Seen in the charts

Over at our home blog — AM, Then FM — we’ve started a series looking back at songs I heard on my AM-FM radio during the ’70s. We’re starting out with 1970, so let’s stay there.

Everyone knows R.B. Greaves hit it big with “Take A Letter Maria,” which reached No. 2 in 1969. But do you remember the follow-up single, which was in the charts at this time of year in 1970?

You’ll hear it on tonight’s side on The Midnight Tracker, which resurfaces at the end of every month. It emerges from the haze of time, reviving an old late-night FM radio show on which one side of a new or classic album would be played.

That follow-up single is a cover, but it isn’t “Cupid,” the fourth cut on Side 1. “Cupid” is a little bit of family business on which Greaves covers a tune written and done first by his uncle, Sam Cooke.

No, that follow-up single was “Always Something There To Remind Me,” the oft-covered Hal David-Burt Bacharach song.

“Always Something There To Remind Me,” Don’t Play That Song,” “Take A Letter Maria,” “Cupid” and “This Is Soul,” R.B. Greaves, from “R.B. Greaves,” 1970. This is Side 1. It runs 15:14.

That last cut, “This Is Soul,” has a nice, upbeat slice of Muscle Shoals R&B. It, like “Take A Letter Maria,” was written by Greaves. Why wasn’t that put out as a single?

There are lots of little mysteries when it comes to R.B. Greaves.

Greaves was born in Guyana, the son of an Air Force captain. He grew up on three Indian reservations and is half-Seminole. The liner notes say he was raised “on a ranch adjacent to the Seminole Indian Reservation at Hot Springs, Sonoma.” So … could that mean northern California, where there are Calusa-Seminole Indians?

Greaves moved to England when he was 19, There, the story goes, he got into music, having some modest success as Sonny Childe with a group called the TNTs.

OK, then … how did he get from there to cutting an album on Atco Records under his real name in his mid-20s, and doing so with an A-list production set-up — recording at Muscle Shoals in Alabama and at the Atlantic studios in New York with Ahmet Ertegun producing the album, Muscle Shoals fixture Marlin Greene co-producing four cuts and doubling as the recording engineer and Arif Mardin doing the string arrangements?  No wonder there were two Top 30 hits on that album.

The trail dries up pretty quickly and ends in 1977 with Greaves recording for Bareback Records. I’ve seen at least one other R.B. Greaves LP, but couldn’t tell you its name or label.

If R.B. Greaves is still with us, he’s 65.

Another little mystery.

Revisiting that green-eyed lady

It’s hard to believe that The Midnight Tracker is into its third year. It’s just a little blog, taking up a tiny corner of the Web, drawing an exceedingly modest number of page views.

Our most popular post was Side 1 of “Sugarloaf,” the 1970 debut album from the band that came out of Denver and hit it big.

There’s all kinds of good stuff on Side 1. There’s “Green-Eyed Lady,” of course, which everyone seems to be searching for. There’s also a cover of “Train Kept A-Rollin’,” one of my favorite old R&B tunes, done long ago by Tiny Bradshaw.

So to thank you for two good years, here’s Side 2 of “Sugarloaf.”

“West Of Tomorrow,” “Gold and the Blues” and “Things Gonna Change Some,” Sugarloaf, from “Sugarloaf,” 1970. This is Side 2. It runs 18:56. (The buy link is to a 2-on-1 CD also featuring the “Spaceship Earth” LP from 1971.)

This side is much in the vibe of the time, with some extended rock/blues/jazz jamming throughout. It’s perfect for late nights. “Things Gonna Change Some” is a little bit Dave Brubeck, a little bit Frank Zappa, if the liner notes are to be believed. As always, you be the judge.

It’s just right for The Midnight Tracker, which resurfaces at the end of every month. It emerges from the haze of time, reviving an old late-night FM radio show on which one side of a new or classic album would be played.

Hope you will stop by again.

Back to Detroit

Those of us who live in Wisconsin — at least those of us who lived here when rock radio was thriving — got to sample from a big plate of musical influences.

One tremendous influence was Detroit. There was all that Motown music, of course. But also the MC5, the Stooges, a young Bob Seger and, yes, even a young Ted Nugent. Then there was Dennis Coffey.

In the ’60s, Coffey became one of Motown’s best session guitarists, one of the Funk Brothers. Even a partial list of singles on which he played is astonishing: “Somebody’s Been Sleeping,” by 100 Proof; “Give Me Just A Little More Time,” by the Chairmen of the Board; “If I Were A Carpenter,” by the Four Tops; “Want Ads” by Honey Cone; “If I Were Your Woman,” by Gladys Knight and the Pips; “Band of Gold” by Freda Payne; “Someday We’ll Be Together,” Diana Ross and the Supremes; “War” by Edwin Starr; “Nathan Jones” by the Supremes; “Smiling Faces Sometimes” by Undisputed Truth; “We Can Work It Out” by Stevie Wonder; and — whew! — most of the Temptations’ greatest and grittiest.

I didn’t know any of that when I came to dig to those tunes in the early ’70s. I came to know Dennis Coffey only when he started releasing his own stuff, starting with the smash instrumental single “Scorpio” in 1971.

As I go crate digging these days, I’m often looking for LPs I should have bought back when, but didn’t. “Evolution” by Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band is one such record. It’s the one with “Scorpio” on it, and a lot more.

“Evolution” was Coffey’s second solo LP, recorded in 1970 at GM Studios in east Detroit and RCA Studios in New York and released on Sussex Records in 1971. Coffey has the guitar leads, as you’d expect, with many fellow Funk Brothers providing the backing.

So, tonight on The Midnight Tracker, we have a bit of “Evolution” for you. Enjoy.

“Getting It On,” “Whole Lot of Love,” “Summer Time Girl,” “Scorpio” and “Garden of the Moon,” Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band, from “Evolution,” 1971. It’s out of print, but you might find a used vinyl copy online somewhere. This is Side 1. It runs 15:45.

The first cut is a straight-ahead funk workout. The second cut, “Whole Lot of Love,” is a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” The third cut, “Summer Time Girl,” sounds a bit like the Temptations’ “My Girl.” You know the fourth cut. The fifth cut, “Garden of the Moon,” is a dreamy, spacey bit of jazz rock.

Something for the season

Halloween is not my bag.

That said, I’ve long enjoyed what we have for you tonight on The Midnight Tracker. It’s something in the spirit of the season.

It is, of course, “Tales of Mystery and Imagination,” the first album by the Alan Parsons Project. It’s a prog rock concept album based on Edgar Allan Poe’s stories.

In the mid-’70s, Parsons was highly regarded for his work as an engineer on LPs by the Beatles, Paul McCartney, the Hollies and Pink Floyd. He then became a producer and created “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” with Eric Woolfson, who pitched him the idea.

More than 200 musicians played on this 1976 album, which was arranged by Andrew Powell. It was recorded and mixed at Abbey Road Studios in London from July 1975 to January 1976.

Tonight, we feature Side 1 of “Tales of Mystery and Imagination.” Its five cuts:

– The instrumental “A Dream Within a Dream.”

– “The Raven,” the tune everyone has come to know from this album. Though it’s gotten much free-form FM and classic radio play, it wasn’t the single.

– “The Tell-Tale Heart,” with Arthur Brown — yes, as in The Crazy World of Arthur Brown — on vocals.

– “The Cask of Amontillado,” my favorite.

– “(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” which was the single when this was released as summer arrived in 1976.

Hope you dig it.

“A Dream Within a Dream,” “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado” and “(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” the Alan Parsons Project, from “Tales of Mystery and Imagination,” 1976. This is Side 1. It runs 20:34.

30-30-30

-30- in the newspaper business once meant the end of the story.

Today is the 30th of September, the last night of the month.

So why not go for a 30-year-old record for tonight’s side on The Midnight Tracker?

It’s a record that, even though released in 1979, scarcely sounds dated. It’s one of our favorites, a record my wife and I had in our individual collections long before we ever merged them.

“Look Sharp” by Joe Jackson was — and is — a wonderfully intelligent though cynical mashup of pop, rock, ska, reggae and jazz.

Our copies of “Look Sharp” are among the early pressings — a package that consisted of two 10-inch EPs with a small “Look Sharp!” pin. Mine still has the pin. Janet’s pin is gone, and the picture of Joe Jackson on the flip side of her album has light blue crop marks from where she once used it to illustrate a review of the album.

One of the first shows we ever saw together was Joe Jackson. We were sooooo sophisticated then, heading to Minneapolis to see him at the Guthrie Theater on a Sunday night in October 1979. That ticket cost $7.50, or about $22 in today’s dollars. A bargain either way.

The lineup we saw that delightful night is the one you hear on this side: Jackson on piano, Graham Maby on bass, Gary Sanford on guitar and Dave Houghton on drums, with all on vocals.

Dig it!

“Happy Loving Couples,” “Throw It Away” and “Baby Stick Around,” Joe Jackson, from “Look Sharp,” 1979. This is Side 2 of the first 10-inch EP. It runs 8:24.