Mellow Mellow FM: Golden Days Of Soul, Disco & Radio Pop

Let’s end this year with one more look at the golden days of radio pop and R&B! Apart from seventies and eighties songs, I selected three of the best tracks of 2021: While The Music’s On by Page 99 (yacht rock), Wounds Of Love by Nation Of Language (electro) and Only For Tonight by Pearl Charles (disco). Enjoy this exclusive episode of Mellow Mellow FM!

We all long for a bit of summer in the winter, that’s why I chose to play She Works Hard For The Money by Donna Summer!😊 During a meal at a luxurious Hollywood restaurant, her eyes fell upon an exhausted washroom attendant taking a nap on the job and she decided to write a song about her. It was accompanied by a video that got heavy rotation on MTV at a time when few black artists were being played by the channel. She Works Hard for Her Money topped the R&B charts for three weeks and hit number three pop in the summer of 1983. The same-titled LP went gold, peaking at number five R&B and number nine pop.

"Given how synonymous Summer had become with disco, it is impressive that she continued to score hits through the subsequent decade – most notably 1983's new wave gem She Works Hard for the Money." (BBC)

Every now and then a song pops up that sounds like Abba, just as Only For Tonight by Pearl Charles in 2021. After they had split, Abba singer Agnetha Fältskog moved to a faraway Swedish forest to live in seclusion. In 1997 forklift driver Gert van der Graaf, a messed-up Dutch fan, who had written her hundreds of letters and had tried to come close to her multiple times, went to Sweden to stay in a cabin about 800 metres from Agnetha’s residency. He managed to get in touch with her and they surprisingly started a relationship. When the singer ended this affair two years later, he started to stalk her again. It ended in court with a restraining order in 2000. Returning close to her home three years later, he was arrested and then banned from entering Sweden. In 2005, the ban order from Sweden ran out, and within months Van der Graaf was again sighted near Fältskog's estate in Ekerö. In 2021 Agnetha returned to the spotlight with Abba, because of their new album Voyage.

Tracklist:

Jorge Santana – Sandy (1978)
Dee Dee Sharp – I'm Not In Love (1975)
Jim Capaldi – Wild Dogs (1979)
Con Funk Shun – Bad Lady (1981)
Minnie Riperton – When It Comes Down To It (1974)
David Bowie – Golden Years (1976)
Page 99 – While The Music’s On (2021)
Spats – Hot Summer Madness (1979)
Cool Runners – High On A Feeling (1982)
El DeBarge – Who's Johnny (1986)
Nation Of Language – Wounds Of Love (2021)
Pearl Charles ‎– Only For Tonight (2021)
Donna Summer ‎– She Works Hard For The Money (1983)
Steve Winwood – Higher Love (1986)
Lionel Richie – Dancing On The Ceiling (1985)
Lou Rawls – Ain’t That Love, Baby (1982)
ABBA – Mamma Mia (1975)
Johnnie Taylor – Disco Lady (1976)
Joe Jackson – Steppin' Out (1982)
George Benson – Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You (1985)
People's Pleasure With Alive And Well – Lonely People (1976)
Dooley Silverspoon – Bump Me Baby (1975)
Foxy – Mademoiselle (1978)
Addrisi Brothers – Ghost Dancer (1979)
David Ruffin – Walk Away From Love (1975)
Gilles Rivard – Je Reviens (1981)
Cutting Crew – I've Been In Love Before (1987)
Camera Obscura – New Year’s Resolution (2013)