One Hit No More, No. 105: Pucker Up and Kiss...Lipps Inc.

The band's all here. For a time.

On the one hand, who does not know this song? On the other, who knows where it came from and how that connects it to a musical legend?

The Hit
For anyone who has ever wondered what puts the digital fry into vocals in the verses in Lipps Inc.’s “Funkytown,” it’s a vocoder, the parent (or grandparent) of Auto-Tune. For anyone who thinks of it as a disco anthem, it dropped nine months after the rightly infamous Disco Demolition Night. As noted on the official Funky Town site:

“’Funkytown’ put the Minneapolis group Lipps, Inc. on the map, at a time when popular music was pre-Prince and post-punk. The obituaries for disco were being written; Lipps, Inc. put the funeral on hold.”

Shit. I meant to bury the Prince reveal, but the way he flits on the edges of the story flags an important divide in the larger, yet brief narrative.

As for the song, it starts with a naked kick-drum that could lead into just about any pop song. To put the rest in a Name That Tune frame, I’m guessing 40% of contestants when the rattling cowbell comes in (0:04); the snare drum (0:08) doesn’t give much away, but the honking car horn (0:12) might knock another handful of contestants off the fence; another 20% would catch on with the loping bass (0:23), and I’m confident you’d arrive at 100% after the first four notes on the keys, maybe even two. It’s a lot of wash-rinse-repeat from there and the album mix probably goes on longer than you think (just south of eight minutes), but, when you’re on the dancefloor (probably a touch high), you don’t give a shit. As the great Marv “The Leatherman” Gomez says in the film classic, Thank God It’s Friday, “Dancing! Everything else is bullshit!”

Musically, it serves a purpose. Thematically, it speaks to something broader. From a 2018 edition of Time Out from “Funkytown’s” Wikipedia page:

One Hit No More, No. 104: McFadden & Whitehead, the World's a Hard Place for Writers...

Wish I had a shot of them writing...

If you bet me $20 this song is in the movie Running Scared, I would take the bet. Even though I think I’m wrong…wait, yeah, that was based in Chicago...helluva cast, man...

The Hit
“During the 1970s, the label released a string of worldwide hits that emphasized lavish orchestral instrumentation, heavy bass and driving percussion.”

McFadden & Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” puts that description into musical form. Since picking around Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes a couple years back, I’ve spent the time in between trying to figure out how and/or why that sound clicks so easily with me. My best guess is that was what the music I heard growing up and that lets it check a bunch of boxes on the lizard-brain level.

It doesn't hurt that it just works. What starts as a strong bass-line line turns busy and bubbly under a medley of strings that tickle your ears like a summer breeze; what's not to love? To admit one drawback - especially for a guy who later switched on to songs with a hard three-minute limit (and most wrapped up in two-and-a-half) - your average Philly soul song tends to play out on a groove that lasts nearly that long.

That didn’t stop “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” from climbing high on the charts; it topped the R&B charts through the summer of 1979 and ticked up as high as No. 3 on the mainstream pop chart. It had a real cultural resonance as well, with some people calling it “the new black national anthem” and Philadelphia sports adopting it as an anthem of their own. According to a blog post on a site called From the Vaults (best single source I read, fwiw), McFadden & Whitehead recorded their hit in just one take; it also claims Whitehead made up the lyrics on the spot. For anyone wondering how the pair reached such a high level of proficiency, here’s…

The Rest of the Story (don’t sue me from beyond the grave, Paul Harvey)
Gene McFadden and John Whitehead grew up on the hard-scrabble side of Philly in the 1960s. There isn’t much about them growing up (e.g., no musical parents, no playing at church or performing in the choir, all common back-stories), but they formed a band they named The Epsilons by the mid-‘60s, i.e., in their late teens. They recruited other members - Allen Beatty, James Knight and, future member of the Blue Notes, Lloyd Parks - and start performing locally. The group did well enough for Otis Redding to bring them on, an arrangement that lasted until Redding died in a plane crash in 1967. From the Vaults' post includes a sentence that hints at even broader exposure, but it’s hard to really nail that down due to an absent verb:

Crash Course Timeline, No. 39: Jimmy Dorsey, the Nice One

A man and his (signature) horn.

My favorite story about either of the Dorsey Brothers is the one about their famous split. From their Wikipedia page:

“The band performed live mainly in the New England area, with acrimony between the brothers steadily building up, until a definitive falling out between Tommy and Jimmy over the tempo of ‘I'll Never Say Never Again Again’ in May 1935, after which Tommy walked off the stage.”

That brotherly feud didn’t formally end for 18 years. Over tempo. Related, because I placed this chapter in the late 1930s/1940s, I decided to write about each Dorsey as they played and functioned for all those years, i.e., separately. From what I gather, Jimmy, the older brother and the subject of this post, was the nicer of the two. Then again, I’ve only really read his side so far.

James Francis Dorsey was born in 1904 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. His father worked as a coal miner at the time of his birth, but moved to teaching music at local schools and leading his own marching band shortly after. Both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey played, and well, from a very young age, as demonstrated by the fact Jimmy started playing in his dad’s band by age seven. He started on trumpet and had the chops to play with a New York-based group called J. Carson McGee’s King Trumpeters by age nine, but he switched to the instrument that made him famous, the alto saxophone, by the time he turned 11. (Just to note it, he played clarinet as well, using the Albert system.)

It's fair to call both brothers precocious: as early as 1920, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey formed a third of their first band together, the Dorsey’s Novelty Six, a name they later changed to Dorsey’s Wild Canaries. They had some success with this group, even landed some airtime on the radio as “one of the first jazz bands to broadcast.” [Ed. - I can’t document it, but that doesn’t sound right.] With so much experience under their belts, and at such a young age, both Dorseys moved to New York to work as professional, full-time musicians.

Neither of them struggled for work. They played live, worked recording sessions, and did radio work throughout the 1920s, a lot of that time with decade’s best (e.g., the Paul Whiteman Orchestra). Jimmy, at least, played every orchestra of the 1920s I’ve ever heard of; he even recorded “the iconic 1927 jazz standard” “Singin’ the Blues” with the Frankie Trumbauer opposite the half-legendary Bix Beiderbecke. Before long, the Dorseys, some friends, peers and competitor built on what they learned playing in the ever-expanding orchestras of the late 1920s/early 1930s to create (white, mainstream) popular music’s next big thing. To name one early partner, Glenn Miller co-wrote, arranged and played trombone on a couple of collaborations with the Dorseys at the tail-end of the 1920s - e.g., “Annie's Cousin Fanny,” “Tomorrow’s Another Day,” and “Dese Dem Dose.”

One Hit No More, No. 103: Gary Numan, The Machman

Point A.

I had an unbalanced loathing of most things with synthesizers growing up. But I made a quiet exception for this song - almost certainly because I liked it, but felt like I shouldn't. Related, a very young me found Gary Numan fascinating for reasons I had neither the experience nor vocabulary to express.

The Hit
I can think of no better way to start this than with this quote from a solid, very current (2021) interview in SongwriterUniverse.com:

“I did have a piano by then, but it’s difficult if you’re not a good keyboard player, to come up with good synth/bass lines on an upright piano. So I bought a Shergold Modulator bass guitar from the West End in London, and brought it home. I opened up the case, pulled out the guitar, and the first four notes that I played was, “Do-do-do-do,” (he sings the bass hook of “Cars”). And I thought…That sounds pretty good, I’ll keep that. And then I did something else—the next four notes became [the other hook]. It was really simple, like a child’s song. It took me 5 to 10 minutes to get the three parts of the song worked out, and figure out a structure. Then it took me another 20 minutes to do the lyric.”

I love that it was that simple. Moreover, it makes a lot of sense after you read just a little about Numan. That fuzzy, modulated bass/rhythm riff he stumbled on dominates the song in such a way that I can’t imagine anyone associating any other sound with it, but it's that mixed with lose long treble synthesizer bleeds (for they way they, for lack of a better word, descend) that made Numan’s signature sound. At least at his frenzied peak. And frenzied it was…

The Rest of the Story
“You know, his album Replicas never left my turntable in junior high school. There are people still trying to work out what a genius he was.”
- Prince. Wait for it…

Born Gary Anthony James Webb, somewhere in London in 1958, the man who later transformed into Gary Numan grew up (mostly) as an only child (there was the late addition of a cousin) in a stable, supportive family. His parents hardly had money to burn - his father moved luggage for British Airways - but they indulged his interests often enough that he didn’t seem to want for anything. While he gravitated to the same interests most boys do - e.g., Numan told GQ in a 2020 interview that he wanted to be a pilot until he found out that only 1 in 1,000 make the cut - he became obsessed with music at a fairly young age and set his sights on the opportunity-rich career path of paid musician. Possibly related, Webb was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at age 14. Never mind. It’s related.

Crash Course Timeline, No. 38: Nat King Cole, Before He Became "Unforgettable"

Before.

He started in life as Nathaniel Adams Coles, but left it among counts and dukes as jazz royalty. The man who became Nat King Cole was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1919, but his hometown didn’t play any discernible role in his life: his musical life started in Chicago and he made his name in Los Angeles. That doesn’t mean it came easy. From the best source online I found on Nat King Cole (and take a bow, Indiana Public Media):

“Before he became the ‘Unforgettable’ star of both music and television, Nat King Cole was just a work-a-day pianist in Los Angeles, trying desperately to secure his next gig.”

Like a lot of musicians of the era, Cole first learned music in the church where his father served as minister. It was his mother, however, who first sat him down in front of a church organ. The young man proved a quick study, playing his first song in front of a crowd at age four (“Yes, We Have No Bananas”; old one), but the Coles family was precocious like that: all three sons - in order, Eddie, Nat, Ike, and Freddy - went on to pursue careers in music.

The call came early for Cole, before the end of high school, in fact (I found no mention of what his parents thought of this). He took his first stab at forming a band in 1934, at age 15, with a group he named the Royal Dukes. When that act sputtered out, Cole found a place as a member of a touring band under Noble Sissle (again, nothing about his parents’ thoughts). Once he got back to Chicago, Nat Cole teamed up with his older brother Eddie to form a sextet called Eddie Cole’s Swingsters. That group enjoyed some local success, even managed to record a couple sides for Decca Records, but Sissle came calling again and Nat Cole went.

The offer was better this time, a role in the touring group of a revival of Sissle’s once-groundbreaking musical, Shuffle Along. That one decision changed his life. He met and married his first wife - Nadine Robinson, who was also part of the Shuffle Along tour - and, when the revival petered out in Los Angeles, the young couple decided they liked the city and the weather and settled down. It being the late 1930s, Cole attempted to organize one of the big bands that dominated the era. When that stab at the big time failed, Cole tried something novel for the time - i.e., bringing together a band that could fit on any stage, even a seedy nightclub: a trio.

One Hit No More, No. 102: The Boomtown Rats, the Ghost of Woody Guthrie & Cod Reggae

Somewhere around their peak...

This chapter covers one of my favorite bands through the second half of high school. When someone told me the ‘keeper on my high school soccer team loved them as much as I did, I tried to bond with him, but he wasn’t having it. I took it well, honest. Both own-goals were totally unintentional…

The Hit
“A reporter reached Spencer by phone while she was still in the house after the shooting, and asked her why she committed the crime. She reportedly answered: ‘I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day.’”

The “Spencer” in that quote refers Brenda Spencer, a troubled young woman who fired shots at the elementary school across the street from her house in January of ’79. A pair of Irish musicians named Bob Geldof and Garry Roberts caught wind of the story and decided to make a song out of it, and a statement. You can see Geldof very briefly explain in a 1981 appearance on Merv Griffin’s show (and do stick around for the banter at the end of it, because both men seem to get a kick out of needling each other). To wrap up Spencer’s story, it’s a sad one. She lived in squalor with a single dad who drank too much and what sound like some serious mental health issues. Suffice to say, her father wasn’t very supportive:

“Spencer later said, ‘I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun.’ Asked why he had done that, she answered, ‘I felt like he wanted me to kill myself.’”

The song was The Boomtown Rats' “I Don’t Like Mondays,” the only U.S. hit the band ever had. If you’ve ever heard Johnnie Fingers opening piano figures, you know it in an instant. It never occurred to me till that performance on Merv Griffin that the instrumentation doesn’t seem to go beyond what they had on stage: a piano, a swelling synth to fill in the sound and a timpani (or something similar) to give it a nice little boom. Still, it contains many touches of your average Rats song, most notably a knack for cutting to the bone of troubling subject-matter and the call-response in and around the chorus that…for lack of a better word, comes off like camp.

I never find a source that said how high “I Don’t Like Mondays” climbed up Billboard’s Hot 100 - though Wikipedia makes clear it stalled below the Top 10 - and I have no idea how long it stayed there. I do, however, remember coming back to that one sometime after hearing my first song by The Boomtown Rats, the radio edit of “Up All Night” that MTV played back in its early days (a lot, certainly the Geldof remembers). Suffice to say, I got the drift of The Boomtown Rats one big U.S. hit, even the lyrics aren’t entirely linear, far earlier than I figured out “Up All Night.” Sadly, “I Don’t Like Mondays” remains topical as the day he wrote it. From a 2020 interview with a site that was one called Hot Press:

One Hit No More, No. 101: The Crusaders and Their Damn Long Crusade

The time they really committed to the word association.

I apologize in advance for this post on the grounds that, it’s pretty much: a handful of dudes put an actual shit-ton of music and over 30 years. They might have done it under a couple different names, some key members came and went (but only after 14 years), but this basic story here isn’t more complicated than talented professional musicians releasing a ton of material and landing a hit somewhere in the early middle. But, because I have a format.

The Hit
The Crusaders’ “Street Life” came out in late 1979 and, based on all the one-hit wonders I’ve heard around it and my general sense of the mainstream sound of the era, something close to out of nowhere. It’s less than it doesn’t sound like its time - between the vocal style (especially with the lonely opening), the entire rhythm underlay, the pulse of electric organ, the funk guitar, the “warmth” of the production, it very much does - but that fucker’s north of 11 minutes long and I never saw a radio edit (even the Youtube clip gets within a few tics of 10 minutes). That didn’t stop it from breaking into the Top 10 on the R&B charts and sneaking as high as No. 36 on Billboard’s Top 100. (Fans in the UK lifted as high as No. 5.) The album did all right too. No. 18 on the pop charts ain’t bad.

Well, that takes care of that.

The Rest of the Story
“This group took the blues-based saturation of Texas, and melded that with the gospel and soul from the church…”
- Jake Feinberg, in an interview with Wilton Felder (which puts it sometime before September 27, 2015)

The story begins with three friends who attended high school together - Joe Sample (piano), Wilton Felder (tenor sax, at least then), and Nesbert “Stix” Hooper forming a band they called The Swingsters in 1954. It continues with Sample checking out for a couple years to study piano at Texas Southern University - where he definitely met Wayne Henderson (trombone), and might have met Hubert Laws (flute) and Henry Wilson (bass). After taking a head-count, they updated their name to the Modern Jazz Sextet and continued to build their name as a hard bop act. After introducing some R&B influences to their sound, they updated their name to the Nighthawks and/or Nite Hawks, and, for those wondering at home, nearly all of these notes will be chronological and, yes, most of it comes from Wikipedia’s entry on The Crusaders. I had what I had to work with and…mostly lucid as Felder was through it, that Feinberg interview felt too much like the latter badgering the former for what he wanted to get out of him.