Blue Magic -- "Sideshow"/"Stop To Start" (1974)

Any discussion of Blue Magic's Side Show has to begin with this observation: between classic Motown and 70's Philly soul, composers had the most incredible run of slogans, warnings, metaphors, plays on words and sayings incorporated into songs. That was a formula that couldn't miss. Bonus points for a mention of "mama."

"Shop Around." "Ball of Confusion." "You Can't Hurry Love." "Stop! In The Name of Love." "Signed, Sealed, Delivered." "The Tears Of A Clown." "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game." "I Second That Emotion.""Can I Get A Witness." "Standing In The Shadows of Love." "ABC." "The Love You Save." "Love Train." "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show." "Want Ads." "Pay The Piper." "Crumbs Off The Table"

OK. Now I've got that out of my system...

The great Philly soul sound of the 70's was not just made by Gamble & Huff or Thom Bell, but other related production teams who just perfected was already in the bag. For Blue Magic, it was the WMOT team, starring producer Norm Harris, who packaged former members of the Delfonics and other local doo-wop groups (as was often the case), backed them with the legendary Philadelphia house band MFSB and out came the hits.

Could you tell the difference between Blue Magic and the Stylistics? Not really. But the quality was high in all cases.

Now it wasn't just the impeccable orchestral and brass arrangements, the major seventh chords, the corny lyrics, the glowing harmonies, the matching ruffled suits, or even the enviable falsetto of Ted Mills for groups like Blue Magic.

It was the moves.

Everybody was in classic precision with each other, much like the Motown groups like The Temptations and Gladys Knight & The Pips before them. There was always the lead singer -- kind of like the straight man who did his own thing -- and then there was the rest of the group, who twirled, swayed, and spun around in mechanical lock-step choreography.

Blue Magic's two incredible hits from 1974 -- "Sideshow" and "Stop To Start" were state of the art Philly soul musical productions with the robotic moves to match, true snapshots of an amazing era in soul performances. You have got to love the opening touches of "Sideshow" with the carnival barker calling: "Hurry! Hurry! Step right up and see the side show in town for 50 cents." And the chorus for "Stop to Start," that is inane when you think about it but it just works for this time period: "I only stop/So we can start all over again."

Special note: other real Blue Magic song titles (do you sense a gimmick?) -- "Three Ring Circus." "Born On Halloween." And the real album titles: The Magic of The Blue. How about Thirteen Blue Magic Lane?

Watch both of these 1974 videos from the TV show Soul Train because they are just unbelievable. A bit campy? Somewhat jaw dropping? Even I feel that way looking at them now and I lived through this back then! It's packaged soul music like we shall never see again.


STOP TO START / BLUE MAGIC　[レンタルサーバー]

Todd Rundgren -- "Parallel Lines" (1989) and "Not Tonight" with The New Cars (2004)

Back in college, the zaftig music editor of the school paper used to sneer "Todd is God." She may have had something there, although I wish it wouldn't have come from her.

Rundgren's life as a pop and rock music chameleon and jack of all trades never seems to get its proper due. He probably could have cruised for years cranking out surefire little pop ditties like "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw The Light." But then he'd make a complete left turn and do something nuts like his album Faithful, which was like his musical version of Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of "Psycho," except he did note for note copies of the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" and The Beatles' "Rain." Or his 20-minute electronic drone excursion that occupied the entire second side of 1981's Healing.

Let's not forget Todd the maniacal producer, who made commercial gold out of Grand Funk Railroad, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith, The Psychedelic Furs, Cheap Trick, The Tubes, XTC and others. That's a whole other blog entry.

After wandering off the beaten track commercially for much of the 80's, Rundgren pulled another one of his outstanding pop gems out of a hat when he assembled a huge set of musicians and singers in the studio and cut the Nearly Human album live. Always introspective, soulful and taking an unvarnished look at the human condition, Rundgren melded amazing hooks with his vocal arrangement mastery to tackle singular obsession ("The Want of a Nail"), child abuse ("Unloved Children") and the mind games between lovers (the exuberant "The Waiting Game").

The production was quite grand, rivaling the one on Bat Out of Hell, but certainly more impressive that it was all done live in studio. Unfortunately, the CD mastering was aggressively compressed, which flattens the dynamics of the many instruments and vocals used in the album.

Coming in my final months at Radio City Music Hall, I finagled tickets to see Rundgren and the whole original band on his album tour stop at The Ritz venue. The place was packed, the Todd is God groupies were out, and they blew the roof off with a horn section, an extended group of musicians and background singers.

However, one special song stands out from that record, from a forgotten theater project Rundgren that came and went when Nearly Human came out -- a musical version of playwright Joe Orton's never-used Beatles movie script "Up Against It." "Parallel Lines" is is a searing sad mid-tempo ballad about how certain relationships are never meant to happen, given a layered pop treatment on the album. I particular love the fact that each of the verses' last lines is completed in the choruses.

Kindred spirits moving along the spiral
I can see you up on another level
It's too great a fall
And I can't reach you to pull me higher
But I don't seem to get much closer or any more far
What would you tell me, if I could hear you speaking?
If you could touch me, how would I know the feeling?
I just can't imagine
But I try to do it anyway
I wish I was moving faster, I wish you'd drift back
But it just wasn't meant to happen
Very soon I'll have to...

Face the fact
Some things never come together
Parallel lines running on forever
And you can't turn back
There is never any starting over
Parallel lines never do cross over

From this classic personal project, Rundgren had no problems doing what may be called "crass sell out" gigs, something that almost seemed antithetical to his usual anti-corporate banter. Yes, he did the Ringo Starr & His All-Stars Tour, but even more fascinating was jumping into the Ric Ocasek role when some of the remaining Cars reunited to record and tour to cash in on New Wave nostalgia in 2007.

I thought it was musical heresy when guitarist Elliot Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes hooked up with Rundgren to record a couple of Cars-clone songs and then tour as The New Cars. Rundgren recruited his old Utopia mates Kasim Sulton and Prairie Prince to join on what was an obvious way to pocket some easy cash. Original Cars bassist Benjamin Orr had passed away, and both drummer David Robinson and Ocasek wanted nothing to do with the deal.

You have to admire Rundgren for taking some of that Faithful magic and writing a song that sounded remarkably like an Ocasek number and even produced like one, almost a loving parody. The drone-ish clipped vocals, sarcastic, obtuse lyrics -- all there.

Below are two very different version of "Parallel Lines" -- the first is a stripped-down slow and moving rendition from the TV show "Night Music," followed by the tour band performing the album arrangement live in Japan. And then The New Cars, on "The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson."

Daryl Hall & John Oates -- "She's Gone" (1973)

When I saw Daryl Hall and John Oates perform in concert over a year ago at SUNY Purchase, it was then that I realized how unbelievably successful these two artists were in the 70's and 80's. They performed for over 90 minutes and believe me when I say that they could have done several more of their greatest hits no problem. Some artists can fill a greatest hits album with several songs... these guys can do a double album easily.

In 1975, I entered the dorms at SUNY Buffalo with a cast of characters from all over the state, everybody bringing their own musical taste blasting from their phonographs. One of the freshmen on my wing, Paul, began dating a sophomore named Elyse, who was absolutely obsessed with Hall and Oates, whom I had never heard of. She played the "silver" album repeatedly, which had the duo in glam feminine makeup, which dogged their reputation for years (see right). When "Sara Smile" broke out as a hit, their old record company Atlantic re-released the single "She's Gone" from their Abandoned Luncheonette album to capitalize on that success, and it followed right up the charts.

Back in the earlier RCA days, Hall & Oates were bouncing back and forth between folk rock ("When The Morning Comes," "Las Vegas Turnaround") and some of the blue-eyed soul that would blossom later on. Abandoned Luncheonette, produced by recording legend Arif Mardin, had an artsy existential-looking cover, nothing that conveyed the real slickness that brought these guys fame, but it was the favorite of many fans. Although Hall and Oates took over the production duties for all of their future albums, Mardin was an inspired choice, having overseen The Rascals (another group of black-music fixated white boys), Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, and Dusty Springfield earlier.

Daryl Hall was the talkative, good looking blond guy who sang the majority of the lead vocals and played keyboards. When I saw him perform in 2006, let's just say he was pretty well preserved. John Oates always had a great, more throaty rock kind of voice, bore the trademark mustache, but he remained much quieter as a stage presence and interviewee, swaying off to the side on his rhythm guitar.

"She's Gone," as with a number of their other future hits, would be reminiscent of the Philly soul hitting its zenith right about the time it came out. Along with San Francisco's Boz Scaggs, it must have seemed quite unusual to see prominent white guys cop off this distinct slick black style of music. Based on a simple major two-chord motif with a steady bass note in the verses, "She's Gone" has the classic twangy wah-wah guitar chords, Mardin-arranged strings that climb into the choruses, a big fat thumping electric bass, and the kind of descending chord pattern in the chorus that Philly soul hits were made of. As a musician/composer, I was very into that simple two-chord verse pattern and the way Hall and Oates used the tension of those root notes. Looking back at their catalog, those two were tremendously talented composers.


Everybody's high on consolation
Everybody's trying to tell me what is right for me, yeah
My daddy tried to bore me with a sermon
But it's plain to see that they can't comfort me

Sorry Charlie for the imposition
I think I've got it, I got the strength to carry on, yeah
I need a drink and a quick decision
Now it's up to me, ooh what will be?

She's gone she's gone
Oh why? Oh why?
I better learn how to face it
She's gone She's gone
Oh why? Oh why?
I'd pay the devil to replace her
She's gone She's gone
Oh why? Oh why?
What went wrong?

Get up in the morning, look in the mirror
One less toothbrush hanging in the stand
My face ain't looking any younger
Now I can see love's taken a toll on me


While a three-and-a-half minute single was edited for Top 40 radio, they cut out much of the good stuff from the full 5:15 version. Some of the song's little and big highlights for me: the 1-2 knocked claves in the song's opening, the repeated "got it, got it" in the second verse, the short soprano sax solo that slides in at the end of the second chorus, and most definitely the huge break towards the end when the song goes up three half keys, the strings and horns powering it up each step along with a sharp electric guitar lead and the bass rolling upwards each time.

Here's Hall and Oates and their band performing "She's Gone" live in 1976 on the great UK program "Old Grey Whistle Test."