Tag: yacht rock

Paul Davis | Sweet Life

“His name is somehow synonymous with yacht rock, but don’t let this misnomer fool you,” (VintageRock). “The late, great Paul Davis should really be considered a disciple of the legendary Harry Nilsson. Like Nilsson, Davis was an earnest singer-songwriter at his core who, despite disinterest in performing live, spun his original songs into musical gold both as a solo performer and as a hitman for other contemporaries … with a wonderfully silky tenor voice that seemed wholly incongruous to his Meridian, Mississippi roots and style.

‘He talked real slow and real southern,’ says longtime friend and producer Ed Seay. ‘You would hear that but then you’d hear his music and his great voice, and you’d say, Wait a second — is that the same guy?‘ ‘Cool Night’ … would peak at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1982. On the adult contemporary chart, it missed the top spot by one notch.” But regardless of the huge staying power of the iconic mid-tempo 1981 hit “Cool Night,” Davis (who passed away in 2008) was no one-hit wonder. He is also fondly remembered for the almost evergreen one-who-got-away ballad,”I Go Crazy” (1977). But “’65 Love Affair (1982) and “Sweet Life” (1978) also made noticeable splashes on the charts.

“Sweet Life” features a short intro and a verse in C major, a pre-chorus that just about screams “transition” (0:50 – 1:00) and a chorus that shifts down to Bb major despite a rising melody (1:01 – 1:25). Compound chords that punch well above the level of typical pop fare lead us back to the next verse with a return to C major.. The pattern continues until the last chorus/outro (starting at 2:38), lifted into C major by yet more compound chords.

Pablo Cruise | Love Will Find a Way

“For the longest time I assumed Pablo Cruise took their name from an obscure Mexican revolutionary leader. This is not the case,” (The Vinyl District). “Others assumed there was a guy named Pablo Cruise in the band. This is also not the case. When asked ‘Who’s Pablo Cruise?’ the quartet said simply, ‘He’s the guy in the middle.’ I like a band with a sense of humor and I like Pablo Cruise (in a very small measure) and I am not ashamed.

Robert Christgau of Village Voice fame wrote of Pablo Cruise’s 1975 breakthrough album Lifeline, ‘You can take the Doobie Brothers out of the country, but you can’t turn them into Three Dog Night.’ I haven’t the slightest idea what this means, but I’m pretty sure it’s an insult … But if Pablo Cruise get no respect, that’s not to say they don’t deserve a smallish modicum of the commodity … The Pablo Cruise sound was a melting pot of faux soul, power pop, standard issue Yacht Rock, funk, fusion, Latin music, and New Wave even.” The critics might have panned the tune, but the public loved it: the track reached #6 on the pop charts in 1978.

The intro and verses are built in G mixolydian; the verse melody, given its repeated prominent flatted-seventh degree of the scale, is practically a poster child for the mixolydian mode! The sunnier choruses (first heard from 0:47 – 1:07) are in D major.

Christopher Cross | I Really Don’t Know Anymore

“Quick! What do Christopher Cross and Billie Eilish have in common?

Answer: They are the only artists who have won the four major Grammy Awards (Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best New Artist) in the same year,” (BestClassicBands). “They achieved this feat in 1981 and 2020, respectively: Eilish is 50 years younger than the man born Christopher Charles Geppert in San Antonio, Texas. Only time will tell if she endures the kind of backlash that, after a spectacular start with hits ‘Ride Like the Wind’ and ‘Sailing,’ cast Cross into music business purgatory and back to fame again. Good luck to her.”

“I Really Don’t Know Anymore” wasn’t one of the three initial singles which propelled Cross’ eponymous debut album (released in the closing days of 1979) into the multi-platinum sales stratosphere in 1980 (“Sailing,” “Ride Like the Wind,” and “Never Be the Same”), but the album was such a smash hit that it received plenty of airplay nonetheless. The tune benefits from an assist by Michael McDonald, who intermittently joins Cross for vocal counter lines. The energetic, syncopated groove lends some much-needed life to the inert lyrics: “What do you think about love? … I really don’t know anymore / I really can’t say / I really don’t know anymore / I’m just that way.”

Starting with a verse in C# minor, the tonality flips over into the relative E major for the choruses (first heard from 0:46 – 1:05). Although they share similar vocal ranges, it’s always a treat to hear these two voices side by side: Cross’s clipped, nearly vibrato-free delivery couldn’t be more different from McDonald’s instantly recognizable vowel-centric and foggy timbre.

Young Gun Silver Fox | Midnight in Richmond

“Soulful pop-rock combo Young Gun Silver Fox … the brainchild of British singer/musician Andy Platt and prolific London-based American expatriate producer and multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee, the project first came together in 2012,” (CBS). “Both men already had well established careers, with Platt fronting the acclaimed soul-pop group Mamas Gun that he had co-founded, while Lee has put out dozens of albums and break records since he began his professional career in the ’90s … Drawn to each other by their mutual love for the warmth and melodicism of ’70s pop, soul and rock — Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, and latter-era Bill Withers were touchstones — the two talented musicians began working on original material … YGSF showcased their knack for crafting immaculately produced, breezy soul-pop confections driven by taut drum grooves and Fender Rhodes electric piano licks that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on AM radio during the late ’70s.”

The duo’s music is “timeless in one sense, while also referencing a very particular era,” (Grammy.com). “Over four albums, YGSF reflect ‘an apex of analog record-making’ that occurred between 1977-1982. ‘One of the things that was unusual about that whole West Coast scene was that you had these really talented people, but they all worked together in different capacities. One day they were working on a Michael Jackson record and another day they were doing their own record — or maybe sometimes the same day,’ says YGSF co-founder Shawn Lee, an American multi-instrumentalist with credits the length of some of his idols. ‘That’s why the music sounds so money, because everybody was at the height of their powers. Everybody had craft.'”

Released in 2018 on the album AM Waves, “Midnight in Richmond” starts in A major with a keyboard hook. 1:23 – 1:40 brings a short bridge in the closely-related key of B minor before the next chorus returns us to A major. Between 2:12 and 2:28, we head into another short bridge — this one in D major but leaning into its relative B minor at times. The sections alternate to the end as the hook continues to haunt the choruses.

Bill Champlin | I Don’t Want You Anymore

Bill Champlin, perhaps best known for his membership in the band Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s, earlier served as “lead singer, primary songwriter, keyboard player, rhythm guitarist, and occasional saxophonist in the Bay Area band the Sons of Champlin from 1965 to 1977, shepherding the middle-level San Francisco rock group through seven modestly selling albums,” (AllMusic). “In August 1977, he quit the band that bore his name and moved to Los Angeles, where he became a busy session singer. Not surprisingly, that soon led to his own solo recording contract and his debut album, Single … Champlin had hooked up with producer David Foster to write and record a collection of love songs very much in the mold of Boz Scaggs’ blue-eyed soul blockbuster Silk Degrees.”

The review goes on to describe the album as “sleek — and sometimes slick — ’70s white R&B, as played by a cast of Los Angeles studio pros including all six of the future members of Toto.” Backing vocalists included blue-eyed soul A-listers Michael McDonald and Daryl Hall. “At the center of it all is Champlin, whose soulful, rhythmic voice ranges from a tender tenor to a gruff baritone, sometimes in the same line … This is an album concerned with style, not substance, and it is a state-of-the-art example of studio craft, circa 1978. So, why didn’t anybody buy it? Probably because it went almost completely unpromoted …”

Between a hyperkinetic rhythm section, multi-layered and intensely syncopated backing vocals, intermittent assists from shimmering synths, and yes, plenty of emphatic cowbell, the full chart for the funk-driven uptempo pop tune “I Don’t Want You Anymore” might rival an orchestral score. Although the lyrics are a bit of a downer, the yacht rock quotient is otherwise strong here! After a short instrumental break (2:44), the tune shifts up a whole step at 2:54.

Robbie Dupree | Steal Away

PopMatters reports “In 1987, Rick Astley positioned himself as Michael McDonald’s Mini-Me. But there was another contender who’d got there before him. If ever someone had both a voice and songwriting style reminiscent of McDonald, it was Robbie Dupree, the singer/songwriter who emerged in 1980. Perhaps that’s unfair; he was also his own man, writing or co-writing the bulk of these two soft-rock-with-a-smooth-jazz-twist albums, originally on Elektra. They’re shiny, expensive-sounding affairs, typical of the final throes of the first singer/songwriter movement. Robbie Dupree was already in his mid-30s when his self-titled debut came out. He did remarkably well to land at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 1980’s frothy ‘Steal Away.'”

After starting in A major, there’s a key change to D major as the bridge hits at 1:44.

Doobie Brothers | What a Fool Believes

From MotD fan Jonathan Jharms Harms comes a beautifully detailed breakdown of an all-time best pop modulation we featured in 2017.

“If you’re like me, you’ve found yourself on a night on the town with friends, singing along to the The Doobie Brothers‘ 1979 classic ‘What a Fool Believes’ – but when the chorus comes, no one can find the right note. Is it the alcohol? Is it your memory? Nope – it’s modulation! Modulation written so smoothly you never noticed.

Songwriter Michael McDonald, after emphasizing the IV chord in every phrase of the song, makes the most soulful (and innocuous) of changes in the chorus – beginning the chorus a minor iv instead of a major IV. But wait – no – that was a pivot to a new key! Before you know it, we transition from C# major to E major – a strange jump to a very unrelated key, but without you ever noticing. Only the most observant will notice the A naturals turning into A sharps as the chorus fades into Verse 3, back to C# major.

Unlike other modulations that are all about calling attention to themselves or ‘raising the stakes,’ this one simply takes you on a ride. Maybe that’s why we’re still singing (or failing to sing) this amazing song, 40 years later.”

Paul Davis | Cool Night

“Paul Davis established himself as one of the most appealing singer-songwriters of the late 1970s and early 1980s,” (TheSecondDisc.com).  “Yet the Mississippi native all but walked away from his solo career at the height of his fame, returning to his roots as a behind-the-scenes songwriter and making cameo appearances on others’ hit records.  Before his untimely death in 2008 at the age of 60, Davis notched fourteen Hot 100 hits and eight Top 40s.”

Paul Davis‘ 1981 soft rock release “Cool Night,” which reached #11 on the US pop singles chart and #2 on the US adult contemporary chart, is also sometimes cited as an example of late 70s/early 80s “Yacht Rock.”

The key change is at 2:39, leading into the final chorus.

The Doobie Brothers | Minute By Minute

The Doobie Brothers‘ longstanding rock/folk/Americana sound expanded suddenly when the soul-infused songwriter Michael McDonald joined their lineup. 1978’s “Minute by Minute” features crazy amounts of syncopation, long instrumental-only breaks, and a modulation up two full steps as the bridge arrives at 2:28. The tune hit #14 on the pop charts, helping the album it appeared on to reach #1.