hit singles

Funny, but it’s still rock and roll to me

Posted on by brucehhackett

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are so many songs in the classic rock archives that include the phrase “rock and roll” in the title. I came up with more than 20 off the top of my head, and another 20 or so with just a little digging. These tunes aren’t always solid examples of rock and roll music (B.J. Thomas’s “Rock and Roll Lullaby”?), but the lyrics always seem to refer to the genre in some way, shape or form.

There are songs here that simply demand to be on this list, while others are far less known but crying to be heard, and worthy of your attention. I thought about separating them into two lists, but there’s something appealing about the eclecticism of a random order to a playlist. As always, the Spotify playlist at the end features my Top 20, followed by the “honorable mentions” that didn’t quite make the cut.

Rock and roll on!

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“Rock and Roll Music,” Chuck Berry, 1957

The way I figure it, without songs like this one, rock and roll might’ve stayed under the mainstream radar as its detractors hoped it would. But Berry and other pioneers of the genre were determined to celebrate the merger of country, blues, swing and gospel in the mid-1950s and make it an unstoppable force in popular music. In particular, Berry’s seminal song “Maybellene” was the first R&B/rock song to make the pop charts in 1955, and two years later, this iconic track extols the joys of the musical form and how it offers a contagious, irresistible urge to dance: “Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music, any old way you choose it, /It’s got a backbeat, you can’t lose it, any old time you use it, It’s gotta be rock and roll music, if you wanna dance with me…”

“Rock and Roll,” Led Zeppelin, 1971

“It’s been a long time since I rock-and-rolled, /It’s been a long time since I did the Stroll, /Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back, let me get it back, baby, where I come from…” It had in fact been not long at all (only 15 years or so) between the birth of rock and roll and the release of this rave-up on Led Zep’s fourth LP. One of the best rock and roll revivalist tunes ever, “Rock and Roll” grew from an impromptu jam session kicked off by John Bonham’s drum introduction from Little Richard’s “Keep A-Knockin’,” after which Jimmy Page added a Chuck Berry-type guitar riff. Session pianist Ian Stewart contributed the pounding piano, and Plant later wrote lyrics that paid tribute to the genre to which they all felt they owed a debt of gratitude.

“Old Time Rock & Roll,” Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band, 1978

R&B songwriter George Jackson had been writing and producing for the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio when he wrote “Old Time Rock and Roll” as an affectionate throwback to the original rock and roll sound. In 1978, Seger was in the process of recording “Stranger in Town,” the follow-up to his breakthrough “Night Moves” LP, when he heard the Muscle Shoals demo of the song. Recalls Seger, “I loved it, especially the chorus, but I wrote some new lyrics for the verses about not wanting to go to a disco, which struck a chord with the rock crowd. I never asked for a co-writer credit, probably the dumbest thing I ever did.” It reached #19 in UP pop charts and was used prominently in an iconic scene from the Tom Cruise film “Risky Business” in 1983: “I like that old time rock and roll, that kind of music just soothes the soul, I reminisce about the days of old with that old time rock and roll…”

“The Heart of Rock and Roll,” Huey Lewis and The News, 1984

In 1983, Lewis had just performed before a rabid crowd in Cleveland, and as the band drove out of town afterwards, he commented, “You know what? The heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland!” He and his band started formulating the track a week later, but as they began recording it, the record label encouraged him to change the lyrics to include multiple US cities to broaden the song’s appeal beyond Cleveland. He ended up focusing on New York and Los Angeles, also mentioning Boston, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle and Detroit, among others, but he retained his original thought near the end with these words: “Now the old boy may be barely breathing, but the heart of rock and roll, the heart of rock and roll is still beating…in Cleveland…”

“So You Want To Be a Rock ‘N’ Roll Star,” The Byrds, 1967

Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman, founding members of The Byrds, came up with this good-natured swipe at the success of manufactured rock bands like The Monkees. “We were thumbing through a teen magazine and looking at all the unfamiliar faces and we couldn’t help thinking, ‘Wow, what’s happening? All of a sudden everyone and his brother are singing rock ‘n’ roll.’ So we wrote “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” to the audience of potential rock stars, those who were going to be, or who wanted to be, and those who actually did go on to realize their goals.” Musically, the tune features a driving 12-string guitar by McGuinn, a relentless bass from Hillman, and guest trumpet by Hugh Masekela. They also added the sound of hysterical teenage pop fans screaming to drive the point home. It peaked at #29 on the pop charts in early 1967.

“I Can Play That Rock & Roll,” Joe Walsh, 1983

After his stint leading The James Gang, Walsh began his solo career in 1972 and had a few peaks and valleys throughout the ’70s and ’80s (“Rocky Mountain Way,” “Life’s Been Good,” “A Life of Illusion”) while also being recruited to join The Eagles. By 1983, The Eagles had disbanded, and Walsh put out “You Bought It, You Name It,” an eclectic collection of mostly original songs, some with his trademark amusing lyrics. The album kicks off with “I Can Play That Rock & Roll,” a quintessential Walsh rocker that has him ruminating on other popular musical styles but not particularly worried whether he still fits in: “Well, that disco thing can sure get funky, all them pretty songs seem too slow, /I like to sit and pick with them good old boys, maybe New Wave’s in, I just don’t know, /When the critics try to analyze the current trend, I just sit back and watch ’em come and go, /’Cause I can play that rock and roll…“

“Rock ‘n’ Roll is King,” Electric Light Orchestra, 1983

Jeff Lynne fashioned Electric Light Orchestra to be a rock band using orchestral instruments, and the group became a huge concert favorite, selling many albums and singles in the process. By 1983, ELO’s career arc was winding down, but their LP “Secret Messages” had one last Top 20 hit, which began life as “Motor Factory” with a different set of lyrics about factory work. Lynne had enjoyed returning to his rock and roll roots on their previous album with the Top Ten single “Hold On Tight,” so he chose to try it again by reworking “Motor Factory” into the revival tune “Rock ‘n’ Roll is King,” which managed to reach #19: “She loves that rock ‘n’ roll, and she plays it all night long, /Aw, that’s all she ever tells me when I call her on the telephone, /She says, ‘Feel that jumpin’ beat, and get up on your feet,’ /She says, ‘Whamalamabamalama, rock ‘n’ roll is king’…”

“It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It),” The Rolling Stones, 1974

This classic Stones tune was instrumental in precipitating the personnel switch that occurred when guitarist Mick Taylor left and Ronnie Wood took his place in 1974-75. The track was recorded at Wood’s home studio in London, and both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were adamant that the song had to be the group’s next single (and the title for the album as well). “The idea of the song had to do with our public persona at the time,” said Jagger. “I was getting a bit tired of people having a go, all that, ‘oh, it’s not as good as their last one’ business. I think the song is great. The title alone is a classic.” They were chagrined that the song managed only #16 in the US, but frankly, I’ve never considered it among their top-shelf stuff.

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy,” Bad Company, 1979

Paul Rodgers, formerly lead singer for Free in the early ’70s, joined forces with guitarist Mick Ralphs of Mott the Hoople in 1974 to form Bad Company, who became a significant mainstream rock success for the next decade with four Top Five albums and several hit singles (“Can’t Get Enough,” “Feel Like Making Love,” “Shooting Star,” “Burnin’ Sky”). From the group’s fifth LP, 1979’s “Desolation Angels,” Rodgers wrote this song about the joys of performing rock music to an appreciative audience. Rodgers is often ranked among the better rock vocalists of his era, and he was certainly in fine voice for this track, which reached #13 in the US: “Put out the spotlights, one and all, and let the feeling get down to your soul, /The music’s so loud, you can hear the sound reaching for the sky, churning up the ground, /It’s all part of my rock ‘n’ roll fantasy…”

“Rock and Roll Doctor,” Little Feat, 1974

The late great Lowell George, who formed Little Feat in 1970, wrote or co-wrote most of the band’s songs before and after the lineup was expanded in 1973 to include guitarist Paul Barrere, percussionist Sam Clayton and bassist Kenny Gradney. One of the group’s classic LPs, 1974’s “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now,” is kicked off with George’s sly tune “Rock and Roll Doctor,” which uses the familiar metaphor of how rock and roll is the right medicine for whatever ails you, as long as you see the right person: “Patients come…from miles around…to meet the doctor of soul, he’s got his very own thing, /Two degrees in be-bop, a PHD in swing, /He’s the master of rhythm, he’s a rock and roll king, /If you wanna feel real nice, just ask the rock and roll doctor’s advice…”

“Rock and Roll All Nite,” Kiss, 1975

I’ve never been all that wild about it, but it’s ranked in the Top 20 hard rock songs of all time, so how could I leave it off this list? In 1975, Kiss’s record label insisted they needed to write an anthem that would generate more airplay and sales, so Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley borrowed parts of a song they’d written called “Drive Me Wild” and used some chord progressions from a Slade track called “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” and made it the closing tune for their third LP, “Dressed to Kill.” It didn’t do much when released as a single, but when a live version was re-released later in 1975, it eventually peaked at #12 on the pop charts and became the group’s signature song, serving as their closing number in concert at every show thereafter: “You say you wanna go for a spin, the party’s just begun, we’ll let you in, /You drive us wild, we’ll drive you crazy, you keep on shouting, /’I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day…”

“Rock & Roll Woman,” Buffalo Springfield, 1967

Stephen Stills has written plenty of great rock songs in his career, from “For What It’s Worth” and “Carry On” to “Love the One You’re With” and “Southern Cross,” but one of my early favorites is this delightful track (written about no one in particular, he insists) from Buffalo Springfield’s excellent “Buffalo Springfield Again” album. Between Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay, that band was packed with inventive songwriters, and if only their egos hadn’t gotten in the way, they might’ve stuck together for more than just two years. At least they left us tracks like “Rock & Roll Woman,” brimming over with great guitars and voices: “There’s a woman that you ought to know, and she’s coming, singing soft and low, /Singing rock and roll, she’s a joy to know…”

“I Love Rock ‘N Roll,” Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, 1982

This hugely popular anthem of the ’80s was written and first recorded in 1975 by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker from the UK rock band The Arrows, whose version was heard by Joan Jett when she was touring England with her first band, The Runaways. Jett eventually left that group and formed her own band, The Blackhearts, who recorded their sneering, riffy rendition of the song in 1981, and it ended up holding the #1 spot on the charts for seven weeks in 1982. The lyrics are dated (“Put another dime in the jukebox, baby”), but they describe a universal teen feeling of sexual longing and how rock music feeds it: “I saw him dancin’ there by the record machine, I knew he must’ve been about 17, /The beat was goin’ strong, playin’ my favorite song, /And I could tell it wouldn’t be long ’til he was with me, yeah, me, singin’ ‘I love rock ‘n roll’…”

“Rock and Roll Heaven,” The Righteous Brothers, 1974

Songwriters Alan O’Day and Johnny Stevenson wrote this tribute to dead rock stars in 1973, focusing on Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Jim Morrison. The band Climax, who’d had a big hit with “Precious and Few” the previous year, recorded “Rock and Roll Heaven” first, but it failed to chart. The Righteous Brothers, who had broken up after a successful run in 1963-1969, chose to record the song as their comeback single, and it reached #3 in the summer of 1974 with an extra verse that included references to Jim Croce and Bobby Darin, who had both died just a few months earlier. Twenty years later, an updated version (“Rock and Roll Heaven ’92”) was released that mentioned Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Roy Orbison, Marvin Gaye, Cass Elliott and others. Seems like we could keep writing additional verses every year now.

“Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,” Rick Derringer, 1973

Derringer had been a member of bluesman Johnny Winter’s band in 1970 when he wrote this tune for Winter’s fourth album. Said Derringer, “The title refers to ‘Rock and Roll’ to satisfy the rock ‘n’ roll that I was supposed to be bringing into the picture, and ‘Hoochie Koo’ to satisfy the ‘king of blues’ sensibility that Johnny was supposed to maintain. So I think it did that.” Derringer then re-recorded it for his debut solo LP, “All-American Boy,” in 1973, and it reached #23 on the US pop charts: “I hope you all know what I’m talkin’ about, /The way they wiggle that thing really knocks me out, /I’m gettin’ high all the time, hope you all are too, /C’mon a little closer, gonna do it to you, /Rock and roll, hoochie koo, /Lawdy mama, light my fuse…”

“I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band),” The Moody Blues, 1972

Leave it to The Moodies, one of more serious-minded bands of its day, to put the importance of rock and roll in some sort of sensible perspective. On the last song of their seventh LP, the #1 album “Seventh Sojourn,” bassist John Lodge wrote some typically cosmic lyrics about the precarious state of society and the planet, suggesting that wise people, not rock-and-rollers, need to address these issues. “So if you want this world of yours to turn about you, and you can see exactly what to do, /Please tell me, I’m just a singer in a rock and roll band…” The track reached #12 on the US pop chart in early 1973, their last appearance here for nearly ten years.

“A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy,” The Kinks, 1978

It was a period of upheaval for The Kinks in 1977-78 during the making of their “Misfits” album, as bassist Andy Pyle and pianist John Gosling left and drummer Mick Avory was on the fence. Brothers Ray and Dave Davies considered disbanding the group, but as Dave put it, “We got together like we had so many times before, playing Chuck Berry records and having a laugh, and two songs came out of it, including ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy,’ which put us back on track.” Said Ray, “That song was a very personal song for me, inspired by the death of Elvis Presley. I created a character who, whenever he feels unhappy, goes off to live in a rock and roll fantasy.” The song ended up reaching #30 on US pop charts in 1978, their biggest hit in nearly a decade.

“Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll,” Blue Oyster Cult, 1972

This fiery track from Blue Oyster Cult’s debut LP, written by guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser and drummer/vocalist Albert Bouchard, draws a parallel between nuclear war and the powerful force of rock and roll (“Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry,, my ears will melt and then my eyes, /My heart is black, and my lips are cold, cities on flame with rock and roll…”). Roeser said the guitar riff is based on the riff used in “The Wizard,” one of his favorite Black Sabbath tracks. As a single, it failed to chart, and the album also struggled to reach the charts at first, but “Cities on Flame” evolved into a concert favorite. Bassist Joe Bouchard recalls, “I couldn’t believe we were in the studio at Columbia making a rock record. I know we were all tremendously excited to be working on that album, and it sounds like it.”

“Too Old to Rock ‘N’ Roll, Too Young to Die,” Jethro Tull, 1976

Frontman/songwriter Ian Anderson said this song, and the album it comes from, were inspired by a turbulent flight which he feared was not going to arrive safely, and it made him think, “Well, I may be too old to rock and roll, but I’m certainly too young to die.” He then wrote lyrics concerning an aging rocker who refused to change with the times, and made it the centerpiece of a rock musical (never produced).
“The point was that genres of music may go out of style like fashions and fads, but everything eventually comes back around again (like vintage rock and roll),” said Anderson. The song didn’t do well on the charts, but Tull played it regularly in concert for decades: “The old rocker wore his hair too long,
wore his trouser cuffs too tight… /But he’s the last of the blue blood greaser boys, all of his mates are doing time… /Now they’re too old to rock ‘n’ roll and they’re too young to die…”

“Rock and Roll is Here to Stay,” Danny and The Juniors, 1958

This vocal group from Philadelphia are most widely recognized for their 1957 #1 hit “At the Hop” (later covered at Woodstock by Sha Na Na). As a groundswell of conservative radio people began attacking rock and roll as “immoral” and “undesirable,” group leader Danny Rapp penned this tune in defense of the new musical trend. Danny and The Juniors recorded “Rock and Roll is Here to Stay” and watched it reach #19 on US pop charts as the follow-up to “At the Hop.” The song enjoyed a second life in 1978 when it was performed in the pivotal film version of “Grease” by a band calling themselves Johnny Casino and The Gamblers.

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Honorable mentions:

“Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” The Ramones, 1980; “I’ve Got a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart,” Eric Clapton, 1983; “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll,” Ian Dury, 1977; “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” Billy Joel, 1980; “I Dig Rock and Roll Music,” Peter Paul and Mary, 1967; “Rock and Roll Girls,” John Fogerty, 1985; “Rock & Roll,” Velvet Underground, 1970; “Rock & Roll Band,” Boston, 1976; “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide,” David Bowie, 1972; “Flying Saucers Rock & Roll,” Robert Gordon, 1977; “Rock ‘N’ Roll Stew,” Traffic, 1971; “God Gave Rock and Roll to You,” Argent, 1973; “Strictly R&R,” Atlanta Rhythm Section, 1979; “Rock ‘N’ Roll Is Music Now,” James Taylor, 1974; “Rock and Roll Lullaby,” B.J. Thomas, 1972; “Rock ‘N Roll Soul,” Grand Funk, 1972; “Rock and Roll Madonna,” Elton John, 1970; “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll,” Ozzy Osbourne, 1981.

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The “how” and the “why” of classic rock songs

Posted on by brucehhackett

Talk about a pair of books that are right in my wheelhouse! In 2017, author Marc Myers came up with “Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop,” in which he interviewed the artists and producers involved in creating some of the more seismic songs of the rock era. He doubled down in 2022 with “Anatomy of 55 More Songs,” which cumulatively gave us the “how they came to be” stories behind an even 100 records that broke barriers and forged new directions in the early development of rock, pop and soul music.

Some songs have been around for so long and have been so ingrained in our minds that we may take for granted how ground breaking they were when they were released. In many cases, we’ve been unaware what went into writing and recording them. Myers has done an admirable job of shining a light on “the discipline, poetry, musicianship, studio techniques and accidents that helped turn these songs into meaningful generational hits that still endure today,” as he put it in his introduction.

For the purposes of this blog entry, I have selected eight songs from the Myers books that serve to represent the first four decades of the rock era: Two songs each from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. These are, for the most part, songs I truly love and respect as game changers in rock’s evolution. My takes are admittedly not as detailed as those published in the books, but they include key comments from the principals involved as well as a few opinions of my own.

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“Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” Lloyd Price, 1952

What was the first rock and roll record? A few dozen songs have laid claim to that designation, from Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man” to Ike Turner’s “Rocket 88,” but surely Lloyd Price’s 1952 classic “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” is in the running. Price was a self-taught piano player and singer from New Orleans who would play on a beat-up old piano in his mother’s sandwich shop, hoping to someday write and record a song that could be played on her jukebox. “I remember a black radio announcer who often said, ”Lawdy, Miss Clawdy, eat your mother’s homemade pies and drink Maxwell House coffee,'” Price said. “I loved that phrase and began fooling around on the piano with that line. One day a customer asked me to play it all the way through. Turned out it was Dave Bartholomew, one of the most important R&B musicians and producers in New Orleans.” Said Bartholomew, “The feeling in his voice caught me. Lloyd sang it with such emotion and intensity.” The lyrics bemoaned the fact that although “Miss Clawdy” excited him, she wasn’t interested in him. Bartholomew was impressed enough with Price and his song that he brought in his own band to a local studio, worked up an arrangement, and had Price sing it “with his soulful authenticity,” and within a few weeks, it was on the radio, peaking at #1 on the R&B charts for seven weeks. Domino recorded it himself 15 years later, as did Joe Cocker in 1969, and Paul McCartney on an album of oldies in 1988.

“Shout,” The Isley Brothers, 1959

In the late ’50s, singer Jackie Wilson made a huge impact on R&B and early rock ‘n roll, and other acts like The Isley Brothers paid close attention. In particular, Ronald Isley was so taken by Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops” that he and his brothers began singing it to close out their shows. “Jackie would sing ‘say you will’ and his backup singers would respond in kind, and Jackie would then ad-lib, ‘say it right now, yeah baby, come on, come on,'” remembered Isley, “so when we did it, I continued that ad-libbing, things like ‘you know you make me want to shout’ and ‘kick my heels up’ and ‘don’t forget to say you will.’ Audiences just went wild over the participatory call-and-response, which was straight out of gospel.” The Isleys were urged to record the “Shout” ad-lib part as a separate song, without “Lonely Teardrops” before it, and they invited friends to the studio to give the record a party atmosphere. “Shout” was released in 1959 but managed only #47 on the pop chart. In 1962, the New-Jersey-based Joey Dee and The Starlighters took their less soulful version to #6 on the charts. In 1978, when the producers of “National Lampoon’s Animal House” began selecting a soundtrack for the film (set in 1962), they decided “Shout” would be the perfect vehicle for Otis Day and The Knights to play at the frat house toga party. The movie was a huge success, and that version of “Shout” took on a life of its own, to the point where virtually every wedding reception you’ve attended since has whipped up the crowd on the dance floor with it.

“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” The Righteous Brothers, 1964

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, the husband-and-wife songwriting team operating out of New York City’s famous Brill Building in the ’50s and ’60s, were asked by legendary L.A.-based producer Phil Spector to write songs for The Righteous Brothers, who had struggled for two years to chart a song in the Top 40. Spector heard the potential in their voices — Bobby Hatfield’s tenor and Bill Medley’s baritone — and knew they’d be big if only they had the right song and his production chops. “We loved the yearning and slow buildup of The Four Tops’ ‘Baby I Need Your Lovin’,’ which had just been released,” recalled Weil, “and we wanted to write something in that vein.” Mann came up with the great opening line, “You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips,” and the story of heartbreak flowed from there through two verses and the chorus, but they turned to Spector for help with the bridge, which turned out to be the same chord progression as in “Hang On Sloopy.” He had Medley sing the verses alone, doing numerous takes on top of Spector’s trademark “wall of sound” instrumental layering. “I’d been through a breakup, so the aching emotion you hear was real,” said Medley. For the finished record, Spector chose to slow the tempo, which Mann objected to at first, but it made for a more dramatic, longer single, and it worked magnificently, reaching #1 in February 1965.

“Whole Lotta Love,” Led Zeppelin, 1969

“I came up with the opening guitar riff back in 1968 and I knew it was strong enough to drive the entire song,” recalls Jimmy Page. “It felt addictive, like this forbidden thing.” He had a master plan for it, which is why he didn’t rush to record it for Led Zeppelin’s quickly recorded debut LP in late ’68, instead working on it over the next nine months and saving it as the opening track for the band’s second album. As a former “studio brat” and session musician, Page loved to experiment with recording techniques, using different mikes to capture the drum sound he wanted from John Bonham. He also employed a new electronic instrument called a theremin during the free-form middle section, and had Robert Plant record his vocals in a separate booth to better isolate his voice. When Page later mixed the track with engineer Eddie Kramer, they worked with older equipment with rotary dials instead of sliding faders, which allowed them to send the guitar solo and vocals back and forth from one channel to the other, a radical tactic at the time. Plant, meanwhile, ruminated on what lyrics to sing and decided to lift lines from Muddy Waters’ 1962 blues tune “You Need Love,” which generated a lawsuit years later requiring back royalties and co-writing credit for Waters. Said Plant, “Page’s riff was Page’s riff. It was there before anything else. I just nicked the words, now happily paid for. We figured it was far enough away in time … but hey, you only get caught when you’re successful (“Whole Lotta Love” reached #4 in the US). That’s the game.”

“Rock the Boat,” Hues Corporation, 1974

If you’re not a fan of disco music, I guess you can blame it on The Hues Corporation, who came up with one of the first examples of the genre in 1973. Songwriter Wally Holmes had formed a soul/funk group he wanted to name Children of Howard Hughes but was advised against it, so he altered it to The Hues Corporation instead. “I would often write in terms of ‘do re mi’ and so on,” said Holmes. “Those kinds of things like ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ tend to stick around for a long time, and ‘Rock The Boat’ came out of that, but it was written on the beat, so it was pretty stiff.” Producer John Florez agreed: “The first version was a dog that had nothing going on. I brought in arranger Tom Sellers, who had just come back from the Caribbean where he heard a dance beat that had an upbeat at the end of each measure. Then I brought in Joe Sample, Wilton Felder and Larry Carlton from the Jazz Crusaders and Jim Gordon on drums, and they laid down a groove with a backward beat, like a rumba.” The Hues Corporation vocalists laid their parts in on top, and with horns and strings added for the crowning touch, “Rock The Boat” had an irresistible dance-ability that DJs at New York underground clubs couldn’t resist. At RCA, they chose a different song as the group’s single, but word got out about how “Rock the Boat” was all the rage on dance floors. It was rush-released as a single, and by May 1974, it was #1 on pop charts. After that, many dozens of songs followed that mimicked the Sellers/Gordon beat and arrangement, and the disco era was born.

“Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two),” Pink Floyd, 1979

“I got criticized for writing an anti-education song,” said Roger Waters, “but it was never that. It was a protest song against the tyranny of stupidity and oppression, which I experienced at my high school in the ’50s. They were locked into the idea that young boys needed to be controlled with sarcasm and brute force to subjugate us to their will. I just wanted to encourage anyone who marches to a different drum to push back against those who try to control their minds, rather than to retreat behind emotional walls.” The concept behind “The Wall,” he said, was inspired by the barrier he felt had been erected between the artist and the audience at many of Pink Floyd’s concerts. He also wanted the music to graphically depict the alienation and isolation Waters had felt in his life. His father’s death at a young age became the first brick (Part One), while the stifling school experience (Part Two) was the second brick, and the character’s mental breakdown after his wife’s betrayal (Part Three) was the final brick. The Part Two track that became a #1 single for Pink Floyd in early 1980 was almost finished when engineer Nick Griffiths hit on the idea of recording children from a nearby high school adding their defiant voices on the chorus. When combined with a throbbing bass line, thumping drum beat, and David Gilmour’s sublime guitar solo, “Another Brick in the Wall” became something truly memorable.

“Time After Time,” Cyndi Lauper, 1983/4

Keyboardist Rob Hyman collaborated with singer Cyndi Lauper on this stunning track as the final song to be recorded for her landmark debut album, “She’s So Unusual.” Said Lauper, “We knew ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ would be the first single, a bouncy tribute to the female spirit. But I wanted to write a song with Rob that would be a deeper, more heartwrenching ballad.” Hyman had a repetitive piano melody based on four chords, and Lauper had seized on the phrase “time after time” as a possible title after seeing a TV Guide listing for the 1979 film of that name. Words came out about the constancy of having someone’s back –“If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting time after time” — and as the serious lyrics took shape, they decided to reduce the tempo. “Even though we slowed down the music, the chorus retained that clipped, calypso-type melody, which worked perfectly,” said Hyman. Lauper’s song became a paean to female individualism and independence at just the right time, and it ended up at #1. An instrumental rendition of “Time After Time” was even recorded by legendary jazz great Miles Davis the following year.

“Nick of Time,” Bonnie Raitt, 1989

Writing songs from the heart that are commercially appealing is a rare gift, and Bonnie Raitt had struggled to come up with the right formula for years. By the mid-1980s, she took stock of her excessive partying and had what amounted to a spiritual awakening, giving her a renewed sense of optimism about her career. “I retreated to Mendocino to write some new music honoring how grateful I felt to have made it through tougher times,” she said. “I began thinking about the most poignant aspects of my life as I approached 40, and I tried to capture the essence of what my friends were going through as well. I realized this whole idea of time being more precious as we age would be what I wanted to write about.” The main theme — “I found love, baby, love in the nick of time” — was more about a universal love than romantic love but could be interpreted either way. Because the lyrics were so heartfelt, she felt the song needed a mid-tempo beat to deliver the message in a lighter, more pleasing way. “My demo of it was recorded with a drum machine that had pre-set synthesized grooves that were unintentionally hilarious to me,” Raitt said, but once she huddled with the great producer Don Was, he understood the soulful inspiration she was aiming for. He brought in drummer Ricky Fatter, “who knew how to translate the basic elements I had written to an updated organic feel.” The final result struck a chord and the “Nick of Time” LP reached #1 in early 1990, rejuvenating Raitt’s career.

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