Singles Going Steady 15-E Harmony Need Not Apply

The 45 single.  A part of my lifetime for 50 years.

That's kinda hard to believe that I have dedicated my life this long and so far into that reality for me today revolves around the black circle spinning around at 45 speed.  The rewards are endless though although it rendered me useless anything else in life.

This edition represents some of the latest and some of the ones I forgot about. Most were found in St Vincent De Paul in Madison last month and I never got around to posting them till today.  Those have stuck around though our single series will be rewarded, the rest will just ignore.  Or in the case of Vampirestat, add up the robot ratings. Woohoo we're over 2,000 once again.

1.  Something's Not Right-Nik Turner (Bonus 45 single from the new Space Gypsy album) 2013  If you love the old Hawkwind during the early 70s, you will get a kick out of Nik Turner's Space Gypsy album which has been the most Hawkwind sounding since Hall Of The Mountain Grill and too bad that there's bad karma in the Turner and Brock camps over Turner's attempt to trademark the Hawkwind name.  But as I have been rooting for Dave Brock to come up with something memorable, the last Hawkwind album just didn't do it for me.  Since I brought this on expensive vinyl, I'm guessing this is a bonus track on the CD. It is.

2.  Love Or Let Me Be Lonely-The Friends Of Distinction 1970  RCA 74-0319  In the wasteland that is R and B today,  most of what you hear is autotuned crap or such over the top singing, you think their lungs will be coming out of their throats or just piss poor rapping but the pinnacle of great R and B music was in the 60s and early 70s before disco.  Motown, Atlantic were the top labels of soul music but sometimes it came from other venues.  The Friends had two major hits for RCA, the feel good hit of Grazing In The Grass and this number 6 hit to which oldies radio plays from time to time.  Three Dog Night covered Going In Circles, the number 15 hit but I'd never heard that on the radio.  Followup Time Waits For No One, got some airplay here in town but only made it to number 60.  One more failed single and the Friends went into extinction.

3.  Repetition-Information Society 1988  Tommy Boy/Reprise 7-27659  I'm not much into the dance bands of the 80s although I blame Olivia on about digging this band.  Somewhere to the right of the Thompson Twins, their first album got pretty good reviews and a couple of top ten singles but this moody little piece flopped.  The next album Hack was a concept album of sorts and got good reviews and poor sales and by the time Peace And Love Inc came out, they lost the chick singer and nobody cared.  Upon hearing Peace And Love Inc and Hack a second time, they're dated in the late 80s and early 90s but it's really not bad.  Information Society never really went away, in fact they have toured this year.

4.  Holdin On-Homer Joy 1973  Capitol P-3767  One of Buck Owens' discoveries, Homer walked into Bakersfield with a song for Buck to sing and that came Streets Of Bakersfield.  Homer recorded a few singles for Capitol, like Holdin On but they never charted. An underrated singer songwriter  Joy died 9/11/12 in Las Vegas at age 67 from heart complications.

5.  I Fall To Pieces-The And (Boat 45)  1997?  A new wave remake of the Patsy Cline classic by a band from Madison that made two albums for J Bird and Butch Vig (Fire Town, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins) produced and then disappeared.  You can still find this 45 at various Madison locations of the local St Vincent De Paul or Mad City Music X.  Outside of that, you know as much as I do about this band. Which is nil.

6.  Love Of The Common People-Waylon Jennings 1967  RCA 47-9259  Even back in the 60s, Waylon was more folk based than country and didn't care much for the slickness of the Nashville sound that Chet Atkins was famous for but in all honesty most of anything that came out of RCA Nashville sounded great on the radio on down to the Anita Kerr Singers or to a lesser extent, the Nashville Edition.  This is a far cry from the stripped down 70s stuff that Waylon would be famous for but I think this song and the album of the same name is listenable.  A couple years later Jennings would put his foot through the top 100 door with a 93 showing of Mac Arthur Park.

7.  Here Comes My Baby-The Tremeloes  1967  Epic 5-10139  Judging from the condition of both this song and the Waylon Jennings number above, I'm guessing whoever had them kept them in great shape, were not jukebox copies or came from a now expired record store.  Most of the copies of this song, came from overzealous people who wore the grooves off or were jukebox copies with their grooves wore off.  I look at The Tremeloes like I do at the Fortunes or The Foundations as UK bands that made plenty of records but only the two highest charting songs get any airplay and Here Comes My Baby made it to number 13 and followup, Silence Is Golden up to number 11. As far as I know The Fortunes may have been the best of the three bands named in this segment, The Foundations being the less interesting and The Tremeloes somewhere in between.  I've seen their best of that Sanctuary put out a few years ago but never bought it upon myself to check it out.

8.  Light Of Love-Cat  1970  RCA 74-0279  Many years ago, there was a 99 cent LP that I found someplace, It may have been Arlan's, or K Mart, or Kresges but somehow this album has stayed in my collection for 40 plus years.  And I don't think I ever seen the album anywhere since then.  Cat came from Canada, home of the Guess Who and shared the same producer as they did in Jack Richardson and the same arranger in Bill McPeek too.  That's where the similarities end as The Guess Who enjoyed more popularity, Cat had a one and done album. And believe it or not, KCRG actually played this song a couple times in the famed Hit Bound section, which meant it didn't hit the Super 30.  Another RCA based band did a cover of said song, Kindness which would later become Smokie. Which can be found on You Tube, but not the Cat version. Which I prefer. BTW, the Cat album outside of Light Of Love was throwaway except for the power ballad All In This Together and the beautiful Goodbye, which would be Cat's final number. They were never heard from again.

9.  I'm Doin Fine Now-New York City 1973  Chelsea 78-0113  Minor R and B band in the style of The Spinners but had more in common with the Delfonics with more slower ballads.  Thom Bell produced and arranged this and I'm guessing the fabulous MFSB band backing them up (Earl Young's familiar drums I can hear).  They could have had better luck being on Philadelphia International or Atlantic but they got stuck on Wes Farrell's Chelsea label, to which he was more into the faux pas pop of Austin Roberts or Wayne Newton (Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast anyone?) rather than the Philly Soul of this song.  One of my all time favorite soul songs from the 70s.

10.  Hot And Nasty-Black Oak Arkansas 1973  Atco 45-6925  Since I had one opening left on this SGS Series, I decided to do a blind pick and picked the first forty five that came out of my extensive collection.  To which we pick the hot and sweaty live version from Raunch N Roll and a hard to find 45 even back then. None of AM stations played this but KLWW FM did quite a bit and was the basis of me trying to find the album.  I do believe my forty five came from the jukebox at the infamous Ole's Ham And Egger in downtown Marion and sold at Town's Square Bookstore.  And there's always a crowd of people digging through the boxes of 45s up there.  But I always managed to find some decent stuff, Wishbone Ash, T, Rex, The Kitchen Cinq. Who?  yeah The Who too.

This concludes this year's edition of Singles Going Steady.  Thank you all for your patronage.