The AT40 Blog/January 31, 1987 ... Long Before He Became "Bruce Willis"

Long before there was "The Whole Nine Yards," then "The Whole Ten Yards." Long before there was "The Sixth Sense." Long before there was "The Last Boy Scout" and "12 Monkeys" and long before he was saving dozens of lives in the all-time greatest action movie made, "Die Hard," Bruce Willis was Bruno Radolini.

Bruce Willis was also David Addison Jr. And before that Bruce Willis was Tony Amato in a 1984 first-season episode of Miami Vice. Imagine that -- a show that brought two first-time Top 40 music artists. In the fall of 1986, it was Sonny Crockett himself, Don Johnson, hitting No. 5 with "Heartbeat."

And then on January 31, 1987, it was Willis' turn to hit the Top 40 with his remake of the Staple Singers' signature song, "Respect Yourself," the highest Top 40 debut of the week at No. 33. The original hit No. 12 in 1971, but Willis would climb to No. 5 with the remake by March 1987, helped tremendously by the late June Pointer of the Pointer Sisters on backing vocals.

Yes, before he became a mega-star on the big screen, Bruce Willis, born March 19, 1955 in Idar-Oberstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany to an American soldier and German-born mom, was the oldest of four children. His family moved to within steps of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, living in Penns Grove, N.J. and attending Penns Grove High School where he dealt with a stutter going throughout his childhood and was nicknamed "Buck-Buck." But he was able to overcome that stutter by staying busy in school activities such as student council and the drama club, which allowed him to "act out" what he was going through.

After graduating high school, Willis bounced around jobs, from security guard at a nuclear plant in Salem County, N.J. to transporting work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, N.J. His next job was as a private investigator, and it was there that he decided to take control of his own life. Instead of doing odd jobs, Willis was off to become an actor. He enrolled at Montclair State College in New Jersey and was part of the class production of the show Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

By his junior there, though, Willis left to go to New York and become a bartender at the art bar Kamikaze on West 19th Street. That was his "other" job. While making mixed drinks and serving beer, Willis was also trying to make a name in off-Broadway plays such as Heaven On Earth, Fool For Love and for four years, he starred in the production of writer-director Dennis Watlington's Bullpen.

That gave Willis the courage to head cross country to Hollywood and try to make it there. And his first break at 29 years old came in that episode of Miami Vice called "No Exit" in which he plays an abuse drug dealer named Tony Amato. Then he got to play a role in the opening episode of the new Twilight Zone called "Shatterday." With those roles under his belt, he auditioned for the role of the wise-cracking, far-from-serious David Addison on the television show Moonlighting and won the role opposite co-star Cybill Shepherd reportedly against 3,000 other hopefuls. He made his mark in comedy and in 1986 earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for Moonlighting.

His confidence sky-high, Willis decided to go after his next dream -- music recording. A demo he recorded impressed the legendary Motown Records to take a chance on this white man with love for blues and R&B. Produced by future Fox Music president Robert Kraft, Willis recorded the album/CD "The Return Of Bruno," helped out by legendary veterans such as Ruth and June Pointer, Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & The MG's fame and the one and only Temptations. Willis remade "Secret Agent Man," "Under The Boardwalk" and "Young Blood" on the album as well as "Respect Yourself."

Alongside of "The Return Of Bruno" was a Spinal Tap-like mockumentary which aired on HBO and would ultimately released via VHS. Playing his alter ego, legendary blues singer Bruno Radolini, Willis was helped out in the special by fellow legends Ringo Starr, Elton John and Phil Collins.

The album hit the Top 15 on the Top 200 album chart and though he did not have another hit in this country from the album -- or ever again for that matter -- Willis would hit No. 2 in England with his remake of "Under The Boardwalk."

Later in 1987, a year that saw mega-success in Willis' career which also saw him star in his first movie, The Blind Date opposite Kim Basinger, Willis was approached by producers Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver to play the lead of John McClane in Die Hard. The rest, they say, is history.

And Bruce Willis became a mega-star.

But before that, he was a whole bunch of people. Musically, he was Bruno Radolini and he made a name in that circle, even if that circle didn't last that long.

While Willis began his climb up the Top 40, Billy Vera & The Beaters were at No. 1 for the second straight week with "At This Moment," the 1981 chart single revived by the NBC television show Family Ties. Madonna, though, was up two notches to No. 2 with "Open Your Heart," the fourth single release from the album/CD "True Blue."

The AT40 Blog/January 25, 1975: A rock band with classical instruments

Rarely did the worlds of rock music and classical music become as intertwined as peanut butter and jelly. Sure, there were all the songs, especially in the early days of the rock 'n roll era, in which strings were used behind pop singers for hits. That was commonplace.

But not in the world of rock where thunderous guitars, hammering drums and powerful basses ruled. But by 1966, the Beatles experimented with that sound of strings behind songs such as "Yesterday," "Eleanor Rigby," "I Am The Walrus" and "All You Need Is Love." The Rolling Stones did the same thing with "As Tears Go By."

Otherwise, rock bands and stringed instruments were not a part of the popular music landscape.

That was, until 1973. Then a band influenced by the Beatles sounds of incorporating strings and hard-driving strings came onto the music scene. In that summer, they released a rousing eight-minute version of "Roll Over Beethoven," a combination of the 1955 hit song by Chuck Berry and parts of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (which would become a disco-fied No. 1 hit in 1976 by Walter Murphy & the Big Apple Band). The song bounded up the Hot 100, but "Roll Over Beethoven" only got as high as No. 42 the week of July 28, 1973.

Even though the song missed out on the Top 40, Electric Light Orchestra, a band formed by its leader Jeff Lynne, who was in a band called the Move along with good friend Roy Wood, was on the map. The two formed ELO and the band recorded its self-titled album in 1971. But Wood was caught up in the glam-rock scene of the day and left to form a group called Wizzard. That left Lynne in complete charge of this ensemble of musicians -- drummer Bev Bevan, keyboardist Richard Tandy, bassist Mike de Albuquerque, cello players Mike Edwards and Colin Walker and violinist Wilfred Gibson.

From the "ELO 2" album came "Roll Over Beethoven." The third album, "On The Third Day," featured "Showdown" and "Ma-Ma-Ma-Belle."

ELO, the shortened and best-known way the band is known, had great album tracks, but not one Top 40 hit in the bunch after three albums. So in 1974, Lynne went back to work in the studio with his band, which now featured Mik Kaminski taking over for Gibson on violin, Hugh McDowell taking over for Walker on one of the cellos and Louis Clark conducting and arranging the orchestral part of the group, and recorded an album called "Eldorado," a concept album featuring a young man who steps out of his ordinary life and is introduced to a whole new world of fulfilled dreams and fantasies.

Concept albums rarely, if ever, coughed out a Top 40 hit, so the move was never to actually have a Top 40 single. But one song stood out -- a "quieter" piece of music following the big "Eldorado Overture" that began the album. It was called "Can't Get It Out Of My Head," a song that fit the fantasy of Lynne's work of a mystery "ocean's daughter" that takes this young man to an entirely different world from midnight until the break of dawn.

Tandy's keyboard and synthesizer highlight the piece, as does the strings of Kaminski, McDowell and Edwards. And released as a single by ELO's record label in the United States, United Artists, "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" was the highest-debuting song on the Top 40 chart of January 25, 1975, starting out at No. 33. Though AT40 would play a much more edited version of the four-minute, 21-second piece, the song would keep climbing upward and would reach the Top 10 on March 8, 1975, when it moved up from No. 11 to No. 10. The next week, it would peak at No. 9 before falling back to No. 18 the week after that.

The ball was rolling for ELO. By the end of the year, they would hit the Top 40 again with "Evil Woman" and get to No. 10 by February 1976. And with the strings being a huge part of the musical backdrop, ELO would have 14 more Top 40 singles between 1976-80 before Lynne went another direction in 1981, going to a more nostalgic, guitar-driven, 1950s sound with 1981's "Hold On Tight" and subsequent Top 40 hits.

Amazingly, for all the glory and genius of having a rock band fuse rock and classical-sounding music, two things eluded ELO all these years: a No. 1 song (the band's biggest hit, the hard-driving "Don't Bring Me Down" in 1979, peaked at No. 4) and a spot in the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. How an innovative band such as ELO has never been inducted into the Hall is beyond me or their long-time fans.

As for Lynne, he went on to have a close working relationship with George Harrison and lived out a longtime dream of working on and producing Harrison's "Cloud Nine" album that produced the first No. 1 hit of Lynne's longtime career, "Got My Mind Set On You," as the producer for Harrison. He's also been a Traveling Wilbury member with Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and the late Roy Orbison.

Still, ELO has always been in Lynne's mind. He recorded a 2001 CD with a newer ELO called "Zoom," which did feature a track on it with former keyboardist Tandy. But doing a show with ELO was something that kept eluding Lynne. Then on November 12, 2013, Lynne reunited with Tandy for a concert build as Jeff Lynne and Friends and performed "Livin' Thing" and "Mr. Blue Sky," two of the 16 Top 40 hits ELO had between 1975-80. That gave Lynne the courage to do another show, this time as Jeff Lynne's ELO with Tandy joining the band again to perform one show on September 14, 2014, at the "Festival In A Day" at Hyde Park. The 50,000 tickets up for sale sold out in 15 minutes. Working with Gary Barlow of Take That fame's backing band, th show was a major success and it has prompted whispers that Lynne may take his show on a world tour even as he turned 67 years old on December 30.

But even if they don't, their music has always been treasured and will live on. And ELO fans can point to the "Eldorado" concept album that brought the band their first scent of success with "Can't Get It Out Of My Head," a Top 10 hit where keyboards and guitars were playing in front of cellos and violins ... in the same band, no less!

The AT40 Blog/January 18, 1986: Dionne AIDS a cause with "Friends"

When looking back at the year 1985 musically, it was the year that artists gave back.

Sir Bob Geldof got the ball rolling helping those starving in desert-laden Ethiopia with the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which spun off USA For Africa's monster No. 1 smash in this country, "We Are The World," as well as other lesser-known spinoff songs. And on Saturday, July 13, 1985, Geldof orchestrated a two-venue concert in London's Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's John F. Kennedy Stadium that brought together the biggest stars of a couple of generations called Live Aid, where all the monies made would continue to help those starving in the African country.

Later on, Little Steven aka Steven Van Zandt organized the Artists United Against Apartheid on the song "Sun City," a Top 40 smash single in late December whose single purpose was to send a message to the apartheid-led government of South Africa, saying they wouldn't play the big-time resort that discriminated against those of color.

In the late summer of 1985, Dionne Warwick, whose biggest smash hits came in the 1960s with songs like "Walk On By," "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" and "Theme From 'The Valley Of The Dolls'," was recording tracks for an upcoming album. One of the songs she was working on was called "That's What Friends Are For," a song first recorded in 1982 by Rod Stewart, whose version was used in the movie "Night Shift" that starred Henry Winkler, Shelly Long and Michael Keaton. The song was co-written by the then-husband-and-wife duo of Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager.

Bacharach, whose memorable songs he co-wrote with Hal David paved the way for Warwick's career, was having a conversation with legendary actress and activist Elizabeth Taylor. He told her Warwick was recording the song that he was co-producing with his wife. Taylor remembered the Stewart version from "Night Shift" and thought it'd be a great song to help her cause. In 1984, she organized the first AIDS fundraiser, AIDS Project Los Angeles. Along with Dr. Michael Gottlieb and Dr. Mathilde Krim, Taylor founded amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research and continued to stay busy helping with more AIDS-related events, raising money to fight what would be the scourge disease of the time.

But it was before an AIDS-related event in that summer of '85 in Los Angeles that she found out one of her own closest friends was seeing the end of the line due to the virus that caused the disease. Legendar actor Rock Hudson was dying and it was revealed in the last couple of months before his passing that he had this disease.

Suddenly, AIDS had a famous face. Distraught, Taylor did everything to console her close friend and try everything she could to raise money to fight the disease, even if it wasn't going to keep her friend alive. Hudson died from complications due to AIDS on October 2, 1985, a month and a half before his 60th birthday.

Before his passing, though, Taylor saw an opportunity to do good while talking with Bacharach. She floated the idea of "That's What Friends Are For" as a fundraiser and Bacharach brought the idea back to Warwick. Her response was positive. That's when it was decided that a few "friends" were needed to make the song special. Warwick reached out to three artists she not only had known for years, but were also charitable as well: Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight. Warwick worked alongside Wonder on "We Are The World," while Wonder played harmonica for John on his smash 1984 hit "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" and Wonder and Knight knew each other for years as Motown Records artists.

John played the piano and Wonder played the harmonica on the song that sounds melancholy, but really is a positive ode to the ideal of friendship and staying alongside one another through the best and worst of times. Released in mid-fall 1985, the song climbed the Hot 100 until it debuted in the Top 40 on November 23, 1985, at No. 39. The song continued to climb until reaching the Top 10 on December 21, when it jumped from No. 14 to No. 8.

Three weeks later, the song had reached No. 3 and on the week of January 18, 1986, "That's What Friends Are For" hit No. 1 and would spend four weeks at the top. By the end of 1986, the song would become the No. 1 song of the year and the following winter, would win the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for Bacharach and Bayer-Sager. And when it was all said and done, the song Taylor suggested should be a benefit to AIDS awareness raised $3 million for amfAR. It was during that week that it hit No. 1 -- January 15, 1986 to be exact -- that the song was certified gold for sales of 1 million copies.

Getting the four superstars together to perform the song, though, was never easy. They did it a couple of times live, the last time being 1988. Then at a 25th anniversary amfAR gala in New York on February 10, 2011, Warwick, John, Knight and Wonder reunited to do the song. It was one of the last things done in Taylor's honor. On March 23, 2011, Taylor died from symptoms related to heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, 24 days after her 79th birthday. It was discovered that while alive, Taylor raised $270 million for AIDS research alone for amfAR.

"That's What Friends Are For" became an iconic part of the 1980s, but for different reasons, mostly for the cause it was helping to raise awareness for.

Thanks to Elizabeth Taylor. As well as some "friends" who were giving back.

The AT40 Blog/January 6, 1973: And the mystery is STILL not solved

If you were a regular follower of American Top 40, but weren't following the charts via Billboard magazine back in 1972, imagine your surprise come the first regular show of 1973.

The last regular countdown came the week of December 16, 1972 when Billy Paul's "Me And Mrs. Jones" moved into the No. 1 spot. For the next two weeks, AT40 ran their Top 80 countdown in two parts.

And so after the Christmas and New Year's celebrations were over, the countdown started up again. And as we got to No. 3 in the countdown, there was Billy Paul free-falling out of the top spot after three weeks on top.

So one would figure that Gilbert O'Sullivan just jumped to No. 1 with his latest single, "Clair," a great thing considering his "Alone Again (Naturally)" was the No. 2 song in the year-end countdown after that spent six weeks at the top in the previous summer.

But when Casey announced the song was at No. 2 and played it, the mystery began -- If it's not "Clair" or any other song that was near the top of the chart on December 16, what was No. 1.

Then Casey teased us by announcing that with this artist hitting No. 1, she helped to make it two husband-and-wife solo acts to hit No. 1 in music history with Eddie Fisher (three No. 1s in the pre-rock 'n roll era) and Debbie Reynolds ("Tammy" in 1957) being the first couple to do so.

So who was the second, Casey?

He begins by saying that last year (it was boo-boo considering they were recording this AT40 in the final days of 1972 and forgot this was for the first weekend of '73), her husband hit No. 1 with "You've Got A Friend." That was James Taylor. Well, of course, the massive social detailing of every single relationship these days didn't equate to finding out your "relationship" news of 1972 and who got married unless the mainstream news had it or it was in your newspapers. You do remember when newspapers had, like, everything in them?

And suddenly you realized -- that's Carly Simon, who just debuted at No. 37 on December 16, 1972 with "You're So Vain." And, again, unless you followed the charts religiously week in and week out by subscribing to Billboard, this was the biggest surprise. During the two weeks AT40 did its year-end countdown of '72, "You're So Vain" leaped from No. 37 to No. 9 to No. 4 to No. 1 for January 6, 1973, spending three weeks at the top.

Of course, the bigger deal with the song has always been the "mystery person" ... who the heck is she singing about. There are many theories, many ideas, everyone from Mick Jagger (who is the backup singer on this record) to David Bowie to David Cassidy to even her husband at the time. But in at least a couple of interviews, Simon herself has said the mystery man is really three mystery men who had a part of her life.

And in August 2003, that identity was put up -- believe it or not -- for auction! The winning bid would go toward the Martha's Vineyard Possible Dreams charity. The winner of that auction turned out to be NBC president and Simon friend Dick Ebersol, who got a private show from Simon as part of the winning bid and then after the show, she whispered the identity of the song that has driven people crazy since the record first came out in 1972. However, Ebersol was asked as part of the auction win to keep that identity secret.

However, Simon did allow Ebersol to reveal three letters that involves the name of the person or "persons" involved. And so Ebersol revealed the letters: E, A and R.

That left three suspects: One was actor Warren Beatty, who had a relationship with Simon in the late 1960s. Beatty reportedly was so convinced that he was the subject of the song, he called Simon to thank her personally. The second was her boyfriend in the mid-1960s when she was trying to make it in the music business, a fellow musician named Danny Armstrong (born Daniel Kent Armstrong). He was 10 years older than him, but they connected in many personal ways. One day, though, she pushed him aside reportedly to go live on her own and shunned, he moved to Los Angeles. She regretted the decision and it was said that she called Armstrong numerous times without him answering back. So she confronted him personally in L.A. She admitted to a writer that she had unrequited love for Armstrong for years even if his personality was "cocky" and "boastful." He is the guy who, in the lyrics of the song, "walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht."

The third person, according to sources, has been rumored to be Simon's record label head, David Geffen (born David Lawrence Geffen). Simon was upset with Geffen because there were rumors that he favored her label mate, Joni Mitchell, over her when it came to publicizing her work. But while it may be obvious to some that it may be Geffen, Simon and her second ex-husband, Jim Hart, both denied it, though the name "David" is heard whispered on the record. However, there's never been denying that there was a "David" involved.

And so unless you bug the heck out of Dick Ebersol or Howard Stern or even Taylor Swift, who also reportedly know the identities now of the mystery me, the identities more than likely go with Simon to the grave with her.

1975 ... a year of music an 8-year-old could appreciate

A transistor radio was a wonderful thing to keep you company at 8 years old.

And the music I heard coming from it when I was 8 years old made me a music fan for life.

When I was 8 years old, all kinds of musical genres were being played thanks to the radio station I was listening to religiously when I wasn't having to go to school or "family things": WABC-AM (770) out of New York City. It was the "Morning Mayor," Harry Harrison, when you woke up, followed by Ron Lundy, then the one and only Dan Ingram in the afternoon and in the evening, I either listened to Chuck Leonard or George Michael (no, not the guy from Wham! and music star, the guy who later hosted the sports show "The George Michael Sports Machine" for over a generation before his passing).

Music was my escapism from the real world. At 8 years old, I was very awkward and didn't like being around people much (which is funny because even now I don't hang around a lot of people since I live by myself). I never got to experience many things when I was 8 years old that most 8-year-olds did. I have no regret over that noting that "friend-bonding" wasn't something I have ever mastered considering people -- male and female -- have been allowed to wander in and out of my life freely and I never really blinked an eye.

I remember those people very well. I guess I was never good at starting conversations.

But I'm getting off track here. I grew up in a time period where the music coming out of my radio involved everything from rock to pop, from R&B to disco, from country to easy listening and from jazz pop to jazz soul. It was commonplace to hear a disco record like B.T. Express' "Express" get followed up on the radio by Jessi Colter's "I'm Not Lisa" and that gets followed on the radio by Ace's "How Long," Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" or Barry Manilow's "It's A Miracle."

Radio stations -- not just WABC -- had no barriers back in the day. I was too young for what was being played in the 1960s on the radio, but I had the '70s and I had that wide variety of music that an "older" generation enjoyed a decade earlier. Today, that really doesn't exist anymore. Every one of those aforementioned musical genres splintered off into their own formats for other radio stations to play non-stop in the mid 1980s.

I was bitter about it. That was my musical education for 10 years of my life. And in that regard, nothing could quite beat the music coming out of my radio in 1975. It was the middle of the decade and every one of those genres had a place on my radio. In 1975, a number of chart-topping country songs could be heard on pop radio and be successful crossover hits.

Other than the Summer of '83, which I still consider the greatest summer musically of my life, the music of the Summer of '75 was pretty dynamite. Or was it "Dy-no-mite" as performed by Tony Camillo's outfit called Bazuka in honor of Jimmie "J.J." Walker's character on "Good Times." (It was also during that summer that Jimmie Walker was one of the two celebrity guests one week on the old "$10,000 Pyramid" on ABC with Dick Clark that he played 10 regular games and not once did he and his partner make it to the winner's circle. Who simply does that, failing miserably like that?)

Beside "Dynomite," there were other big hits that summer that still remain a staple of '70s radio to this day -- "Please Mr. Please" by Olivia Newton-John, "I'm Not In Love" by 10cc, "The Hustle" by Van McCoy, "One Of These Nights" by the Eagles, "Jive Talkin'" by the Bee Gees, "Get Down Tonight" by KC & The Sunshine Band and my favorite song that summer, "Swearin' To God" by fellow New Jersey guy Frankie Valli.

And when that summer was winding down, I was listening to Glen Campbell's huge hit "Rhinestone Cowboy," Janis Ian's "At Seventeen," Earth Wind & Fire's "That's The Way Of The World" and the Isley Brothers' "Fight The Power."

That transistor radio was practically with me listening to the hits of the day. I guess when you're 8 years old, you are impressionable. And when AM radio wasn't on playing the hits of the day, our house FM radio was there to turn on and hear the new "album rock" format song releases by Bad Company, Pink Floyd, Rush and this guy from New Jersey named Bruce Springsteen that I didn't know about, but learned awfully quick who he was when he adorned the covers of both Time and Newsweek on the same week!

An older generation understood 1975, maybe for better or worse. My generation just liked the music that came out and thought this was what radio was going to be forever.

Well, forever, I found out when I was older, had limitations. And it's why I yearn for that format again. (Of course, the music being written in the 2010 decade could be a hell of a lot better written, too, and sung by far-better sounding singers.)

The only way I can get 1975 back is via '70s-style radio stations, but then I have to share that year's music with the music of nine other years that decade. And they play the same crap over and over and over again because the sheeple say they need to enjoy the music they recognize daily. Whatever!

I have YouTube to hear the hard-to-find songs of now that were part of my childhood, songs as diverse as America's "Daisy Jane" and Consumer Rapport's "The Wiz" song "Ease On Down The Road."

The year 1975 is 40 years old. So to all my friends born in 1975, happy 40th this year! I still contend you were born in a cool and groovy year. And all throughout 2015, I am honoring the year 1975 musically with a countdown of the 250 best songs (my take on the 250 best songs, which may surprise you that some of my "favorites" that I heard on the radio at 8 years old may not be in this countdown completely) on my Facebook page all this year, starting Wednesday, January 7, 2015 and counting down to No. 1, which gets revealed on Friday, January 1, 2016!

I hope whatever song I post on my page brings a memory or two back -- and debate on why the song is ranked as high as it is or as low as it or if a favorite isn't even on the countdown at all.

I don't have to long for the music of 1975 anymore. I can hear it anytime I want really.

Now if only I can get a transistor radio to play that music again.