WTIT Top 10 R&B Songs

On Thursdays the WTIT Tape Radio Blog brings you our featured called A DJ’s Take and another of our "Best of" lists. Today we bring you our Top 10 R&B Singles of all time. There is no rhyme or reason today. Tell us what we missed! Please feel free to “take this feature" and do it as a meme to present your opinions. Today, we will share. We will give you the song and artist. Let’s cue up today's A DJ's Take!

10. Brickhouse – Commodores

9. Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight & the Pips

8. (Love Is Like a) Heat Wave – Martha Reeves & the Vandellas

7. Reasons – Earth, Wind & Fire

6. (Sitting on the) Dock of the Bay – Otis Redding

5. Superstition – Stevie Wonder

4. Tracks of My Tears – Smokey Robison and the Miracles

3. You Keep Me Hanging On – Supremes

2. It’s the Same Old Song – Four Tops

1. My Girl – Temptations

We hope that you enjoy this weekly feature. If you have a suggestion for A Tape DJs' Take please email us at WTIT Tape Radio: The Blog. Tomorrow brings Friday and our "Dating Profiles of the Week". Join us unless you actually have a life. In that case, live it. We will be right here at WTIT.

Same time. Same blog.

Huey Lewis Should Be Heard

As you know, I am a first and foremost a DJ. First, I started on WTIT Tape Radio from age 15 to present day. Then at 17. I was off to Emerson College and was finally heard over a real FM signal at our college radio WERS, Boston. In fact, both my junior and senior years I was the music director at my college radio station. And with no offense to others who did college radio, Emerson College is one the best and biggest communications schools in the country. So, to do a radio shift and be in management was a HUGE deal.

At the time, if you asked any of us what we hoped to do, we would have said, “I’d like to host The Tonight Show.” Now realize that Johnny Carson had only been the host for six years when I left for Boston to Emerson. No one knew he’d do the show forever and become the icon that he became. However, when he did retire someone in my class at Emerson did get The Tonight Show job. Obviously, Jay Leno and I went to school together. After being a morning radio host, a Album Rock DJ, a program director and in radio management I think I know a bit about music.

Take the 80’s for an example. Who was the best rock band? You have a lot to choose from there. The Police? Journey? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? Duran Duran? Huey Lewis and the News? Any would be a good choice, as would another twenty bands that I failed to mention. I have always felt that Huey Lewis and the News was the quintessential 80’s band. I'm not saying best, but at every party, some of what we'd be listening to would be Huey & The News. Fact.

How is this for a resume of some of their hits: The Heart Of Rock & Roll, Doing It All For My Baby, Do You Believe In Love, Trouble In Paradise, Hip to Be Square, The Power Of Love, Heart & Soul, If This Is It, Workin' For A Livin', Stuck With You, I Want A New Drug? Imagine my shock when I read a post from Diesel at Mattress Police that said classic rock radio does not play Huey’s music!

You may be surprised that I did not know this. The day I bought my iPod I stopped listening to radio. Now most iPod owners I've met do not own 11,000 songs as I do, but I do stay current by downloading new music at legitimate sites.

But I no longer listen to anything on the radio other than WFAN, a New York sports/talk station. I read the incredibly well written post and promised that I would try to help. Diesel is doing a petition to send to the huge radio companies like Clear Channel and I imagine Infinity/CBS, to beg them to add Huey and the News to their stations in a classic rock format. Please leave a comment on Diesel’s blog so he adds you to the petition. Please mention that you read about Huey's situation here. Here’s the name of the post to click on, Do You Feel Like I Do About Huey Lewis?

I met Huey in 1994. I was working for Star 104.1 an adult contemporary station. We played a lot of Huey Lewis & the News. But not a lot of their new music. It seemed that Huey and his band were at a crossroads. Radio was moving towards the Seattle grunge sound and he was going station to radio station trying to get the single "Some Kind of Wonderful" played off his brand new album "Four Chords and Several Years Ago". It was a collection of oldies covers and the single was a cover of the old Grand Funk song. Music had moved on and Huey Lewis and the News were yesterday’s news. He was great to meet. He posed for this photo with me and gave me a replica album cover (of course albums were gone by then which made this gift even more meaningful) that he and the band had signed. Obviously I am a huge fan. Meeting him and finding him so nice was an excellent "plus".

The irony is that radio station changed formats two weeks later. We became an alternative rock station and played a lot of Seattle grunge. I loved that music. As I had loved Huey in the 80’s, but times had changed. But I am OUTRAGED that Huey is not played on classic rock stations. Please post a comment on Diesel’s post. At WTIT the music and those who make it matters. Let’s help Huey get what he richly deserves. I thank you in advance!

Thanks for joing us on this

Thursday on WTIT: The Blog.

We will be back next time with

Dating Profiles of the Week.

If you absolutely have not

gotten a better offer, join us.

It should be funny. I owe you that.

strong>But today was about Huey. Same time. Same blog.

Who Will Save Your Soul

The WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have "sub-titled" 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random...who'd a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us. On the day when this feature is published, the WTIT Playlist will play just those five songs. So, if you would like to listen to the songs as you learn about why we chose them, crank up the volume.

Animal by Def Leppard. In last week's comments for this feature, we were asked to choose a Def Leppard song for this week. Animal has an interesting history. It was one of the first songs that the band wrote and tried to record, but the band had lots of problems with each of the song's recording. Three producers tried to get it right, including Jim Steinman (who is best known as songwriter and producer of the first two Bat Out of Hell albums from Meat Loaf). Steinman also has worked for many other artists including Barbra Streisand.

Steinman was fired by Def Leppard and the songs he produced including Animal were never released. In the US, by the release of the 1983 album Pyromania, Def Leppard was huge. Rock of Ages, Photograph, Rock Till You Drop and Too Late for Love were big songs in the states. In their native UK the band was still ignored. It was not until 1987 and the album Hysteria that Def Leppard had a hit in England. Ironically, it would be the now reworked Animal that would be Def Leppard’s first top ten hit in the UK. Mutt Lange would be producing the band by that time and it was his production of the song that became the hit.

The Letter by the Box Tops. The Box Tops didn’t even have a name when a Nashville songwriter named Wayne Carson Thompson gave the band this song. Thompson played guitar on the band’s recording. He never was happy with the result. Alex Chilton was the lead singer at age sixteen when the song was recorded. Thompson did not like Chilton’s vocals as “too husky”. The irony was that this was not the way Chilton normally performed, and his vocals were attributed to a lack of sleep. Thompson did not like the production and the sound effect of an airplane in the song.

After recording the song the band needed a name. One member of the band suggested that they have a contest and have people send in cereal box tops to enter. The band's producer responded, “The Box Tops, that’s your name.” The song was the band’s only number one hit in the US. At one minute, fifty-eight seconds it was the last hit record, from 1967, that was under two minutes in length.

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield. The song is big in WTIT folklore. Bouncing Billy had a girlfriend that we kidded him about. Not that there was anything wrong with her, but Billy hated being teased, so we as his high school jerk friends teased him a lot. Anytime we were talking about the girlfriend I’d slip this song on the turntable. Billy hated the song because of this. Billy and I recorded the very first WTIT tape. Bill recorded with us from 1967 till his final appearance in 1985.

The song was an Italian song that Dusty Springfield heard and loved. She didn’t know what the song was even about and decided that it needed English lyrics, and she got Simon Napier-Bell (who produced the Yardbirds) and Vicky Wickham (who hosted the popular English music show Ready Set Go) to write the lyrics. Dusty, Vicky and Simon were heading to a nightclub that night, so they had only an hour to write the lyrics. The words were actually finished in the taxi on the way to the club. It became Dusty’s only number one song in Britain. (We could only find a ten second version Dusty's version of the song for today’s Random Five playlist, so we included a full version of Elvis’ cover as well. Yes, we know it is not the same. So sue us.)

Hey Jealousy by the Gin Blossoms. This is an important song for me personally. When I became sales manager of an alternative rock radio station in the mid 90’s, I had to be completely up on the music. The Gin Blossoms were my first favorite band of the era. Doug Hopkins was the original leader of this band and wrote Hey Jealousy about an ex-girlfriend he wanted to reconnect with. It was included in the Gin Blossoms first ever album Dusted that was released in 1989. Although, no one noticed.

Hopkins had a lot of problems with alcohol. During the recording of their first album for a major record label, A&M, the band fired Hopkins. Hey Jealousy was the band’s breakout hit. Doug Hopkins’ depression over being thrown out and then having a song he wrote become such a big hit, was more than he could endure. In 1993, Doug Hopkins committed suicide. The band’s breakthrough album was titled New Miserable Experience because of what they had gone through. The band broke up in 1997. Ten years later, they would reunite and record the CD Major Lodge Victory. A good album, but not great, prooved to be successful enough to allow the band to stay together as today, on this silly feature we do here on the WTIT Blog.

Who Will Save Your Soul by Jewel. Another artist that broke out when I became management at an alternative rock station, Jewel would play as an opening act for any alternative rock station for very little money. Most of the shows that we had at Radio 104 in Hartford, Jewel opened. I left and entered management at WBCN in Boston that had just changed formats from classic rock to alternative. Jewel opened a lot in Boston as well, and she wound up as a huge force in the music industry.

Who Will Save Your Soul was written by Jewel when she was sixteen. It wasn’t until 1995 when Jewel recorded her debut album, Pieces of You, which Jewel recorded at Neil Young’s ranch studio with The Stray Gators, one of Neil’s backup bands. Along with this song, Foolish Games and You Were Meant for Me were also on this CD. Not bad for a nineteen year-old and her first album. However, like so many artists she peaked early. Her last album did not do well. She is currently working on an album to be released in June, and is her debut in the world of country music.

That will do it for the Thursday

edition of the WTIT Blog.

We hope you enjoyed our 5 Random

"Blasts from the Past" on this week's

A DJ's Take.

Next time we will attempt to actually

do something incredibly funny. Or perhaps

we will settle for anything

even"mildly amusing".

We tend to set our standards

not very high. And a Happy Valentine's Day.

If you celebrate that sort of shit.

We are happy that you read

our nonsense on WTIT: The Blog.
Join us next time.

We will do Dating Profiles of the Week.

Same time. Same blog.

WTIT: British Invasion Bands

Every now and then, the WTIT Blog brings you our feature we call A DJ’s Take and today it is another of our "Best of" lists. Today we bring you WTIT's Top 10 British Invasion Bands. We will name the band, do a mini bio, and tell you our favorite song of the band. Tell us what we missed! Please feel free to “take this feature" and do it as a meme to present your opinions. Today, we will share. Let’s cue up today's A DJ's Take.

10. The Searchers. If you go on their website (and, of course, I did) they explain that the only group with more influence than they, were The Beatles. After I got up from falling down laughing I thought that they we lucky made our top fucking ten. John McNally (still in the present incarnation), Mike Pender, Chris Curtis and Tony Jackson on bass and lead vocals were with the group for its first recordings. Tony left in 1964 to be replaced by Frank Allen who still tours today. Our Favorite: Needles and Pins.

9. Gerry & the Pacemakers. Gerry Marsden formed the group in the late 50’s. They were the second group Brian Epstein would sign. This explains their first hit. The Beatles were recording and were asked to record the song How Do You Do It. John hated the song. He was told that if he could write a better song to do it at lunch. John wrote Please Please Me. So he did write a better one, by a lot. How Do You Do It was given to the Pacemakers. The Beatles version was on bootlegs but not officially released until The Anthology ten years ago. Our Favorite: Ferry Cross the Mercy.

8. Herman’s Hermits. Peter Noone was a child actor in England. He was only 15 when Herman’s Hermits were formed in 1963. Their first hit was I’m into Something Good. The biggest hit they would have was an album cut originally. Back in those days everything was about the singles. It was not until DJs started playing, Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter that the song was released as a single. The record company did not think they were great musicians and hired some session musicians for some albums. Jimmy Page, of all people, was one of those people. Our Favorite: Henry VIII

7. Dave Clark Five. They were the second big invasion band. Until the Stones, that is. Dave Clark was the drummer, but Mike Smith was the singer and star. He toured with his own band, doing DC5 songs until an accident left him a quadriplegic on 2003. He passed away earlier this year. But he lived long enough to learn that The Dave Clark Five had made the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He died a dew weeks before induction. They were huge with the rock fans, but not well respected in the business. Where most of the groups had played the same clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, the DC5 were formed to take advantage of the invasion. It worked. They had a ton of hits. Our Favorite: Glad All Over.

6. The Hollies. Allan Clarke became friends with Graham Nash at five years old. Together they would form the Hollies in 1962, some fifteen years later. Although there is a rumor that their name was a tribute to Buddy Holly, the story is simpler. Graham Nash’s family had SO much holly up for Christmas it became a joke of the guys, and later their name. Their first U.S. hit was Look Through Any Window. There have been some almost thirty guys who have played in the group over the years, but nothing would top the original band. Our Favorite: Carrie Ann.

5. The Kinks. A threesome originally of brothers Ray and David Davies and Peter Quaife, first burst into the scene in 1964 with You Really Got Me and by then Mick Avory on the drums. David released a new album last week (We have not heard it) and Ray in 2006. Ray’s album was fantastic and could easily been from the Kinks era and is called Other People’s Lives. He released another this year and it is on our Christmas "Wish List". Our Favorite: Tired of Waiting for You.

4. The Animals. Eric Burdon and the boys were playing London in 1964 when the Beatles hit American. By June they had the mega hit “House of the Rising Sun”. They’ve had a ton of hits, but unless you dive into the band you won’t know what a strong blues influence they had. When you think of all their hits, including We Gotta Get Outta This Place and their cover of Nina Simone's Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood you have to give it up to them. Our Favorite: House of the Rising Sun.

3. The Who. In 1965 I Can’t Explain launched The Who. Peter Townshend, Roger Daltry, John Entwistle and Keith Moon rocked the world ever since. Besides a ton of hits, The Who took the Beatles “concept album” to the next level and wrote and performed the rock opera Tommy. There can be no list of best albums of rock that Tommy would miss. They had a top ten album in 2006 named Endless Wire. Moon passed away in 1978 and John in 2003. Their current drummer is Zak Starkey, Ringo’s son and The Who still tour. Our Favorite: Won't Get Fooled Again.

2. The Rolling Stones. “I roll a Stonie. You can imitate anyone you know” John Lennon wrote in the song I Dig a Pony off the Let It Be album. They mimicked and spoofed the Beatles (The White Album led to Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Be to Let It Bleed) but still they managed to rock us for all these years and still tour, write and perform great albums and have an impact. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts were the original band. Our Favorite: Sympathy for the Devil.

1. The Beatles. You know their story. Not only the greatest rock band ever, but also had a huge social influence over an entire generation. As a DJ in the 70’s I was always waiting for the next big band after the Beatles. It hasn’t happened. We’ve had great bands since, but nothing even close to what was The Beatles. Our favorite: All.

John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr

Thanks for joining our little trip back
to the early sixties today.

Tomorrow the WTIT Blog will have our

Dating Profiles of the Week.

Parts of this post appeared August 9, 2007.

We hope you are back, live and

in living black and white, tomorrow.

Same time. Same blog.

Into the Night

Last Saturday while I was sharing the fact that I had no decent replacement for Lola, I asked for suggestions. Everyone whom responded (but one_, wanted us to return A DJ’s Take to a regular feature. The one other suggestion, believe it or not was from a woman named Samantha that has started her own version of Lola called Saturday 9. We are going to at least give that a shot. In the mean time, A DJ's Take will return regularly as well. We had an offer to write our first return to A DJ’s Take in 2008.

So, here's our first one of the year written by Blogger of Note Epiphany Alone:

AI's Taylor Swift's "Our Song" is growing on me. It's cute pop that evokes the simplicity of high school romance.

"Shadow of the Day" shows a gentler Linkin Park, better known for their primal metal "What I've Done" and "Bleed It Out".

Plain White T's have a new single called "Our Time Now" which is more "Hate" than "Hey There Delilah" and perhaps sounding a bit like early Matchbox 20.

Santana's "Into The Night" features Nickelback's lead singer Chad Kroeger was an instant love. Damn, Santana has chart appeal. This is easily as good as recent hits "Smooth" (with Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas) or "I Need To Know" (with Mark Antony).

The WTIT Blog will return next time with our Dating Profiles. We thank Epiphany for her sitting in our chair today. We hope that you have enough time in your day to be with us next time. But of course we will understand if you choose not to return.

We will be ready.
Same time. Same blog.

Son of a Bitch

The WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have "sub-titled" 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random...who'd a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us.

Love Hurts by Nazareth. The song was from 1976 while a somewhat famous DJ named Gary Hunter (Okay, yes that was my radio name) worked in a popular nightclub and the song was requested almost every night, for a slow set. Nazareth was a Scottish band that did well in the UK. From what I believe was their seventh album, Hair of the Dog (also known as Son of a Bitch because of the chorus in the title track) the band released two versions. The English, without Love Hurts and the American version with Love Hurts. Most people don’t know that this was a cover song recorded originally and released by the Everly Brothers. It was also a B-side of a single after the Everly Brother’s original, on a song by Roy Orbison. The song was platinum hit in the US and was Nazareth's only hit song in the states.

Kicks by Paul Revere & the Raiders. I’ve always thought that this was the first anti-drug song, and in preparing today's post, my internet sources tell me that I have been correct. The producer of the album for Paul Revere & the Raiders, Terry Melcher (who also happened to produced the first two albums by the Byrds) loved the song We Gotta Get Outta This Place that was recorded by the Animals and written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Terry wanted a song of that ilk for his new band, the Raiders. Mann and Weil had written Kicks because of a friend who had a drug problem. Melcher loved it and it was a huge hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders. I piece of trivia: Paul Revere if you remember was not the singer of the band, Mark Lindsay was.

I always thought Kicks was such an unusual song for its era, since most songs about drugs were positive during that time period. Sadly, Melcher was to have a very a weird life of his own, and unfortunately got involved in recording some of Charles Manson songs. After the Tate murder, Terry Melcher was so upset he became a very private and somewhat aloof person. Terry Melcher passed away in 2004 from cancer.

Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) by Melanie. I always felt that with all do respect to Joni Mitchell’s writing and recording of the song Woodstock, that Melanie’s Lay Down was the definitive song about the event. Melanie performed at Woodstock on the heels of her first hit in the Netherlands, Beautiful People. But here in the US, her first hit was Lay Down (Candles in the Rain). The song is about a break in the rain at one point during the music fest and the crowd started lighting candles to show that all was well and everyone had survived. On the album, and the B-side of the single, is a preamble of poetry read over her guitar that really adds to the song. We could not find that for today’s playlist, but we did find the hit.

Let’s Stay Together by Al Green. Willie Mitchell and Al Jackson wrote the music to the song. Al Jackson was the drummer of Booker T and the MGs. Willie Mitchell was a record producer who signed Al Green to Hi Records. Mitchell and Jackson would co-author a lot of Al Green’s songs. After being given the music to Let’s Stay Together, Al Green took only five minutes to write the lyrics. Green did not like the song at all and did not want to record it. He argued mightily with Willie Mitchell about recording it, and obviously lost.

Let’s Stay Together was not only one of his biggest hits ever (released in 1972), but also was named one of the Top 500 songs of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine. Al Green was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Tina Turner covered this song in 1984 and it was the first hit that returned Tina to the charts. And that Private Dancer road that wave through the Thunderdome. And of course her autobiographical film, What's Love Got to Do with It.

Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying by Gerry & the Pacemakers. The Pacemaker’s first hit was How Do You Do It which was a song that the Beatles record label and manager insisted that the Beatles record. John Lennon thought the song sucked. When he expressed that view, he was told to write a better song during lunch and they wouldn’t release the recording of How Do You Do It. John wrote Please, Please Me and all agreed, it was a better song. Brian Epstien was the manager of both bands and gave How Do You Do It to the Pacemakers. However, in the US the first hit by Gerry was Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying which he wrote. In fact Gerry Marsden wrote most of the Pacemakers hits. The band did not have much staying power and by 1966 broke up. And as a footnote, other than on some pirate Beatles' albums, their version of How Do You Do It was not released until The Beatles Anthology in the mid 1990's.

That will do it for the Tuesday edition
of the WTIT Blog.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny.
Or perhaps we will settle for "mildly amusing".
Parts of this post appeared on February 6, 2008.
Join us next time.

Same time. Same blog.

WTIT Top 10 Love Sones

Today we return with a very popular feature of the WTIT Blog. We simply call it A DJ's Take. Not only have you requested its return on a regular basis, but also we receive more traffic from "new readers" for this feature than all others combined. Today we return with a Top 10 list. Now this is very subjective, but let's qualify it by saying it is our list of the Top 10 Love Songs of the Boomer generation. This way your kids don't start trashing us because of a current hit that isn't on our iPod. And my dad Bierne won't complain What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong is on it either. Fair enough? It better be. Also, for those who know us, we did not even consider a Beatles' song. (If the Top 10 were all Beatles, you'd say WTF?) So here they are an imperfect list from the perfect Tape Radio station, WTIT! Song titles are in bold.

10. My Cherie Amore In French the words mean “My Little Dear” but was originally titled Oh My Marcia. Henry Cosby and Sylvia Moy co-wrote the song with Stevie. Marcia was a woman that fascinated Stevie in school. However, it was Moy who talked him into the more generic title.

9. Be My Baby The song was written by Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. It was a hit for the Ronettes which featured Phil Spector’s wife Ronnie. It was one of Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 songs of all time, in fact it made the top 25. It was with this song that Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” became widely known. Brian Wilson once said it was his favorite song of all time.

8. Love Me Tender The music for the song came from a civil war ballad titled Aura Lee and was in public domain by the 1950’s. The words were written by Ken Darby but were credited to his wife and Elvis for some legal issue. Elvis performed it on Ed Sullivan before it’s release which led to over a million pre-orders for the single. So, by the time it was released it was a gold record already.

7. Your Song When I was in college my roommate woke me at 8 AM on a Saturday to tell me the next “superstar” was at our college radio station and I should come meet him. I asked “What’s his name?” My roommate said “Elton John”. I replied, “Wake me again when he’s famous” and I went back to sleep. My bad. The song was suppose to be the b side of Take Me to the Pilot, but American DJs liked the b side more, and the rest is history.

6. Just The Way You Are The song is from Billy Joel’s album from 1977 The Stranger. It was written about his first wife. After they divorced Joel would change the lyrics at times to reflect his changed feelings while performing live. He never really liked the song, even in the beginning. So he decided to leave it off the album. Phobe Snow and Linda Ronstadt were recording in the same studio and urged him to reconsider.

5. She This song was written by Charles Aznavour and Hebert Kretzmer. Charles had the first success with his song which reached number one in England. It never took off in the rest of Europe or the U.S. When the film Notting Hill was produced the orignal version was going to be used, but the director didn’t quite like it. Elvis Costello was brought in to do a cover version for the 1999 film and that’s our choice and how we know the song.

4. Three Times a Lady The song was written and sung by Lionel Richie while with the Commodores. It was their first number one hit and was on the album Natural High in 1978. It was Motown Records only top 10 song that year. The reference, by the way to “Three Times a Lady” was because Richie’s girlfriend was a very large woman.

3. Colour My World The song was written by Chicago’s trumpet player Jimmy Pankow and song by Chicago’s original lead singer Terry Kath. Kath died from a self inflicted gunshot wound in 1978. It is still not know if this was an accident or a suicide. Chicago stopped playing the song for quite a few years after that tragedy.

2. Ain’t No Sunshine Bill Withers wrote the song while he still worked in a factory that made toilet seats. It became his breakout hit in 1971. The part of the song where repeats “I know” about a hundred times was so he could write additional lyrics. But since he still had his day job, when the record company wanted him not to put his new lyrics in he agreed.

1. Unchained Melody The song was written by lyricist Hy Zaret (who passed away last year at 99!) and composer Alex North for a 1955 film named Unchained. It was a hit by two people that year, Al Hibber with a vocal version and Les Baxter with an instrument. It was covered by folks like Leena Horn and Elvis. However, we will always love the Phil Spector produced Righteous Brothers’ version recorded ten years late in 1965. And of course, it was a hit again some twenty-five years after that with its inclusion in the film Ghost.

The WTIT Blog will return next time

with maybe that party story.

We are waiting for the pictures.

Perhaps we will receive them.

Perhaps not.

We hope that you have enough time in

your day to be with us next time.

But of course we will understand

if you choose not to return.
We will be ready, either way.
Same time. Same blog.