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Every track has a story. Classic songs from the rock music, pop, reggae & soul archive and the stories behind them with Simon Tesler, founder and former editor of 1980s music, media and pop culture magazine BLITZ.
I'm Simon Tesler, back with you for another hour of great music on the theme of HEART. We're kicking off with Shakespears Sister -- yes Siobhan Fahey again -- and Break My Heart.
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Yes, Siobhan Fahey again, in the project she launched after her abrupt departure from Bananarama in 1988. Ironically, Bananarama were then enjoying their greatest ever success. But that really was the problem as far as Fahey was concerned. Two years earlier the girls had teamed up with the production team Stock Aitken Waterman. These were still early days for them -- they'd already had an unlikely smash hit with former goth punks Dead Or Alive and the single You Spin Me Round Like A Record -- but Mel & Kim and Kylie were yet to come. The Bananarama girls thought SAW could work similar wonders for them, and they would be proved right.
Venus was their first track together and it gave Bananarama their biggest hit to-date. A series of further singles and two very successful albums followed, but there were constant personality clashes between SAW frontman Pete Waterman and the girls, and especially with Fahey. She hated the new hyper-commercial direction of Bananarama, and her personal life was also in turmoil as a result of her stormy marriage to Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart. She felt increasingly isolated within the group because of the long-established bond between her bandmates, Keren Woodward and Sarah Dallin. They had been friends since childhood and, unlike Fahey, were delighted with the commercial success they were now experiencing. Eventually it all got too much for Fahey and she quit.
"Musically," she said, "we’d gone absolutely full-on pop, at a time when I was feeling lost and dark and depressed in my life. I was obsessed with the Smiths... and I wanted to write stuff that was more personal — that wouldn’t have belonged in Bananarama.” But it was, she admits, a painful divorce. "There were sore feelings on both sides. I felt really isolated within the band for a year before I left. And they felt betrayed that I left." In fact they didn't speak again for 10 years.
Meanwhile, Fahey launched Shakespears Sister, named after a song by The Smiths but deliberately misspelt. "It made it sort of my thing," she said, "as opposed to the song by The Smiths". Fahey was now living with Dave Stewart in Los Angeles, and her neighbour was the songwriter and producer Richard Feldman. They went into the studio to work on Fahey's new songs, and Feldman roped in several friends and colleagues to assist. Chief among these was Marcy Levy, who had already worked with a starry line-up of other musicians including Eric Clapton, Bob Seger and Alice Cooper among many others as backing vocalist and songwriter. Lay Down Sally is among the many songs recorded by Clapton on which she has a writing credit. Levy helped Fahey polish her material and also provided backing vocals.
It was Dave Stewart who noticed the chemistry between the two women in the studio and suggested that the American singer become Fahey's partner rather than just a hired hand. Fahey's management and label London Records also agreed. Ironically, it was the girls themselves who were less keen, each fearing the loss of their independence. But they eventually agreed, though Fahey asked Levy to adopt a new stage name to mark a separation from her previous career as a background singer. Following the release of Break My Heart as the first single, Levy became Marcella Detroit and Shakespears Sister became a duo.
Unfortunately, the Shakespears Sister partnership also ended in tears and recrimination a couple of years later, but that's a whole different story.
We're going to stay in a danceable groove now for our next two tracks. In a few minutes, a gorgeous track by George Duke, Straight From The Heart. But first, The Jacksons with a track from their penultimate album together. It's written by Michael, already a big solo star now following the release of Off The Wall a year earlier, and you can hear the first sonic hints of would become the track Thriller two years later. The Jacksons recorded the song as Heartbreak Hotel, but after its release the title was changed to avoid confusion with Elvis Presley's song of the same name. Somehow This Place Hotel, as it's officially titled now, doesn't have the same ring to it.
**
The Jacksons with Heartbreak Hotel -- oh, ok, ok, This Place Hotel if you really insist -- and then the sunny Hollywood vibes of George Duke's Straight From The Heart, featuring, incidentally the 22 year-old Sheila E -- soon to become Prince's muse -- on percussion. Sheila E spent four years in Duke's studio and touring band, before working with Herbie Hancock and Marvin Gaye, and then Prince from 1984.
Two more soulful grooves now. In a few minutes, an R&B classic first recorded by Bobby "Blue" Bland in 1974, but subsequently covered numerous times by other singers, perhaps most famously by rock group Whitesnake and more recently by Jay-Z. For my money, Bobby Bland's version is still the best.
But first a minor classic from one of the many very talented but lesser known singers who were scraping a living on the fringes of the US soul scene in the 1960s and early 70s. Alder Ray, or sometimes Alder Ray Mathis or Alder Ray Black, released a series of singles on a variety of different labels -- here in the UK we'd probably call them Northern Soul classics -- but then she retreated into the shadows again around 1973. Probably into a job that paid better than the occasional one-off singing gig. This is one of her best: My Heart Is In Danger.
**
We're going to take our cue from Bobby Bland now and slow down the tempo a little more with three bona fide soul classics. In a few minutes, the incomparable Al Green with one of his finest moments -- and there are so many to choose from: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. After that, another of the great soul singers who came up in the 1980s in Minneapolis at around the same time as Prince and his entourage. That's Alexander O'Neal, who's stepping in to reassure poor old Al Green with the promise, A Broken Heart Can Mend. But first one of the grande dames of crossover soul in the 1960s and beyond.
Dionne Warwick got her first break in show business as part of the family gospel group the Gospelaires alongside her sister Dee Dee and aunt Cissy Houston -- subsequently the mother of Whitney Houston. They became an in-demand session group, singing backing vocals for a number of other artists, and on one of these gigs, Warwick was introduced to a rising songwriter by the name of Burt Bacharach. He and his main writing partner Hal David were keen to build on their success as writers by establishing their own production company, and they were looking for the right singer to interpret their songs and become their muse. This young gospel singer seemed to them to be perfect for the job.
The partnership between Dionne Warwick and the writing and production team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David became one of the most successful in popular music history. Over the next two decades, almost 40 singles they recorded together made the charts, with combined sales of more that 12 million copies. Many of those songs are regarded as modern classics: Don't Make Me Over, Walk On By, I Say A Little Prayer and Do You Know The Way to San José. And also the song I'm about to play: Anyone Who Had A Heart.
Almost everyone who heard it knew it was a classic for the ages. As soon as Warwick's version was released in the US in January 1964, the Beatles producer George Martin rushed out his own version. The original idea was that Shirley Bassey would record it, but instead Martin chose a virtually unknown singer who was a friend of The Beatles: Cilla Black. Dionne Warwick's recording did well, especially in the US, but Cilla Black's cover, released in February did even better in Britain, going to No 1 to several weeks, despite being a note-for-note copy. Warwick was incensed. "If I had coughed on Anyone Who Had a Heart," she once said, "Cilla would have coughed too" and the rivalry launched a decades-long feud between the two singers. Both versions are superb, but Warwick's is the gold standard against which all others are measured.
**
Al Green with How Can You Mend A Broken Heart and then Alexander O'Neal and A Broken Heart Can Mend. So, in his hey day in the 1970s, Al Green wasn't generally known for doing covers of other people's songs, or rather when he did the results didn't end up among his greatest recordings. There are a couple of notable exceptions: one is I Can't Get Next To You, originally by The Temptations; and the other is this track that was written and first recorded a year earlier as a folk pop song by The Bee Gees of all people. However, Al Green truly made the song his own, adding every ounce he could summon up of heartbreak and raw emotion. I suspect most people would agree that this is the definitive version.
There's no question whatsoever that Al Green is singing about the end of a romantic love affair; but in fact the song appears originally to have been inspired by a fraternal bust-up between the Gibb brothers. In 1969 when the Bee Gees were at the height of their first wave of popularity, Robin Gibb walked out of the band, annoyed at the way that his contribution as both a singer and a writer was being overshadowed by brother Barry. At the time, it looked like the end of the Bee Gees, but after a break of a few months, cooler heads prevailed, and they agreed to reconcile. Just over a year later, Barry recalled, "Robin came to my place, and that afternoon we wrote How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and that obviously was a link to us coming back together."
And then we had A Broken Heart Can Mend from Alexander O'Neal. Back in Part One of the show, we heard how Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera had wanted to go to America to make a record in the style of R&B songwriters and producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. Well Alexander O'Neal is a perfect example of the sound he was looking for, one of many artists upon whom Jam & Lewis sprinkled their magic dust in the mid-80s, along with the SOS Band, Cherelle, most notably Janet Jackson, and somewhat less successfully our very own Human League.
As I mentioned earlier, in the early 80s, O'Neal was part of the small and closely knit music scene based around Minneapolis. In 1979, Alexander O'Neal became the vocalist in the local soul and funk band Flyte Time, in which Jam & Lewis were respectively keyboardist and bassplayer. Another singer from the scene was just then becoming a big star. His name was Prince, and his record label were so pleased with him that in 1981 they offered him the opportunity to sign up his own protege acts to the label. Flyte Time was the first band he approached. Jam and Lewis and O'Neal met with Prince to discuss terms, but right from the start Prince and O'Neal didn't get on. There are different accounts of just why they fell out. One is that O'Neal expressed dissatisfaction with the terms Prince was offering and asked for cash upfront rather than after records were released.
"I was too opinionated," O'Neal said later. "I'd started showing I could think and started asking questions about the financial arrangements. I got kicked out the band before I got kicked IN!" However, there were also rumours that Prince described O'Neal to friends as being "too black" -- by which he meant too dark-skinned and possibly too street-wise -- to fit in. "Yeah, I heard rumours that he said I was too black," said O'Neal. "I'm sure it might have been both of those reasons for him. Prince had come to a realisation of his own identity and he was black when it was convenient for him to be black. Mine stayed all the time, 24/7."
So O'Neal was replaced as vocalist by Prince's school buddy Morris Day, and Flyte Time became The Time. Over the next couple of years, they toured with Prince as a support act, but the two albums they released in 1981 and 1982, and their accompanying singles were entirely written by Prince, who also played all the instruments. The only member of The Time who can be heard on both albums is Morris Day.
Jam and Lewis quickly got fed up with this. They wanted to write and produce their own music, and started working in secret with a rival funk group from Atlanta, The SOS Band. In 1983 they were producing the SOS Band's third album in Atlanta, when a freak snowstorm grounded the plane they were due to take to fly back for a tour date with Prince. When they didn't show, Prince fired them. It was a blessing in disguise, allowing them to officially launch their careers as writer producers. Until they were signed up by Janet Jackson later in the decade, Alexander O'Neal was their biggest success, releasing four acclaimed and very successful albums between 1985 and 1991. Oddly enough, he found his greatest success here in the UK. His 1987 album Hearsay spent more than two years in the British charts, earning triple platinum status, and O'Neal could regularly sell out even the biggest venues, right into the 2000s. In 2017 he moved here permanently, buying a home in Manchester, where he still lives.
A change of style now: we're swapping Minneapolis and Manchester for Kingston, Jamaica. In a few minutes, Jah Woosh with Straight To Pagan Heart, but this is The Viceroys and Sly & Robbie with Heart Made Of Stone.
**
The Viceroys and Sly & Robbie with Heart Of Stone followed by Straight To Pagan Heart by Jah Woosh.
To close the show this week, a killer track by Sweet Pea Atkinson, probably best known as one of the featured vocalists within the rock and funk collective Was Not Was, always revered by fans and music aficionados but only ever sporadically successful commercially. Their only chart hit Walk The Dinosaur was also possibly the worst song they ever recorded. Atkinson was arguably the magic sauce in the Was Not Was, an R&B singer in the classic sense, with a smoky and soulful voice, and an impeccable sense of style. He could sing like Otis Redding but looked like Detroit's most successful pimp, always turned out in the most extravagantly brightly coloured suits and matching fedora. In fact, there were always rumours that he supplemented his income from a job on the Chrysler Auto production line with rather shadier activities. Yet whatever else he got up to, singing was Atkinson's true passion.
He and Don Was first met when both were rehearsing at a studio in Detroit with their respective bands. “He was the most flamboyant character I ever met,” Was recalled after Atkinson's death in 2020. “It was three in the morning and we walked out into the hallway and he’s wearing this orange ensemble — hat, shirt, socks and shoes all matched the exact same shade of orange. Coming out of that dark control room, it looked like he was on fire."
Was invited Atkinson to record vocals for three tracks on the first Was Not Was LP, and when it was finished they went back into the studio to record Atkinson's first solo LP, Don't Walk Away. It's a fine album, and includes a superb version of Anyone Who Had A Heart, which I played earlier. I'm playing Someone Could Lose A Heart Tonight. Unfortunately I haven't got time to play the full 7-minute version, so this is the single edit. This is Sweet Pea Atkinson.