“Rick Derringer was just 17 when his band The McCoys recorded the #1 hit ‘Hang On Sloopy’ in the summer of 1965, knocking ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles out of the top spot.” He’s worked with Alice Cooper, Richie Havens, Todd Rundgren, Steely Dan, Cyndi Lauper, Barbra Streisand, and more.
In the mid-80s, Derringer’s work with ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic was central to Yankovic’s success, resulting in several Grammy awards. Derringer produced Yankovic’s Michael Jackson parodies, including the #1 hit ‘Eat It.'”
“Don’t Ever Say Goodbye,” from Derringer’s 1979 album Guitars and Women (produced by Todd Rundgren), features a whole step key change at 2:23.
According to the website of R&B/jazz vibraphonist/vocalist Roy Ayers, he’s known as “the Godfather of Neo-Soul. He continues to bridge the gap between generations of music lovers. In the 60s he was an award-winning jazz vibraphonist and transformed into a popular R&B band leader in the 70s/80s.”
Although he started performing in the late 1940s and was a part of the acid jazz sound of the 1970s with his band Ubiquity, he’s been prominently sampled by Dr. Dre, J. Cole, Tyler the Creator, Jill Scott and more, “earning him a vaunted place among music producers and DJs,” (LA Times). Again from his own website: “Today, (Ayers) is an iconic figure still in great demand with music industry heavyweights, including Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu, 50 Cent, A Tribe Called Quest, Tupac and Ice Cube. Many of Ayers’ songs have been frequently sampled and remixed by DJs worldwide.”
“Searchin'” (1976) starts in E minor but shifts to G minor for its choruses (for the first time from 0:46 – 1:25) before reverting to the original key.
Oscar Hammerstein, a mentor of Sondheim’s, “taught him that in writing lyrics ‘the whole point is to underwrite not overwrite, because music is so rich an art itself.'”
In his hands? Rich indeed. His innovative harmonies and textures aside, “Sondheim raised the status of the musical, which had often been considered comforting and unadventurous family entertainment, and used it to explore adult relationships in all their complexity,” (The Guardian). Andrew Lloyd Webber: “The musical theatre giant of our times, an inspiration not just to two but to three generations, [whose] contribution to theatre will never be equalled.”
Fellow musical theatre composer Jason Robert Brown remembers: “I was 16 years old when I played Charley in Merrily We Roll Along at my summer camp in upstate New York. I suspect that everything I know about how to craft musical theater scores comes from having spent those four weeks inside that show, getting to know it as an actor, as a pianist, and as a young writer having stumbled upon the keys to a creative life I didn’t know was possible … Aspiring to work at that level is the most delightfully impossible task I could have ever set for myself. I hope I never get all the way there,”(Buzzfeed).
Here’s the inimitable, much-missed Marin Mazzie singing “Losing My Mind” from Sondheim’s Follies (1970). This performance is just exquisite; the key change at about 3:00 is a highlight.
Clifton Davis, known for writing “Never Can Say Goodbye” for the Jackson 5, wrote “Here Comes The Sunrise” for the newly Diana Ross-less (-free?) Supremes, released on their 1971 album Touch (The Diana Ross Project). ” … a nice song, a mid-tempo pop number with just the right amount of bounce; the Billboard review of Touch called this song a ‘chart possibility,’ and it’s easy to imagine it getting some radio play …
“Touch received strong reviews from critics; Billboard raved, ‘The trio really has its act together, and are sounding more exciting than ever,’ and Rolling Stone called the album ‘an unqualified success and the final proof that the Supremes will continue without Diana Ross.’ Indeed, the trio sounds extremely confident, tackling an eclectic group of songs with great skill; lead singer (Jean) Terrell, in particular, turns in some of the finest work of her Motown career, shaking off any bit of lingering hesitancy and attacking each song with impressive versatility and vocal elasticity. Touch falls just shy of being a perfect album, but it’s close … Touch certainly deserved more success than it eventually found, and stands up today as a smart, satisfying artistic statement.”
After a start in G major, an early bridge (1:01) leads to a short instrumental interlude (1:24 – 1:29) featuring unexpected brass syncopations over a patch of sumptuous harmonies, dropping us into G# major for the balance of the tune.
“Who could ever forget that bizarre moment in 1979 when Ethel Merman, the first lady of American musical theater, became the ‘first lady’ of disco with the release of her notorious camp-classic disco album on A&M Records?” asks Billboard.“One is tempted to ask why, but it was the ’70s and disco was a hot commodity, so why not? The concept was so absurd that it almost bordered on brilliant … Along with other titanic musical oddities like William Shatner Sings, Tammy Faye Bakker’s “Ballad of Jim and Tammy,” Goldie Hawn’s Goldie, and Jackie Gleason Presents Aphrodisia, The Ethel Merman Disco Album is one of those priceless anomalies in popular music that’s too surreal to ignore.”
Sheet music of the original composition by Irving Berlin sold over a million copies upon its release in 1911. Merman took the original and ran with it, jumping on the caboose of the disco train for this track (and the entire album). The Merman biography Brass Diva states that she loved the beat of disco, though she didn’t understand the words!
Starting with a short nod to authentic ragtime during the intro, the tune then transitions to a calcified disco groove for the duration. Starting in Bb, there’s a transition at 1:15 to B and again at 2:29 to C (with manic backing vocals and cutting-edge electronic drum fills to boot!)
Many thanks to uber-regular contributor JB for this submission! For anyone who was alive — and less than retirement age — in mid-1970s America, “Carry On Wayward Son” was nothing less than inescapable.
“I’ve always thought Kansas was an interesting hybrid of two different genres: Prog vs. ‘trad’ rock … I remember hearing a surprising amount of Kansas at frat parties during college, mixed in with the Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd — you’d never hear Genesis or Gentle Giant in a frat basement, but there was Kansas, WAY more rhythmically and harmonically complex than the other hard rock songs … a sheep in wolf’s clothing, as it were.”
LouderSound reports that “the track peaked at #11 in the US (1976), helping to propel parent album Leftoverture to #5 in the Billboard Hot 100 … Four decades on, it’s become more even famous than the band that recorded it, its meaning almost lost to ubiquity. It was the second most played track on US classic rock radio in 1995, topping the same chart in 1997, and at the last count, having appeared in TV comedy shows and films that include South Park and Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, has logged up more than two million downloads during the digital era.”
After the tune begins in A minor, 4:14 brings a shift to E minor.
Released in 1975, “Fanny (Be Tender With My Love”) peaked at #12 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 chart and #2 in Canada. “According to Maurice Gibb, producer Quincy Jones called “Fanny” one of his favorite R&B songs of all time.” (SteveHoffman forums) Written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb and produced by Arif Mardin, the tune was recorded on the same day as “Jive Talkin’,” according to a 2001 interview in Billboard. Blue Weaver, keyboardist for the Bee Gees during this period, was influenced by Hall & Oates’ 1973 LP Abandoned Luncheonette: “The key change in ‘Fanny (Be Tender)’ was a complete rip-off from Abandoned Luncheonette (from ‘She’s Gone,’ which was also produced by Mardin). I only had it on tape, and I didn’t know that Arif produced it”.
The group did not perform “Fanny” live because of the layers of harmonies used to create the studio recording. In the same Billboard interview, Maurice Gibb explained: “We all love that one, but it’s just a bitch to sing.”
After starting with an intro and verse in E major, the tune shifts to its relative minor (C# minor) for the pre-chorus and chorus at 0:24. The pattern holds through verse 2 and chorus, followed by a bridge built around A major at 1:55 and another verse at 2:16. 3:00 and 3:05 bring two half-step modulatons.
Many thanks to our Brazilian follower (and first-time contributor) @julianna_arai for this submission!
“Can’t Live Without You” by Connie Laverne was originally released as white label DJ copy on the New York record label GSF shortly before the label folded in 1974,” reports Sam Beaubien of NPR affiliate WDET’s program CultureShift. “This record is rarely seen and is highly coveted … (it became) popular through modern DJs playing this song in their sets, specifically in the UK. Since then, the track has been remastered and released for the Club Classics album celebrating 50 years of UK’s Northern Soul scene.
Information on the vocalist Connie Laverne is extremely hard to find. GrooveCollector states that the single was produced by George Kerr. Phyllis Hyman later recorded (but didn’t release) a version of the tune. From The Guardian’s overview of the genre, which is said to have been the UK’s answer to Motown: “One of the many beauties of Northern Soul is its sheer unknowability. It’s a scene that has always thrived on the rare, the obscure, and the undiscovered. Since it first emerged in the dance halls of northern England in the late 60s, it has existed in direct opposition to the very concept of greatest hits … There is no carved-in-stone canon – everyone’s journey through it is unique. Northern Soul is a culture based on chance finds, crate-digging and word-of-mouth recommendations.”
1:12 brings a half-step upward modulation; at 1:43, we seem to be headed for another, but we fall back into the original key instead! Many thanks to our prolific contributor JB!
British singer Billy Ocean’s first Top 40 hit in the US, “Love Really Hurts Without You” was featured on his eponymous first studio album, released in 1976.
Ocean claims he wrote the song while simultaneously learning how to play the new piano he had just bought. “The novelty of it was coming home every lunchtime and evening and tinkling my piano until eventually I did get something out of it which was the song ‘Love Really Hurts Without You’,” he said. “My left hand started playing the melody and my right hand just did some down beats and my voice just started coming out with [the opening lyric] ‘You run around town like a fool and you think that it’s groovy’ and the song just came together there and then.”
The song has since appeared in the 2013 film Filth, as well as in the Netflix series Sex Education. Beginning in F major, the tune modulates up to G at 2:07.
“Record labels and radio in the U.K. were grudgingly forced to allow new-wave and punk sounds to edge onto the airwaves in the late-’70s, long before their U.S. big brothers would even consider such an experiment. The Jags were perfectly suited to seize that moment.” (Magnet Magazine)
“The Jags’ sound in 1979 was jangly and based around clean, ringing guitar, with slashing rhythms, quick musical changes and expertly precise three-minute arrangements. Their original songs were upbeat, full of hooks, elegant melodies and guttural rock energy: a perfect model of power-pop/new-wave fun. (The UK press) quickly tagged the band as ‘Elvis Costello imitators,'” a comparison which the band wasn’t able to transcend.
After a start in E major, “Back of My Hand” (1979) features a downward shift to G major during an instrumental break (2:03), then a return to E major at 2:14 for a bridge that pivots about as if it might modulate to F# major at 2:29 — but doesn’t. According to AllMusic, the tune had “a chart life of 10 weeks and peaked at #17 in the UK. In the US, the song peaked at #84 on the Billboard Hot 100.”
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