Shalamar The Second Time Around Series Felt Like

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That shift is best exemplified by Take That To The Bank, a Top 20 U.K. hit and an early example of what would become the classic SOLAR sound: late-period disco mixed with embryonic electro-funk, spearhead by the labels in-house producer, Leon Sylvers III.

Start Now Spandex Synths Log In EVERY EIGHTIES SONG, ANALYZED Home About Entries Contact More All Posts March 1980 February 1980 January 1980 1s Rock Pop RB Dance Country Soft Rock Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop Hard Rock Jazz April 1980 Search Richard Challen Jun 12, 2020 7 min read Shalamar The Second Time Around TOP 40 DEBUT: February 2, 1980 PEAK POSITION: 8 (March 22, 1980) Creating fictitious musical acts for television used to be strictly a white mans game.

This oddly successful trend kicked off in 1965, when producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider conceived the Monkees as a small-screen response to Beatlemania; more than fifty years on, theyre still the gold standard for fake bands of every color, with six Top 3 singles in less than two years, retroactive critical praise, and decades of revivals and reunion tours.

In 1970, the Partridge Family made a similar jump from sitcom invention to pop stardom with the 1 single I Think I Love You.

A year earlier, an actual cartoon did the same thing.

The Archies Sugar Sugar hit 1 in September 69.

Shalamar The Second Time Around Series Felt Like

Its a 10.) Meanwhile, network shows with predominantly African-American casts barely existed before 1974; just seeing the Jackson Fivea living, breathing RB group, albeit in animated formstar in their own Saturday morning series felt like a major accomplishment.

Even with a black sitcom like Whats Happening, the musical acts remained very much real and very much Caucasian.

It was a music program made by African-Americans, for African-Americans, featuring only African-Americans.

Soul Train aired its first episode on August 17, 1970, on local Chicago station WCIU-TV, with initial guests Jerry Butler, the Chi-Lites, and the Emotions.

The show went national in 1971; weekly episodes would air in syndication for the next thirty-five years.

Shalamar werent exactly the Soul Train Monkees, but they certainly wouldnt have existed without the show itself.

And just like their whiter television brethren, Shalamar soon transcended their artificial origins to have actual, real-world hits.

In early 1980, The Second Time Around topped both the RB and dance chartsand peaked at 8 on the Hot 100on its way to becoming Billboard s 44th biggest song of the entire year.

Not bad for a trio comprised of two television dancers and a cover-band vocalist.

Shalamar had a Top 40 single even before the group actually existed.

Soul Train host Don Corneliusa cooler, hipper version of the already-plenty-cool-and-hip Dick Clarkused the early success of his program to launch a label, Soul Train Records, in 1975 with the shows talent coordinator, Dick Griffey.

Their first signing was an RB vocal quintet rechristened the Soul Train Gang.

The Gangs first single was Soul Train 75.

Decades before social media, Cornelius and Griffey absolutely understood the power of branding.) But constant promotion on the program wasnt enough to make the single, or its parent albuman absolute branding masterpiece titled Don Cornelius Presents The Soul Train Gang successful.

The pair tried again with Uptown Festival, a ten-song Motown medley set to a disco beat and recorded by a team of session musicians.

Griffey credited the single to a nonexistent artist, using a name modified from a particular brand of French perfume: Shalimar.

In the summer of 77, a radio edit of the nearly nine-minute Uptown Festival hit 25 on the pop charts and 2 on Billboard s Disco Action Top 40.

Its a 5.) Cornelius and Griffey, realizing the value of creating a real-life group to capitalize on the songs success, began looking in-house to assemble Shalamars roster.

Jody Watley and Jeffrey Daniel were two of Soul Train s most popular dancers; Gary Mumford, another cast member, had contributed a few vocals to Uptown Festival and became lead singer by default.

The newly-formed trio took over as the public face of Shalamar, towering like gods on the painting that adorns the cover of Uptown Festival.

Within months, Mumford left, Griffey bought out Cornelius stake in the label, and Soul Train Records became SOLAR Records.

Shalamar brought in vocalist Gerald Brown, formerly with the Soul Train Gang, and kept going.

Disco Gardens sold less than its predecessor and contained no big singles, but in every other respect it marks a clear improvement over the trios faceless debut.

That shift is best exemplified by Take That To The Bank, a Top 20 U.K.

SOLAR sound: late-period disco mixed with embryonic electro-funk, spearhead by the labels in-house producer, Leon Sylvers III.