Continuing my look at Just Daniel, the new EP by singer-songwriter Daniel Gallup…
Track two, ‘All is Well,’ is my early favorite from this release. It reminds me a lot of John Mayer’s softer songs, with a rich blend of acoustic instruments and some well-placed electric guitar.
I love the lyrics, too. They trace a path from uncertainty to self-assuredness, and they read like a dizzy debate you have with yourself in your own head.
It’s been awhile since I featured new music releases. In addition to Throwback Weekends, lately I’ve been spending a lot of time on artists of the 60s and 70s.
I had hoped to have a new Lana Del Rey album to sink my teeth into by now but that one keeps getting delayed. Instead, I’ll give a listen to recent releases by Lorde, Haim, Jason Isbell, and Lady Gaga, among others.
During the week of July 5, 1985, Phil Collins’ ‘Sussodio’ held on to the top spot of the Hot 100.
At #2 that week, on its way to a two-week stint atop the chart, was Duran Duran’s ‘A View to a Kill,’ theme song to the James Bond movie of the same name. The band got the gig after bassist John Taylor approached the movie’s producer at a party and drunkenly asked for the job. It probably helped that the band was coming off of a three-year span that included a handful of songs in the top five.
Throwing back to the week of July 5, 1975, we find Van McCoy and The Soul City Symphony atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘The Hustle,’ an instrumental disco track by Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony. McCoy was a prolific songwriter and producer, with more than 700 credits to his name (most recorded by other people), but this is his best-known release.
‘The Hustle’ is one of only 25 instrumental tracks to top the Hot 100. Despite the repeated chants of “Do it!” and “Do the hustle!,” this is considered an instrumental because the main melody comes courtesy of something other than the vocals.
The final act on my list of “forgotten” artists (and thanks again to Chris Dalla Riva for compiling the stats on his Can’t Get Much Higher substack) is The 5th Dimension. And this might be the most celebrated of them all.
In addition to 20 Top 40 hits on the Hot 100 (seven of which reached the Top 10 and two of which reached #1), The 5th Dimension littered the Easy Listening and R&B charts and won two Record of the Year Grammys. Their “sunshine pop” sound was quite popular from the mid-60s to the early 70s.
Meet Me In Montauk 