Everybody knows about one-hit wonders. They may have had long semi successful recording careers, but at only one time in their entire career did the sun truly shine on them. They had that one song that came along at the perfect time, grabbed the public’s attention, and bought them a house on the outskirts of Palm Springs.
So I started digging a little deeper. Deep in the Audio Closet of No Return are many albums by people you never heard of singing songs that were not widely heard outside of their mother’s kitchen.
i may have doomed this episode by getting cute and calling it No-Hit Wonders. “No hits” will never fly with Top 40 limitations or Android Smoke Signals or Twenty First Century F F F Focus Groups. The pop music world thrives on success and an artist’s ability to make money for someone in a suit he or she will never meet. It’s a business of hits, not misses.
As I started pulling albums that might fit the description, I found that many of the choices I made came from the early 80s. There is no scientific explanation. I was working for a station where music reps brought me stacks of albums. But new decades are a time of promise and possibilities.
MTV didn’t start until August of 1981, so what you are about to hear is a collection of people who didn’t get to be big names just before video killed the radio star. It doesn’t mean they didn’t try. And, as you are about to discover, it doesn’t mean they produced sub par rock and roll. I dropped the needle through all of these albums and found songs I think history might have sadly overlooked.
So much for the “no hitter.” From the Oscar broadcast, Franke Previte of Frankie and the Knockouts accepts the honors for writing “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” for Dirty Dancing.
“That was Sweetheart from Franke and the Knockouts. It came and went in 1981. But the lead singer, Franke Previte would be remember for a much, much bigger song. In 1987 he got a call from the head of Millennium Record, Jimmy Ienner, who asked him if he would be available to compose something for an upcoming movie. When he was told the title, he thought he was being asked to write for a porn flick, and he was sure his career was sinking. The movie however, was Dirty Dancing. He joined co writers John DeNicola and Don Markowitz and their song not only bumped a Lionel Ritchie song for the climactic dance by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray, the trio won Oscars for the best composition of the year.”
It’s easy to say these weren’t particularly successful entertainment sources in their time, which for most of them seem to be on the cusp of a new decade. Through with the 70s, the 80s on top of them. A new unscripted baby of an era fairly unsure of what is about to happen, it only knows it is going to require a lot of mousse to replicate the glitzy Fifties, and for music and movies, an acceleration of drug use, particularly cocaine, on the highway to getting things done. For this handful of musicians the possibility of failure and being forgotten in a distant future is not there, like the haunted girl lost by the heartbroken Zombies in their debut hit of the 60s.
You be the judge. This show is 100% vinyl, and about the same percentage obscure. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. From England we start with The Sinceros and a prophetic song called “Disappearing.” Get ready for Professor Mikey’s Old School #84: “No Hit Wonders: The Early 80s!”
But if you have listened to as many records as an ancient DJ you have either lost all your audio tastebuds, or you have figured out that the music that comes out of an artist has little or nothing to do with the size of their bank accounts. Poverty struck down and outhouse cowboys have produced tear jerkers that rolled into the driveway in the rain with beautiful songs of heartache and redemption.
⚾️PLAY (BALL) LIST
(Coaches note: Batting order changed at the last minute)
I’m So Attractive The Photos * I Don’t Wanna Hear It The Shoes * All Messed Up and Ready to Go The Records * Fotogenic Ellen Shipley * Hey You’re On the Run New England * Sweetheart Frankie and the Knockouts * Give Me a Little Time R.A.F. * At the End of the Day Mike Rutherford * Real Life Fast Fontaine * No Turning Back Sherbs * Disappearing The Sinceros * Fade to Grey Visage
Visage fading to grey means we are coming to the end of the No Hit Wonders Old School podcast, and still no hits. Hopefully you got the point. Even the biggest hit makers sometimes find themselves in creative jungles. Chopping and charting through swamps and skullduggery, sure that whatever it takes to become a success has eluded them completely. Many of these artists disappeared or went different directions. Others persevered, sometimes into miserable failure. But other times they won the rock and roll.
We close with a little known thematic project called Smallcreep’s Day. The artist is Mike Rutherford. He stayed in the background for a lot of his career. He was no Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel, but he did play bass for Genesis. He also made some solo albums, and eventually founded a little group called Mike and the Mechanics. In this, the closing movement from a genius unknown album, he looks forward to better times. If you are a musician, or you just feel like your needle has yet to settle in the groove, there is still time, and there is always hope, especially if the subject is rock and roll. Everybody’s looking for something. You could be next!
Professor Mikey’s Old School is produced for educational purposes. Any and all music heard in this program resides within the public domain, is licensed through the podcast carrier, or is used within the guidelines of fair use provided for in Section 107 of the copyright act of 1976. Playlists, pictures, and first access to all podcasts requires a free subscription to my newsletter which you can find at professormikey.substack.com
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