One Hit No More, No. 107: Stealing Away with Robbie Dupree

Quite possibly wishing he was elsewhere.

Hold on. Putting on my sailing cap…though something about it doesn't feel right...

The Hit
There’s a better than fair chance that even the people who know 1980’s “Steal Away” think somebody besides Robbie Dupree recorded it. God knows someone else did. When he heard it, a music writer for the Los Angeles Times named John D’Agostino ripped it as a “blatant, wimpy rip-off of the Michael McDonald/Kenny Loggins’ composition ‘What a Fool Believes’”; the Washington Post flagged similarities in Dupree’s vocal style and the backing keyboards. McDonald didn’t give a shit, apparently, but his publisher flirted with a lawsuit for theft.

If you toggle back and forth between “Steal Away” and “What a Fool Believes” over and over again - as I’m sure D’Agostino and McDonald publishers did - yeah, the similarities in the backing keyboards come through. But the vocals?

Once you expand to the song as a whole - i.e., include the thicker (better) bass on “What a Fool Believes,” or the way the musical elements in “Steal Away” play together, while McDonald’s tune has more contrasts and oppositions - you get what the critics heard, basically, all the way down the “wimpy,” but Dupree’s slipped in some nice touches - e.g., the big, twanging strings that dominate the bridges, the way the song fades in as if you’re waking up to it. You don't have to love it, but give it credit for having a different mood.

The song came out of nowhere - and it took a minor miracle for it to go anywhere further than Dupree’s head - but he did not.

The Rest of the Story
As just about anything you read or hear about Robbie Dupree points out, you’d think he was from anywhere but Brooklyn. Born Robert Dupuis in 1946, he grew up and went to school much like anyone else - i.e., he didn’t have any immediate household influences - but he loved music, especially soul/R&B artists like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and played from an early age. When he made the decision to take a swing as a working musician, Dupree moved north to Woodstock, New York - which, as he regularly points out, was not the sight of the famous/infamous 1969 rock festival. In a 2018 retrospective on PopMatters, Dupree recalled his Woodstock:

One Hit No More, No. 106: Utopia's "Set Me Free" & Freedom from Prog

O.G.

Nope. Didn’t know this one either…

The Hit
The only remarkable thing about Utopia’s “Set Me Free” is that it came from the primary musical project of one of the most prolific men in 1970s music. Maybe. And yet, no great tales surround it’s creation - it’s the opposite, if anything - it didn’t make Utopia famous (already there), and it came less from a sound that defined them as an act than it dropped a marker on their evolution. According to Wikipedia, that single and the album it appeared on (Adventures in Utopia) derailed their career arc.

It does sound like its time, with the warm 1970s sound (especially on the keys) blending with the cooler synth production the 1980s made popular. If I had to compare it any song I’d ever heard before, I’d go with “Believe It or Not,” the song Joey Scarbury wrote for TV’s The Greatest American Hero.

It didn’t chart that high - it only reached No. 27 on Billboard’s Hot 100, and didn’t blow up internationally - but that’s entirely on-brand for Utopia.

The Rest of the Story
“Utopia as a group is to convince people of the potential reality of the concept. Utopia isn't even the greatest potential reality, it's just what we can afford now. We're the Disneyland of rock and roll bands. Anyone can get into it with a little bit of effort.”
- Todd Rundgren, a 1973 feature in the UK Guardian (reissued in 2013)

Utopia started as “Todd Rundgren’s Utopia,” and it was very much his baby. The original members included various musicians he’d worked with on his post-Nazz solo material, and even all that happened somewhat by accident. Shortly after Nazz petered out, Rundgren found himself without a job, a band and, as he explained to Songwriter Universe in a 2018 interview, “I did not have any confidence as a solo artist.” He had, however, started writing songs for Nazz “because that’s what bands did…after the Beatles.” Rundgren’s first songs trafficked in the usual themes - e.g., the ecstasy and agony of romantic love - and, after having to force himself to sit down to write the first few, it didn’t take him long to understand how easily the process slipped into formula. And hold that thought for now.