Professor Eddy

Pexels Enjoy light-hearted soul, pop and (yacht) rock from the seventies on this new Sunshine Radio episode! Again songs from the era mixed with original jingles and air checks. The track by Sly & The Family Stone is my tribute to Sly Stone who recently left us. His death was a bit overshadowed by the passing of another musical genius, Beach Boy Brian Wilson two days later. Sly Stone was the first one to blend rock, soul and funk in an extraordinary way. It’s good to know that the two surviving original members of British success band Mud, Rob Davis and Ray Stiles, still occasionally perform live as Mud. They did a gig at the Factory Live venue in Worthing last year. They played most of their hits, but forgot to perform their best single, Drift Away,  released in 1978. Five years earlier the song was made successful by Dobie Gray, but it was originally written by Mentor Williams (brother of famous songwriter Paul Williams) and first recorded by Mike Berry in 1972. This was a f...

Adam Holtrop Relive the golden years of seventies glam rock as a Mixcloud Exclusive ! 😊 John Lennon once called glam rock “just rock & roll with lipstick on”, according to David Bowie in an interview. The keywords for this seventies music style were fun, energy and extravaganza. Popular acts were Slade, Sweet, Mud, David Bowie and the inventors of the genre, T-Rex. Marc Bolan, the frontman of the band, accidentally put some glitters on his face for a Top Of The Pops performance in 1971 and glam rock was born. Around the mid-seventies tables turned when disco and punk gained popularity in favour of glam rock, although disco and punk borrowed heavily from the genre. Disco took the looks and punk the simplicity of the music. The New Romantic movement, which started as a fashion subculture in British nightclubs in the late 1970s, before becoming a mainstream music genre a few years later, was also inspired by the visuals of the glam rock era. And today’s superstar Chappell Roan is cle...

Unsplash Let’s celebrate Christmas on Sunshine Radio !🌲😊 Princess Freesia recently released the single Do You Like It , but a few years back Rudolph came out: "It's a playful and slightly naughty take on the renowned, risqué and raunchy reindeer that is Rudolph, or as Freesia likes to call him, "RUDEolph"!" (Bandcamp) Probably one of the most tragic pop stars that has ever lived is now forgotten Scottish singer Lena Zavaroni. In 1974, at only ten years of age, she was the youngest person in history to have an LP in the top ten of the UK albums chart. Later she starred in her own television series, made numerous TV guest star appearances, and performed on stage. When she got older, she found it difficult to continue her singing career and she lost fun in life. She started to develop anorexia nervosa and became very depressed. Her success at a very young age seemed to hit her back like a boomerang. Following an operation to cure her depression, Zavaroni died a...

Unsplash The opening song by multi-instrumentalist Matt Dibble is from the posthumously released album Forever . He was one of the founding members of British band Super db, but died unexpectedly in 2021, probably due to an allergic reaction. The track by Percy Mays is from the new compilation LP W3NG , out on Numero, “a sweet selection of mellow grooves” , according to record store Dusty Groove. In 1978, when glam rock band Mud began to fall apart, the main songwriters of the band Rob Davis and Ray Stiles took some time off to record a few singles as a duo and named themselves Roly. One of these singles was Don’t Ever Change , which was a cover of a Carole King & Gerry Coffin composition, first recorded by The Crickets in 1961 (after been rejected by The Everly Brothers). Mud officially split in 1980, but they shortly reunited in the original line-up a few years later. They then recorded  Don’t Ever Change again, this time with their front man Les Gray as the lead singer. On...

Pexels Turn on your nearest stereo equipment, tune in to Sunshine Radio and listen to retro sounds all day long! 😊  The track by The Four Seasons (without Frankie Valli!) is on the upcoming 4CD set Sean Rowley Presents: Guilty Pleasures 20th Anniversary , out on Demon Music Group next Friday: "One-hit wonders and exotic recordings that perfectly soundtracked a sun-kissed ’70s U.S. west coast life style, less so in ’70s Britain." As I wrote earlier, in the mid-seventies British rock band Mud was one of the biggest acts in Europe with quite a few number ones under their belt, but when the decade came to a close, they struggled to survive. On their 1979 album As You Like It frontman and former teen idol Les Gray sang on only 4 tracks, indicating his detachment from the band by then. When the LP and the accompanying single You’ll Like It / Can’t Stop came out, the remaining members had already signed a new record contract and had recruited Margo Buchanan as their lead ...

Jess Loiter We're sailing as smooth as possible into 2024 😊 Enjoy! American soft rock band Gulliver was formed in the late 1960s in Philadelphia. One of the members was then unknown backing singer and keyboard player Daryl Hall. They released one album only in 1970, then Daryl Hall left the band to form a successful duo with John Oates.  In 1980, You Might Need Somebody by American country singer and guitarist Turley Richards peaked at number 54 on the Billboard Hot 100. A year later, Randy Crawford covered the song for her album Secret Combination . Her version reached number 11 on the UK singles chart, but it was a modest success worldwide. English singer Shola Ama's 1997 version charted well throughout Europe and New Zealand, which made this version the most successful one.  When the hits dried up in the late 1970s, British band Mud tried to get back on top in 1978, but the record company made a great mistake to release Cut Across Shorty as a single. It was ...

Unsplash Enjoy this soft autumn West Coast breeze! Autumn is perhaps best summarized by English band Mud in their song Don’t You Know : “It’s slightly getting colder… “ 😉 It is the B-side of their hit Show Me You’re A Woman and on the compilation album Mud: The Singles 1973-80 . Show Me You’re A Woman reached number 8 in the UK and only number 25 in the Netherlands. By the way, the lyrics of that song would be called very inappropriate these days, because it somehow suggests a relationship with a minor. American Flyer was formed in 1976 and released two successful albums before falling apart two years later. They had one small hit, Let Me Down Easy , which reached number 80 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is from their self-titled debut album, which has Lady Blue Eyes on board too. The LP was produced by George Martin, known for his work with the Beatles, of course. Little Feat’s Gringo was covered by singer-actor Arnold McCuller on his A Part Of Me That's You album in 1984. It...

Pexels In 1977, when their days as teenage idols were over, Mud was a bit unsure which direction they should take. In the meantime lead singer Les Gray signed a solo deal with Warner Bros., although he did not leave the band officially. He recorded a slow disco version of The Mindbenders 1966 hit, A Groovy Kind Of Love . The single reached a respectable #32 in the UK, but it was completely ignored elsewhere. I remember finding it  in the sales bins in my local record store at the time. It is one of the tracks on this Smooth Sailing part. Enjoy! Tracklist: Say She She – Astral Plane (2023) Patrick Simmons – So Wrong (1983) James Sayer – Cherry (2023) Zachary Crawford – Alibi (2023) Bill Withers – Oh Yeah! (1985) Brick ‎– Seaside Vibes (1981) Cheryl Lynn – Sleep Walkin’ (1982) Carly Simon – Tranquillo (Melt My Heart) (1978) Janette Renee – What’s On Your Mind (1979) Les Gray – A Groovy Kind Of Love (1977) Climax Blues Band – Couldn’t Get It Right (1976) Rickie Lee Jones ...

Pexels Enjoy this new part of Smooth Sailing ! It’s built around Phil Carmen’s On My Way To L.A. I tried to keep that laid-back feeling of being in L.A. all through the mix. Closing track You’ll Like It by Mud is on the recently released compilation album Mud: The Singles 1973-80 on Cherry Red Records. The band with front man Les Gray recorded their first single Flower Power in 1967, followed by a couple more, but they all failed to chart. Things started to look brighter, when they were picked up by RAK label boss Mickie Most who liked their energetic live performances. He introduced them to Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, a very successful producers and songwriters duo at the time and known for their work with glam rock acts The Sweet and Suzi Quatro. They wrote Crazy and Hypnosis for the band, two singles that made the UK Top 20 in 1973. Finally Mud had reached what they were looking for all those years, although the two singles were not representative of the group's sound. W...

Pexels We all need some sunshine in these dark days of winter, don’t we? That’s why I put together this mix from the parts that I made for the Sunshine 70s series that was created by Smooth Operator Martijn Soetens a couple of years ago. The show was broadcasted on KX Classics, a channel founded by Dutch radio-DJ and TV-presenter Rob Stenders. This tribute to Sunshine 70s is the first part of a new series, called Sunshine Radio . The next episode will be something completely different 😊 Frontman of Raydio, Ray Parker Jr. composed many great songs, but early in his career he wrote You Make Me Feel Like Dancing for Leo Sayer. Unfortunately producer Freddie Perren did not give him the credits, because Ray Parker Jr. had given him a tape without his name on it. Until this day he did not receive a penny for the song that went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976. When the glam rock years had come to an end for British band Mud, the four members started to search for new directions. The...

Unsplash Barry White started working in the music industry in the 1960s, but commercial success came the next decade. With his danceable and slick soul music he became one of the pioneers of disco. In the mid-seventies he recorded the soft-porn instrumental Love’s Theme with his Love Unlimited Orchestra and solo songs on which he imitated a moose in the rutting season. Hit singles were Never Never Gonna Give Ya Up, Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe and You're The First, The Last, My Everything. The latter was his biggest hit and is on this cloudcast. Barry White sold millions of records and became an icon of the decade. His brilliant songs can easily stand the test of time. The track by British seventies pop band Mud was originally on their 1976 album It’s Better Than Working and is now on the new 4CD box set Mud: The Albums 1975-1979 , out on Cherry Red Records. Just like Barry White, Mud was one of the best-selling acts in the mid-seventies, although they were not suc...

Pixabay Wouldn’t you rather have a yacht? 😊 On this one I broadened the definition of yacht rock a tiny little bit with some wave and power pop tracks from the 1980s. Enjoy! The track by Mud was originally the flipside of L’L’ Lucy and is now on the brand new 4CD box set Mud: The Albums 1975-1979 , out on Cherry Red Records. Although written by guitarist Rob Davis and bassist Ray Stiles, My Love Is Your Love was not first recorded by Mud, but by sibling trio Ellie. They were formed by Ellie, Kathy and Christine Hope. The sisters provided background vocals on Mud records and released two singles themselves in the mid-seventies. Ellie Hope appeared on Top Of The Pops with Mud, when they performed their UK number one single Oh Boy . A couple of years later she would become famous as the lead singer of disco group Liquid Gold, mostly known for their smash Dance Yourself Dizzy. Mud guitarist Rob Davis married Christine Hope and made a big mark in pop history when he co-wrote Groovejet ...

Unsplash Enjoy this rainy Mixcloud Exclusive ! 😊 Next time I will reboot my series Groovy, Sexy & Soulful . The track by Ben Moore is a yacht soul cover of the Seals & Crofts original. In 1969, ten years before Get Closer , Ben Moore joined the duo James & Bobby Purify, after Bobby Purify (real name Robert Lee Dickey) retired for health reasons. In the 1970s Ben Moore recorded a couple of solo albums. One of them was Slow Dancin' , on which Get Closer appeared. In 1998, he became blind from severe glaucoma and left the music industry temporarily. In 2006 he joined the gospel band The Blind Boys Of Alabama. From the end of the 1960s, Delores Hall performed in several musical revues in Los Angeles and on Broadway. In 1973 her debut LP was released by RCA Records titled Hall-Mark , produced by Billy Jackson. Her first movie part was in Scrooged in the 1980s. She also played a security guard named Delores in Lethal Weapon 3 . On television she was a regular on the first...

Pearl Charles For this episode of Mellow Mellow FM , I wanted to stay as close as possible to the piña colada sound of the sunny Californian West Coast. Enjoy this preview of an old-fashioned, virus-free summer, while drinking rum and Coca-Cola, to quote Barry White! 😊 Escape by Rupert Holmes is probably the most archetypal yacht rock song ever, because the genre is basically all about escapism. The lyrics were inspired by a want-ad he read whilst idly scanning the personals one day. He imagined himself answering the ad and built the song on the fantasy that it was his own wife who was bored with him. The chorus originally started with "If you like Humphrey Bogart", which Holmes changed at the last minute, replacing the actor with the name of the first exotic cocktail that came to mind and fit the music. To this day Holmes still does not drink piña coladas himself. After the shine of glam had faded in the mid-seventies, successful British rockers Mud searched for new direct...

Unsplash Let’s dance around the tree and have yourself a funky Christmas! 😊 S.O.S. by Oliver Cheatham was co-written and produced by Mud guitarist Rob Davis. When Mud started to work with producers and songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman in the mid-seventies, after years of struggling, the group had almost immediately success all over Europe with a string of glam rock hits, like Dynamite , Tigerfeet and The Cat Crept In . However, when the the decade came to a close, they were not able to compete with new genres, like disco, punk and new wave. After the band had split up, Rob Davis tried to set up a writing and producing duo with George Stanley Alexander. They had some results, especially with the band Liquid Gold in the mid-eighties. The success of What She's Got in the U.S. was a very good reason for Davis to change his music direction to pop and dance music. In 1988 he met Paul Oakenfold and teamed with him in a successful series of dance anthems. He co-wrote Spiller...

Unsplash One of the tracks on this new cloudcast by The Smooth Operators (Martijn Soetens and I) is Drift Away by Mud. After their very successful glam rock years, this British band started to search for new directions in the late 1970s. They made some disco moves first, but then they tried to jump on the West Coast bandwagon for one single only. Drift Away was originally recorded by John Henry Kurtz on his 1972 album Reunion . Kenny Loggins, Jim Gordon and Michael Omartian were some of the well-known musicians who can be heard on the track. A year later Dobie Gray made a very soulful cover of the song, which reached #5 on Billboard.  In 1978 Mud combined those two versions in a very clever way, but their fans did not like this change in musical direction, so the song failed to chart. The next year the band decided to split up, to reunite in the original line-up only for a very brief period in the early 1980s. Until his death in 2004, singer Les Gray reformed the band as Les...

To celebrate 100 years of radio in the Netherlands, I made a new episode of Mellow Mellow FM Radio ! Back in the 1970s dj's used to play all kinds of genres on the radio, because strict formats were not invented yet. So that's what this mix is basically about: to recreate exciting and sexy FM radio. Enjoy! Glam rock band Mud was founded by guitarist Rob Davis and drummer Dave Mount in 1966. They formed a quartet with bass player Ray Stiles and singer Les Gray, after placing an advert in Melody Maker. They struggled for success for years, but soon after they had been discovered by producer Mickie Most during a gig, things lightened up. They were hooked up with the most successful writers and producers at the time: Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (Sweet, Suzi Quatro). Hits followed very fast and during the mid-seventies they had several number ones all over Europe. After Mud had left Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman and started to write their own material the hits dried up. By the e...

Picture: pxxxxxxxxq When I started to listen to pop music, around 1974, glam rock was very popular, but disco started to break through. ‘Rock your baby’ by George McCrae was one of the sparks that lighted the fire. Disco became the next big thing and glam rock band Mud, like many others, tried to move to the dance floor too when they recorded ‘Shake it down’. Mention the name Mud to most Americans and the likely result will be a blank stare. In England and the European continent, however, between 1974 and 1976, Mud was one of the hottest glam rock acts, charting a series of monster hit singles and recording a pair of delightful rock & roll-oriented albums. They were never a profoundly philosophical band, and never pretended to be. The group played music to have a good time, and merely asked that others join in, which millions of people did for a few years. When glam rock faded as a result of the growing dominaton of disco, Mud couldn’t find the right answer, apart from ‘Shake...

I announced this Smooth Sailing part almost 4 weeks ago on my Facebook page , but I was not satisfied with the beginning and the ending. After hearing Retiree and Ray Munnings I knew which tracks could open and close the mix. So here it is, enjoy! Glam rock band Mud was founded by guitarist Rob Davis and drummer Dave Mount almost 50 years ago. They formed a band with bass player Ray Stiles and singer Les Gray, after placing an advert in Melody Maker. They struggled for success for years, but soon after they had been discovered by producer Mickie Most during a gig, things lightened up. They were hooked up with the most successful writers and producers of that time: Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (Sweet, Suzie Quatro). Hits followed very fast and during the mid-seventies they had several number ones all over Europe. After Mud had left Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman and started to write their own material the hits dried up. They could not compete with disco and punk and the band decide...

Best wishes to all of you! I have to admit that I borrowed the idea for my first one of the year from one of the best dj's on the planet, namely Tim Sweeney from NYC, but my mix is not as creepy as the one he created for ' Beats in space '. My 'Freak Of The Week' is more about doing freaky than being freaky, if you know what I mean. I tried to keep it funny rather than scary. It's a mix about being extraordinary. The only similarity is the song from Mud. Those guys made me love pop music way back when, so it's fair to be featured in this mix with their crazy classic as well. The song before Mud is from Don Bryant who was produced by the late Willie Mitchell on his legendary Hi label (Al Green, Ann Peebles). A song that just missed the boat is ' Only a fool ' from Mighty Sparrow (together with Byron Lee). He sounds so sad and convincing. Why doesn't she love him? And keep an eye on King Charles, I love his new single ' Mississippi Isabe...