Occasionally, an artist will have a hit single but not be happy with the song. Sometimes, artists get tired of having to perform their biggest early hits after some time; occasionally, you might even read of an artist expressing disgust, or even hatred, toward one or more such songs. It’s rarer, though, that an artist expresses disgust at the recording process so much that the hit single doesn’t appear on best-of compilations, but that appears to be what happened with the highest charting single of Paul Davis, “’65 Love Affair”.
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I Want You by Savage Garden
Occasionally, a band or artist will have a single which becomes a fairly good-sized hit but which becomes a forgotten song because of other songs the band/artist has released which completely overshadow the single in question. Even if a band is known for only a few songs, the huge hits can almost drive the songs that were just big from people’s minds. That appears to be the case for the late 90s band Savage Garden.
We Don’t Talk Anymore by Cliff Richard
Some artists have an amazing amount of chart success in their native country without having much of an impact in the United States music scene at all. Others eventually do hit the charts in the USA, sometimes almost two decades after starting their music careers. In that second category we find Cliff Richard, who had a few hits later in his career. One of his biggest hits, which has become virtually forgotten by radio, is “We Don’t Talk Anymore”.
Missing by Everything But The Girl
Occasionally a band will spend years in relative obscurity and then, finally, suddenly break through with one big hit before settling back into the same obscurity from whence that band had come. One such band, at least as far as the American music-buying public was concerned, was Everything But The Girl, who hit big with “Missing”.
Maybe I’m a Fool by Eddie Money
Ask a fan of classic hits radio about the name Eddie Money, and odds are good that you will hear about only two or possibly three songs. But in reality, Eddie Money had quite a good run, with almost a dozen top 40 singles and four platinum albums. Since we’re talking about him on this page, though, it’s likely that you haven’t heard some of his songs on the radio in a long time…if ever. Take, for example, “Maybe I’m a Fool”.
Come Back by J. Geils Band
With the advent of April 2017 came yet another classic hits artist taken from us, as John “J.” Geils was found dead in his home at age 71 of what has been reported to be natural causes. J. Geils, of course, was the namesake of what was called the J. Geils Blues Band before simply becoming the J. Geils Band in 1969. (I suppose it was a catchier name for a band than its original name, Snoopy and the Sopwith Camels.)
Reach Your Peak by Sister Sledge
On March 10, we lost yet another pop singer, as Joni Sledge, the second oldest Sledge sister, passed away at the age of 60 from causes that are, as of two weeks ago, unknown. While it was youngest sister Kathy who sang lead on most of the Sister Sledge songs that people remember, Joni sang lead on a few as well.
Leave a Tender Moment Alone by Billy Joel
One of the lesser-publicized deaths of 2016 was that of Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidore “Toots” Thielemans, who passed away at the age of 94. (In fact, his death was so little publicized that it was at least a month afterward before I ever heard of it.) Though he had been well-known for his harmonica skills, I found myself unsure of where I had heard them until recently. As it turns out, I had heard what is probably his most often heard piece a lot during my life.
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Boogie Down by Al Jarreau
2016 took far too many of our favorite artists from us. 2017 continued that trend, unfortunately, with the death of Al Jarreau last month at the age of 76. The Washington Post’s obituary fondly remembered him as the “acrobat of scat”, a man who had a wide following but who never quite made it in the way so many of his contemporaries did.
The One You Love by Glenn Frey
Let’s face it: 2016 has been a lousy year for classic hits. First we lost David Bowie, and then soon afterward, we lost Glenn Frey.
Of course, just as with Mr. Bowie, Glenn Frey had too long and successful of a career for me to try to do it justice in one paragraph, so I won’t. The levels of success he enjoyed are obvious based on the number of Eagles songs still receiving airplay on both classic hits and classic rock stations, and a few classic hits stations still play one or two of his solo hits (mostly #2 hits “The Heat Is On” and “You Belong to the City”, I would imagine).
