much of anywhere. He had a decent ear for songwriting, though, and caught his break when he co-wrote “Mony Mony” for (the inescapable) Tommy James and the Shondells. That one caught the attention of one of the bubblegum pop era’s biggest, fattest wheels, Jeff Barry, the man who thrived from the girl-group boom - e.g., “Da Do Ron Ron,” “Then He Kissed Me,” “Chapel of Love” - including working with the legendary (lunatic) Phil Spector - e.g., “Be My Baby.” With his wife, Ellen Greenwich, collaborating they become one of the dominant songwriting teams of the mid-to-late-1960s…at least until their relationship caught fire and they flamed out (call it a hard lesson in working with your spouse). I could write about Barry forever, obviously - I haven’t even gotten to The Archies yet, never mind The Monkees - but this is Bloom’s story, so let’s get back to that, or at least what’s left of it.

One Hit No More, No. 45: Alive 'n' Kickin', Mississippi by Way of Brooklyn and Tommy James

Don't knock it. You always get a crowd.

The Hit
I went into this one knowing neither the band - Alive ‘n’ Kickin’ - nor their very lonely hit - “Tighter, Tighter.” Featuring soulful vocals, a nice pop melody (more later), and some smart flourishes (e.g., the shimmer-echo guitar riff that bridges between the lead vocals between verses, or the horns that play under the chorus), it’s not a bad song. And it sounds familiar for a reason

Tommy James wrote it for them and as a bit of make-up gesture. He originally offered them “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” but he liked it too much to pass it off. That was a good call too, because it gave Tommy James and the Shondells one of the hits that anchored 1969’s Crimson & Clover (one of five, as it happens; helluva(n) album). “Tighter, Tighter” gave Alive ‘n’ Kickin’ a big one too. It hit No. 7.

Oh, and they also shared a label and a management team. If you know a little about Tommy James’ relationship to his label, you’re that much closer to understanding one reason why Alive ‘n’ Kickin’ walked away from the music business, if only for a while.

The Rest of the Story
The band formed in Brooklyn, NY, all as teenagers, and they pulled together their act and sound in Dave Shearer’s (guitar) basement. Bruce Sudano (keyboards), Woody Wilson (bass), Vito Albano (I think; drums), and Jeff Miller (more keyboards) laid down the music for two lead vocalists, Pepe Cardona and Sandy Toper (to clarify, a woman). What they put together had a 60s-hangover vibe, a mix of (to my ear) roots rock and funk with the keyboard/organ sounds as a kind of foundation. If I had to peg a place where you’ve heard it before, I’d go with B-movies from the era and about three-four years after.

The connection to Tommy James came through Sandy Toder’s sister, who was “tight” with Tommy James’ wife, and that opened doors for them. Sudano and Wilson opened the door a little further by helping Tommy James write “Balls of Fire” (while both still teenagers, btw) and, somewhere in there, he passed them “Tighter, Tighter.” I assume Tommy James then directed them to Roulette Records, and Morris Levy - who was also connected, but in the mob sense - which means everyone involved probably heard Levy line up dirty work at least once (Tommy James tells great stories about this fairly early into a very long interview).