My Seventies Music

Tag: Solo Career

  • The Commodores – “Three Times A Lady”, “Easy” And “Nightshift”

    Cover of "Easy" by The Commodores (1977)

    In 1978 The Commodores had their first Number One hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with the Lionel Richie love song “Three Times A Lady”.

    It turned out to be the only Motown track to reach the Top Ten in 1978 and was also one of very few Motown songs to go to Number 1 in the UK.

    “Three Times A Lady” is one of those songs that sticks in your mind – I guess it must be, or I wouldn’t have thought of it today, 32 years after it originally charted…

    The previous year, 1977, The Commodores had had another soft hit with “Easy”, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

    The Commodores originally had a more funky sound, but had gradually moved towards softer numbers, and had another major hit in 1985 with the Jackie Wilson/Marvin Gaye tribute “Nightshift”, their first with original lead singer Walter “Clyde” Orange after Lionel Richie had left to pursue a solo career.

    It peaked at No. 3 in both the USA and the UK.

    “Three Times A Lady”:

    “Easy”:

    “Nightshift”:

    Definitely easy listening for the nightshift.

    Paul

  • Nils Lofgren – “No Mercy” And “Keith Don’t Go”

    Nils Lofgren album "Night After Night" (1978)

    I don’t know a lot from Nils Lofgren, just two songs really, “No Mercy” and “Keith Don’t Go”.

    Nils Lofgren, who has had a long solo career, also worked with Neil Young in the Seventies, as well as playing in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for 25 years.

    But I didn’t know that until just now…

    Actually I first got to know his 1979 track “No Mercy” (from the album “Nils”) a year or so later through a band I used to write some songs with in Bamberg, Germany, who played it.

    I still remember hearing it the first time crammed into a tiny cellar with just enough room for the band, their equipment and a couple of other people, i.e. right up close!

    Here it is, “No Mercy”, recorded in 1979 (with lyric subtitles in German, how fitting):

    And here is a live version of “No Mercy” twelve years later on German television in 1991:

    The other Nils Lofgren track I am familiar with actually came out a year earlier in 1978.

    It’s from his fourth album “Night After Night”, and is called “Keith Don’t Go” (Keith being Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones):

    Nils Lofgren also plays this one on the acoustic guitar, so here is “Keith Don’t Go” unplugged:

    Which do YOU think sounds better, electric or acoustic?

    Paul

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