Summer Soul Station Part 3: Clean Sounds

I grew up in the 1970s, so I have a very weak spot for the clean radio sound of that era. The thing is that you can get fed up with it very quickly, so I threw in the best soulful and melodic tracks I could find. One hour of ‘afternoon delight’, to quote Starland Vocal Band. Imagine yourself driving a Ford Mustang through L.A. with the radio on Summer Soul Station. The couple on the picture are Daniel Craig and female rapper Eve in the beautiful movie ‘Flashbacks of a fool’. So let’s enjoy the happy-go-lucky sounds of the seventies with a little bit of legendary dj Wolfman Jack in it as well. He plays himself in ‘Hit the road Jack’ from Canadian rockers The Stampeders.

The other guy singing on the Steve Harley track is blue eyed soul singer Michael McDonald. Harley is best known for his 1975 UK number 1 ‘Make me smile’ (‘Come up and see me’). In the late 1970s he moved to Los Angeles. He tried to crack the US market, but it didn’t work out the way he had planned, although he made a pretty good album there with quite a few big names, like Marc Bolan (T-Rex) and Bobby Kimball (Toto). He created a sort of laid back Steely Dan sound. ‘Hobo with a grin’ was re-issued on cd earlier this year. After the failure of the album, Steve Harley went back to England. In the 1980s he became a musical star and was the first one to play the phantom next to Sarah Brightman in ‘The phantom of the opera’. His album ‘Stranger comes to town’ came out last year.

Paul Anka looks like a plastic old guy with too much bling and too much tan nowadays, but he made quite a few good songs in the 1970s, after his success as a teen idol in the late 1950s and early 1960s, making it big with ‘Diana’. ‘Flashback’ was never on any album and was released as a b-side of ‘Let me get to know you’ in the US. Luckily 'Flashback' was a (minor) hit in the Netherlands. That’s why national radio dj Rob Stenders got hold of it and put it in his Freak 10.000, as one of the best songs of all time.

There’s a very nice compilation with unknown soft rock/blue eyed soul tracks out on BBE records, called ‘Americana Rock Your Soul’. I will play a track from it next week. Enjoy part 3 of ‘Summer Soul Station’!

Tracklist:

Radio Veronica intro
Maxwell – …Til The Cops Come Knocking (1996)
The President – You’re Gonna Like It (1984)
Tiffany – Late Night Show (1978)
Freak Power – Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out [Radio Mix] (1993)
Steve Harley – Roll The Dice (1978)
Paul Anka – Flashback (1973)
Alides Hidding – Hollywood Seven (1980)
Leo Sayer – Thunder In My Heart (1977)
Earth, Wind & Fire – Shining Star (1975)
Starland Vocal Band – Afternoon Delight (1976)
The Stampeders – Hit The Road Jack (1975)
Gordon Lightfoot – Carefree Highway (1974)
Bill Withers – Hello Like Before (1975)
Henry Gross – Shannon (1976)
Bobby Patterson – If He Hadn't Slipped Up And Got Caught (1977)
Jay And The Techniques – Don't Ask Me To Forget (1975)
Aloe Blacc – You Make Me Smile (2010)
Justin Hayward – Forever Autumn (1978)
Locussolus – Throwdown [Com Truise Remix] (2011)