Volume 3 Of Chuck Small’s “Who Sings It ? “

As I’ve mentioned in previous installments, the point of my CD series “Who Sings It?” was to answer that question when the song came up on the stereo or the iPod.

This doesn’t necessarily make the artists one-hit wonders, or even obscure. Several artists in this collection prove the point:

Jessi Colter was well-known in the country world in the late ’70s, both on her own and with hubby Waylon Jennings.

• In the pop world, she had the Top 5 “I’m Not Lisa” – and that was it. 

In the worlds of R&B and gospel, Candi Staton is a classic artist.

On the pop charts, she hit with a Southern soul cover of “Stand by Your Man” early in the ‘70s (though I wasn’t familiar with it until decades later).

• I knew her from her disco-pop smash “Young Hearts Run Free.”

Substitute “rock” for “country” or “R&B:” and you’ll see the same fate awaits these artists:

• Nick Lowe, who took “Cruel to Be Kind” into the Top 15 in 1979 but was better known for his songwriting and production work in the late ’70s and ’80s.

• McGuinn, Clark and Hillman, all famous members of The Byrds, had one Top 40 hit as a trio: the AC/light disco shuffler “Don’t You Write Her Off,” a song I’ll never get sick of.

• And, of course, the Canadian band Triumph, which had far more success on the rock charts in the ’80s than its 1979 AT40 debut, “Hold On” would suggest.

(I added the parenthetical phrase “(to Your Dreams)” on my CD credits to distinguish it from the Ian Gomm hit of the same year.)

When it comes to obscure, the instrumentals on this set are likelier candidates:

I love Frank Mills’ “Music Box Dancer,” but I understand why it makes some people’s skin crawl.

It’s an earworm of the first kind, and it is quite repetitive – to me, its brevity and relief from the disco songs crowding the charts of spring 1979 helped it stand out.

The 1976 update on “Baby Face” by the – deep breath – Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps was always a guilty pleasure of mine.

Of those mid-‘70s soundalike disco-fied standards, I’ll take this one over “Brazil” or “Tangerine” or “Chattanooga Choo Choo” any day.

Silvetti’s “Spring Rain” is just gorgeous, in its splashy disco-meets-AC vibe.

The constant thump gives it a bit of a seamy edge, like it could have been used as a porn soundtrack. (I don’t know that it has been, just saying.)

And what can you say about the Wilton Place Street Band’s “Disco Lucy”?

“Disco Lucy” is not available on Spotify, so go to YouTube if you dare. I will say that this adorable collection of Lucille Ball and company clips almost justifies the insane decision to use the 5-minute-plus album version of this song as its soundtrack:

If “Telephone Man” was the most polarizing track of CD two, I suspect this will be for this set (aside from the more recent criminality of the artist performing “Rock and Roll, Part 2.”)

The playlist for this week can be found at:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40Kvc5cFkXm9A3WxGYRazh?si=g3H926XJQCOyybhebTwOTA&pi=u-6WSWKpiLQzap

The other YouTube only song is the minor Top 40 hit for Chicagoan John Valenti, his obviously Stevie Wonder-inspired “Anything You Want:”

Your turn:

Tell me in the comments what you love… and what you hate!

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