After the failure of "Do You" to generate any big hits Sheena went back to her relaltionship with Prince, and it worked. "The Lover in Me" soared to number two on the single charts. It didn't last. None of the other singles from the LP had much impact and this was the last top ten single Sheena has had to date.
Too bad, two albums later, No Strings, might have been the best record she ever made.
My favorite part of the singles issued from this album? The B-Sides are instrumentals of the A-Sides. Instant Karaoke years before Karaoke was even created. Awesome.
Sheena Easton - The Lover in Me - Picture Sleeve
Sheena Easton - The Lover in Me - Picture Sleeve Back
Love month continues and this Record of the Week is an obscure Sheena Easton single produced by Nile Rodgers of Chic fame.
From her Do You album, "Magic of Love" charted nowhere. It was pretty much a bomb in every country it was released.
I actually like this Nile Rodgers produced album, but unlike the Prince influenced material from a couple of years earlier, this record had little impact on the charts.
This February Record of the Week is from KISS, and since we're attempting to tie all the songs in to love month we went with "Beth", Peter's love song to his wife Lydia.
Of course as the story goes the song was written long before KISS even existed, and the original title was "Beck" which wasn't about Lydia at all, but hey, the story sounds better if it's about Peter's former wife.
Possibly the most maligned Love Song of all time is our current Record of the Week.
"Muskrat Love" was a number 4 hit for the Captain and Tennille in 1976. The song sold over a million copies when it was first released, and according to iTunes is still the third most popular song for Toni and Daryl.
The song was written and first recorded by Willis Alan Ramsey as "Muskrat Candlelight". His version (see below) is very similar, with the exception of his gravel-throated vocals, and the lack of muskrat sound effects.
The song was then covered by America who used it as the lead-off single for their Hat Trick album. Despite their confidence in the song it only peaked at a tepid number 67 in Billboard. It is included in their Greatest Hits album, and they still play the song today, which you can see below in a recording from a 2008 concert. Do you still think America would play this song at current shows if the Captain and Tennille hadn't had a massive hit with it? No, they wouldn't.
Then of course came Daryl and Toni's version, which they decided to record after hearing the America song on the radio. Included on their Song of Joy album, but never intended as a single, the song was released due to public demand. In addition to it's top 5 placing on the pop charts, it also spent 4 weeks at number one on the adult contemporary chart.
In a recent poll, CNN included it as one of the "worst" songs of all time, but the poll data is a bit dubious. Even the winning song barely grabbed five percent of the votes and there were hundreds of songs mentioned. Let's face it, there's a song all of us don't like.
One interesting thing about the Captain and Tennille single. As the song ends, and the needle moves into the end groove of the record, the muskrat effects continue to play. The groove itself is an "endless loop" and the effects play until you lift the needle from the record.
Here's the original single for Muskrat Love. Yes, the seventies were a much more innocent time for music. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
Captain and Tennille - Muskrat Love - Picture Sleeve
Captain and Tennille - Muskrat Love - Picture Sleeve Back
Captain and Tennille - Muskrat Love - 45
Captain and Tennille - Honey Come Love Me - 45
The Willis Alan Ramsey version of "Muskrat Candlelight"
America plays "Muskrat Love" live in 2008
The Captain and Tennille play "Muskrat Love" on Solid Gold
Here's the original music promo clip. From some of his expressions I don't think Daryl was crazy about the concept.
'til the Chipmunks and Chipettes cover Muskrat Love
As the seventies drew to a close, and the eighties began, Heart lost a lot of momentum. First, their Private Audition album became thier first album to miss gold status. That album was followed by Passionworks which also failed. Heart was clearly in trouble. Strangely enough their most popular era was ahead, but no one knew that yet.
This is a great single and Passionworks is a really good album, but FM radio seemed to have tired of Heart for some reason, and because airplay had fallen way off, the record sales declined.
Not everything had gone bad. The Heart tour supporting this album was a dual bill with Kansas, and despite the decline in record sales was a huge success.
Continuing our Record of the Week with a Love Month addition, another single from Heart.
Shortly after Heart became a huge success with Dreamboat Annie, they signed a contract with Portrait Records. The folks at Mushroom Records didn't take too kindly to this and the lawsuits ensued.
Mushroom also responded by issuing a very incomplete album, Magazine, with this as the leadoff single.
Though must of the Magazine album is filler, this track is a keeper, and Ann and Nancy still play it today.
Heartless on the Mushroom Records label.
Heart - Heartless - Single
Heart - Just the Wine - Single
Heart - Heartless - Vinyl 45
Mushroom Records - The roster was pretty slim without Ann and Nancy Wilson
Heart performs Heartless in 1976, two years before it would be released.
Here's an interesting addition to the story. Not long after Heart left Mushroom, one of the label's founders, Shelly Siegel, died. Despite all of the pending lawsuits, Ann and Nancy, the rest of Heart, and some of the other people associated with Mushroom Records placed this nice tribute to him in Billboard.
Another Record of the Week for love month and we have some more Heart for you. This is the leadoff single from the Dog and Butterfly album, "Straight On".
When this record came out I was pretty neutral to it. I didn't hate it, but I wasn't in love with it either. Compared to singles such as "Barracuda", "Crazy on You", "Kick it Out" and "Heartless" it just seemed to drag.
I'm still not thrilled with the studio version, but it's a much different song in the live show. Ann and Nancy tend to funk it up a bit and it has a lot more energy.
No picture sleeve on this one either, but it does have the very nice Dog and Butterfly painting on the label.
Heart - Straight On - 45 Single
Heart - Lighter Touch - 45 Single
Heart - Straight On - Vinyl
Heart performs Straight On
'til Ann and Nancy record the funked up Straight On
I decided to feature some Heart stuff for February, because I like Heart, and I have a bunch of Heart records. Plus, Heart kind of fits the month of love. No? Maybe?
Nothing special about this vinyl, it's a generic Portrait label in a generic portrait sleeve, but it's one of my favorite Heart singles, "Dog and Butterfly".
Sadly, radio never grasped how great it was and it barely eked into the top 40 as noted by the "38" I wrote on the label all those years ago.
Heart - Dog and Butterfly - 45
Heart - Mistral Wind - 45
Heart - Dog and Butterfly - Vinyl Single
Ann and Nancy perform "Dog and Butterfly"
'til someone covers Dog and Butterfly, and it goes top ten
During their two year assault on the record charts there was a massive demand for Monkees music. The truth is the folks at Screen Gems and the record label, Colgems, had no idea how to respond. Though the Monkees dominated record sales between 1966 and 1968 one has to wonder what could have been had the record company truly understood what they had.
"Valleri" was never intended as a single, but was literally forced on to the market by demand. Looking for additional Monkees songs to play, a DJ taped "Valleri" off of the Monkees television show and played it on the air. The response was as expected, but the song remined in the can.
You see, by this time Nesmith, Dolenz, Tork and Jones had taken control over their music. No longer were they forced to do the bidding of Don Kirshner, and with this new control, all future Monkees releases had to be under a "Produced by the Monkees" banner.
The earlier recording of "Valleri" had been produced in an earlier session by Boyce and Hart and didn't meet the new criteria.
Back to the studio.
This new recording became the Monkees sixth straight gold single, and the last top five hit for the Pre-Fab four.
I have always loved this recording with Louie Shelton's killer guitar solo and consider it a perfect pop single. It might be my favorite pop single of all time. That opinion is not shared by everyone. Michael Nesmith calls this a "terrible record" and there are rumors that during the 1996 Monkees tour of the UK he turned his back to the audience when the song was played.
The 1996 tour. Mike Nesmith faces the audience during Valleri.
Nesmith can't complain too much. After all he landed "Tapioca Tundra" on the flip side.
Here's the 1968 recording from the episode "Monkees Blow their Minds".
Here's the original Colgems single in a standard Colgems paper sleeve.
This is the record that started it all, again. Chipmunk Punk.
As the story goes, in 1980 a DJ played Blondie's song "Call Me" at 78 RPM and said it was the new Chipmunks record.
The Chipmunks had of course been retired since the death of Ross Bagdasarian in 1972, but listeners seeking a dose of nostalgia flooded request lines and the rest is history.
That's only part of the story.
What we do know is Ross Bagdasarian Jr had been considering reviving his father's creation with the help of his wife Janice Karman. The 1960's series "The Alvin Show" was in reruns and had been doing exceptionally well.
The news of this new Chipmunk single apparently reached the ears of Ross Jr and in no time an entire album had been recorded with Ross and Janice supplying all the voices.
The album was a huge hit, there were follow up albums, a Christmas special, a TV series, an arena tour, an animated feature film and more recently, three live action feature films.
It's almost as if Alvin, Simon and Theodore had never gone away.
Here's the record that started the revival. The Chipmunks sing "Call Me" backed by a version of Tom Petty's "Refugee".
The Chipmunks - Call Me - Picture Sleeve
The Chipmunks - Call Me - Picture Sleeve Back
The Chipmunks - Call Me - Vinyl 45
The Chipmunks - Refugee - Vinyl 45
Not just Punk - Chipmunk Punk
Chipmunks Know How to Rock!
Chipmunk Punk went on to sell over a million copies
'til Alvin, Simon and Theodore go out on another world tour
Another Record of the Week mid-week bonus. Raise the Dragon - The Blue Hour.
Raise The Dragon was a duo from Scotland (Richard Spellman - vocals and Sean Lyons - guitar). They released an EP on IRS before changing their name to Intimate Strangers prior to releasing an album in 1986.
Someone described their music as a mix of Bowie and Eno. I'd say that's an apt description.
