Non-Hits you couldn't live without

[JeffM]

I appreciate many genres of music, just as I appreciate many different kinds of food. I love chocolate ice cream. I love jalapenos. However, I do not put jalapenos on my chocolate ice cream.

Not long ago while at the supermarket, I saw a new vanilla-jalapeno flavored coffee creamer (not making this up!); I had no desire to try that either. The problem is that radio programmers use your logic as an excuse to program "only" one kind of music, resulting in audiences who "only" listen to one kind as well.

Oh, what the heck, might as well add a few more favorite flops:

Michelle Phillips - "Victim Of Romance"
Ringo Starr - "You Don't Know Me At All"
Barry White's Love Unlimited Orch. - "Rhapsody In White" (Channel 10 used this as their late-movie intro for years!)
The Wombles - "Wombling Summer Party"
Eydie Gorme' - "Tonight I'll Say A Prayer"
Carpenters - "Goofus" (A wacky novelty from those smooth balladeers)

 

[spinetingler]

The Sugar Bears - "You Are The One" (Might have been a hit if Post Cereals hadn't given away a zillion cardboard flexi-discs of it on their packages...)

Exactly how I first heard it. In fact, I don't remember hearing it on the radio.

 

[JeffM]

Did a little research and found out "You Are The One" topped out at #51 on the Billboard chart. So it never made the Top 40, but apparently did get plenty of air play in Detroit and several other major markets. My own copy is a vinyl 45 on Big Tree Records, which was then connected with Bell before switching to Atlantic. I understand there was even a Sugar Bears LP, though I've never seen one of those "in the wild."

The background vocals on the record were sung by Kim Carnes, who went on to bigger and better things. I've heard there is a rights conflict between Atlantic and Post Cereals over who owns the masters, so it's unlikely it will be reissued on a CD any time soon.

Long as I'm back again, might as well throw in a few more forgotten 45's...

Redbone - "Wovoka"
Petula Clark - "American Boys"
Ross Bagdasarian (aka David Seville) - "Scallywags and Sinners"
Liz Damon's Orient Express - "1900 Yesterday" (just grazed the bottom of the top 40 here; I understand much bigger in Canada...)

 

[radioman148]

"1900 Yesterday" got pretty good airplay in Chicago on WCFL & FM. WLS didn't hit it very hard.

 

[JeffM]

"1900 Yesterday" got pretty good airplay in Chicago on WCFL & FM. WLS didn't hit it very hard.

In my area, which is less than 150 miles south of the Canadian border, it got decent play over KDAL, which was then a full-service-MOR station. While not a "flame thrower," KDAL's signal is aimed north and west and reaches up there; in fact they used to carry some tourist-aimed ads from Canadian merchants; so I figured its proximity to Canada might have been a factor in their playing the song. I can't recall WEBC, the Top 40 station, ever touching the record.

 

[johnbasalla]

The Sugar Bears single got airplay in Cleveland, Ohio on WIXY 1260AM for a few weeks. I'd be surprised to see Atlantic and Post cereal spending too much lawyer time and money on the Sugar Bears masters. There can't be that much potential profit in it. "American Boys" may be forgotten, but it was a modest hit, making the Top 20 on the Adult Contemporary charts and not quite getting half way up the "Hot 100". I've got the Liz Damon's Orient Express LP with their one Top 40 hit. They are from Hawaii.

 

[JeffM]

The Sugar Bears single got airplay in Cleveland, Ohio on WIXY 1260AM for a few weeks. I'd be surprised to see Atlantic and Post cereal spending too much lawyer time and money on the Sugar Bears masters. There can't be that much potential profit in it. "American Boys" may be forgotten, but it was a modest hit, making the Top 20 on the Adult Contemporary charts and not quite getting half way up the "Hot 100". I've got the Liz Damon's Orient Express LP with their one Top 40 hit. They are from Hawaii.

Right on all counts. There's probably not enough money in the Sugar Bears record to make it worth clearing up the mess, but the stalemate will keep it from being reissued. Even with real money involved, these things can drag on and on. That's why it took until only a few years ago to arrange the release of the old Popeye cartoons on video. Paramount Pictures (theatrical and 16mm rental rights,) MGM-UA (TV syndication rights, as successor to AAP, who bought those rights in the late 1950's,) and Hearst/King Features (who own the Popeye character) wrangled over the issue literally for decades.

"American Boys" did get more play on MOR than pop stations, and I believe was Petula's first US single to miss the Top 40. And White Whale Records licensed Liz Damon's album from Mahalo, a local Hawaii label; she's made several LPS probably released there only, it's possible to find one sometimes in the rummage sale of someone who visited Hawaii and brought back the LP as a souvenir. I understand Ms. Damon now lives in Las Vegas.

 

[johnbasalla]

Thank you Mr. M . You gave interesting information. My brother found a much later Liz Damon LP at a library book sale. He picked it up on the last day of the book sale when everyone can fill up a bag for 50 cents. So, given all the things he stuffed in the bag, the record cost him about 2 cents. The LP was made for a travel agency who booked travels to Hawaii. It's not very good.

On to Ms. Clark. From "American Boys" on, she never had another Top 40 hit.

I guess I should cherish my Big Tree 45 of "You Are The One" by The Sugar Bears.

 

[joebtsflk1]

Right on all counts. There's probably not enough money in the Sugar Bears record to make it worth clearing up the mess, but the stalemate will keep it from being reissued. Even with real money involved, these things can drag on and on. That's why it took until only a few years ago to arrange the release of the old Popeye cartoons on video. Paramount Pictures (theatrical and 16mm rental rights,) MGM-UA (TV syndication rights, as successor to AAP, who bought those rights in the late 1950's,) and Hearst/King Features (who own the Popeye character) wrangled over the issue literally for decades.

It can get to a point when the lawyers finally get done with their billable hours, no one cares about the carcass that's left. A bit like Cameo/Parkway, even though I don't think the lawyers were involved, there was such a delay before releasing their library to CD that the target audience drifted away.

 

[JeffM]

Thank you Mr. M . You gave interesting information. My brother found a much later Liz Damon LP at a library book sale. He picked it up on the last day of the book sale when everyone can fill up a bag for 50 cents. So, given all the things he stuffed in the bag, the record cost him about 2 cents. The LP was made for a travel agency who booked travels to Hawaii. It's not very good.

I may have the same LP (Cartan Tours?) and thought it was not bad easy-listening stuff, but whoever produced the cover shoulda been shot. Either the make-up or the retouching job made Miz Liz look downright scary. Like either a mannequin or one of my old bosses... The Cartan LP was made about 7 years after the White Whale album.

After "1900-Yesterday," Ms. Damon and company made another LP released by Mahalo in Hawaii as "Try A Little Tenderness" and on the mainland as "Liz Damon's Orient Express II" by Anthem Records, another small label that probably folded overnight. The local overpriced-vinyl shop wants $25. for a copy, but I found one on ebay for $3.98 postpaid, pretty much getting the record for just the postage.

 

[R_F_Burns]

I worked at a Beautiful Music station for a brief time in the early 70's and 1900-Yesterday was in rotation at the time hadn't thought about that one in years.

 

[johnbasalla]

What was the "Try A Little Tenderness"/"Liz Damon's Orient Express II" album like? The one with the hit on it isn't bad.

You are correct, Cartan tours it is.

 

[JeffM]

What was the "Try A Little Tenderness"/"Liz Damon's Orient Express II" album like? The one with the hit on it isn't bad.

You are correct, Cartan tours it is.

If you liked the first album, you'll probably like the second; includes title track, cover versions of "Time and Love," "Where You Lead," and the "Love Story" theme, and a Bacharach-David tune "Loneliness Remembers" that I understand made the MOR chart. Nice cover photo too, good enough to make up for that Cartan mess. (Me Cartan, you Liz...) If you can find one at a decent price, why not?

 

[JeffM]

"SMILE, SMILE, SMILE" by Mike Douglas, (Atlantic Records, 1976 ).
Wow! 10 years after the schmaltzy "Men In My Little Girl's Life" was a Top 10 hit, this incredibly fun, happy, upbeat, sweet little 'old-time'-like song was released. It was curiously written by the production team of Hugo & Luigi along with George David Weiss, but Hugo & Luigi did not produce it. I can't tell yoou how much fun it is to listen and sing along to this record. It's a great sing-a-long tune. It's listed as from the Mike Douglas album "Mike Makes Your Day". Did that LP ever come out? Nevertheless, whenever I play this song, I smile, smile, smile.

A great song indeed, though the version I recall was by Kate Smith. She recorded it as a single for Atlantic, also in '76, and if I remember correctly, it almost put that old gal back on the chart. (Could it have been that Atlantic released 2 singles on the same song, then had to decide to "back" one or the other?) There was kind of a vogue for ragtimey pop songs around the early-mid 70's; Tony Orlando and Dawn's "My Sweet Gypsy Rose," etc. Every time I hear "Smile, Smile, Smile" I think of Jimmy Durante; if he could only have lived to record it, his version might have been better than Smith's, Douglas's, or anybody's!

 

[JeffM]

... And White Whale Records licensed Liz Damon's album from Mahalo, a local Hawaii label; she's made several LPS probably released there only, it's possible to find one sometimes in the rummage sale of someone who visited Hawaii and brought back the LP as a souvenir. I understand Ms. Damon now lives in Las Vegas.

A minor goof; Liz Damon's local Hawaiian label was Makaha Records. (Mahalo is another Hawaiian label, as are Hula and several others, all of whom have released some fine records too rarely found here on "the mainland.")