The AT40 Blog/March 28, 1987: A 'Sign' O The Time For Prince

The main focus for an established star is to never stay stagnant. Most every superstar found a way to change up their styles midway through their careers.

For instance, a lot of hard rock acts brought that level of "hard" down to where all people could enjoy the music. Same goes for country music stars doing more bluesy and pop-ladened songs after establishing themselves. R&B stars find their roots in old-time music, but then blend in a little of the "new school" and grow the fan base.

That was such the case or Prince. His funky style of bad-ass soul made him a star thanks to sexually charged songs like "I Wanna Be Your Lover," "Little Red Corvette" and "Kiss."

But at the age of 28 and a superstar many times over, most notably for his movie Purple Rain and the subsequent soundtrack that spent 24 weeks at No. 1 in 1984-85, Prince was looking to re-invent himself. In his case, he decided to make things simpler with his next project.

That was the double album/CD called "Sign 'O' The Times," his first concept album, creating a package straight out of the mold one of pop and R&B's greatest albums ever made, Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On."

The album addressed many topics: In "It" and "U Got The Look," there was that same sexual tension that tore through many a Prince record before. In "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man," being the "next" boyfriend is addressed. In "If I Was Your Girlfriend," Prince speaks to questioning sexual preference and androgyny. And in "The Cross," there's a celebration of spiritual enlightenment.

But no song took on so much in such a short amount of time as the title track. And Prince just laid it out for everyone to hear in the very first line of the song: "In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name. By chance his girlfriend came upon a needle and soon she did the same."

Yup. The hottest topic out there at the time in the spring of 1987 -- AIDS and getting the HIV virus. Though the support to fight this hideous disease was out there by the music stars of the day, no one was willing to put themselves out there to address the subject, even in a couple of lines in a song until Prince did so in "Sign 'O' The Times."

But Prince didn't stop there. The next line went: "At home, there are 17-year-old boys and their idea of fun is being in a gang called 'The Disciples,' high on crack and totin' a machine gun."

You're four lines into the song and already Prince had sledgehammered his listening audience with two problems of that day's society -- AIDS and youngsters being in gangs.

Oh, but wait, there's still more!

"Hurricane Annie ripped a ceiling off a church and killed everybody inside. You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin' you somebody died.
A sister killed her baby 'cause she couldn't afford to feed it and yet we're sending people to the moon. In September, my cousin tried reefer for the very first time, now he's doing horse ... it's June."

Not your typical, average, bright, sunny Top 40 hit, huh? It was as if Prince was serving you up and over-sized submarine sandwich with the problems of the world as the meat and a very simplistic synthesizer riff as the bread its served in between.

And it worked -- because this was not the prototypical back-beat laden song filled with Prince's screaming guitars and layers upon layers of synthesizers that could drown out the lyrics. As a matter of face, it was as if Prince meant to keep the musical tone down to a monotone feel because he needed to send his message to the masses.

As the first single to come from the album/CD of the same name, "Sign 'O' The Times" debuted at No. 35 on March 14, 1987, then became the biggest Top 40 mover the next week when it jumped 11 places to No. 24. On March 28, 1987, it was the biggest Top 40 mover of the week for the second straight week, leaping up 10 places from No. 24 to No. 14. Two weeks later, this over-the-top topical song reached the Top 10 at No. 7. One week later, it was in the Top 5 at No. 4. The next week, April 25, 1987, it moved up another notch to No. 3. But one week after that on May 2, the song dropped back to No. 5, kept away from No. 1 by Aretha Franklin & George Michael's duet "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" at No. 1 and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" at No. 2.

Still, a number of periodicals and online music services have heaped high praise on "Sign 'O' The Times" over the years with Rolling Stone ranking the song No. 304 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all-time. And in 1987, New Musical Express and Village Voice's Pazz & Jop named "Sign 'O' The Times" the best song of the year.

Prince didn't solve all the problems he laid out on the table in the song, but he at least he put those problems out on the table for the listeners to take notice. It is still considered one of his greatest songs ever.

"Sign 'O' The Times" was the song that showed Prince could change musical pattern in midstream.

And while he was one of the hottest musical artists on the planet.

The AT40 Blog/March 22, 1975: The No. 1 hit Frankie Valli didn't give up on

Still a part of the music scene in 1974, Frankie Valli turned 40 years old. Problem was he had not had a Top 40 hit of any kind in six years since his popular days as the lead voice of the legendary Four Seasons.

But Valli believed in a song that was given to him, a song co-written by young songwriter Kenny Nolan and a man whose work Valli was familiar with as the main producer for the Four Seasons, Bob Crewe. It was originally called "Blue Eyes In Georgia."

The song began as a Four Seasons project with the label they were signed to at that time, Motown Records, in '74. They recorded the song, but the company had no plans to release it as a single. However, Valli believed in the song and its beautiful story of a boy and girl who grow close to one another at the shore in Valli's native home state of New Jersey, she in fifth grade, he in sixth, and how they would walk home every day over "Barnegat Bridge and bay."

For the record, the bay exists ... but good luck in finding the bridge of that name. It was simply made up for artistic purposes.

Still, the tale of innocent love which plays a small role in both the play and movie version of Jersey Boys, the story of the Four Seasons, was one that Valli believed in. If Motown was not going to release this song with his group, at least they can let him out of his contract and give him the song.

Motown agreed. But the price for taking "My Eyes Adored You" with him was a pretty one for 1974 -- $4,000. Today, that'd be the equivalent of nearly $20,000.

Some ransom to get a song back for, huh?

But Valli had the money from the success of the Four Seasons -- and he believed in the song enough -- to buy it back from Motown. The next job was to shop the song around throughout the latter half of 1974. He tried big labels such as Capitol Records and Atlantic Records. They weren't introduced. He tried smaller labels trying to establish a name for themselves. Nope, no dice either.

This is Frankie Valli, the golden, falsetto voice of one of the legendary acts in the history of rock 'n roll. Someone had to believe in him and his group, right? He was still 40 years old, not 80.

Finally, after banging on doors and numerous phone calls, someone did give him a chance. It was Larry Uttal, the owner-president of small Private Stock Records. The company had been founded that year of 1974 and the 52-year-old Uttal was looking to make an immediate name for himself and the company.

When Valli came knocking on his door, Uttal was warm and welcoming. Uttal had been a part of the Bell Records company for five years and helped to establish a number of acts, such as The Fifth Dimension, The Box Tops, The Partridge Family and Tony Orlando and Dawn. By 1974, Bell was going through transition and a veteran of CBS Records named Clive Davis was ready to take over at the company and change the name of it to Arista. And 1974 was a perfect time for Uttal to get out and establish a new company.

Uttal, too, fell in love with "My Eyes Adored You" and didn't want Valli to re-record the song like a number of acts are asked to do when they come on to a new record label. He was willing to make the original version of the song he recorded at Motown the release, but he had one stipulation Valli had to abide by.

The song had to be a solo hit and not have the Four Seasons name on it. Valli was dejected, but again, he believed in the song. Private Stock released the song under Valli's name. It entered the Hot 100 the week of November 9, 1974, and began a painful and slow climb up the chart until it hit the Top 40 the week of January 18, 1975. From there, the trip to the top seemed to be a faster-paced ride. By February 15, the song entered the Top 10 at No. 9. From there, it moved to No. 7, No. 4, No. 3, No. 2 and on the weekend of March 22, 1975, reached No. 1 in its 19th week on the chart, the slowest a song had ever climbed to No. 1 in Hot 100 history at that time.

Valli fought for the rights to the song, won those, then celebrated a second win of having the song he believed in climb to No. 1, a victory as well for little Private Stock Records and Uttal. Uttal and the company capitalized on Valli's success by having him make an album called "Closeup," which also included the Top 10 followup "Swearin' To God" and Top 15 remake of the Ruby & The Romantics song "Our Day Will Come" as well as "My Eyes Adored You."

But Valli was signed to a one-album deal with Uttal and because of his success with those hits, he and the Four Seasons got Mike Curb's attention and signed with Curb Records, a subsidiary to Warner Brothers. Late in 1975, the group hit the Top 5 with "Who Loves You" and then No. 1 with the follow-up, "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night),"  the group's fifth No. 1 hit and first chart-topper in 12 years.

Valli's second career as a star, though, could not have happened had it not been for the song he believed in so much he bought it from Motown Records and took it to the little record company trying to make a name for itself.

It became the perfect wedding of partners needing one another.

And the perfect gift for loyal Valli/Four Seasons fans and music fans everywhere.

The AT40 Blog/March 17, 1984: They "Don't Know" all about Tracey Ullman

Comedians or comediennes don't make for great singers. Go through the list of comedians/comediennes and you 'll find no Top 40 songs being sung. You get Bill Cosby doing a take on Stevie Wonder's "Uptight" with his song "Little Ole Man" in 1967, but the comedian is mostly talking throughout the record.

And that's what made Tracey Ullman's appearance on American Top 40 in the spring of 1984 unique. She came in at No. 34, the highest debuting song of the week of March 17, 1984, with "They Don't Know," a song that was written and first recorded by Kirsty MacColl in 1979 with little success. When Ullman recorded it, her backing vocalist on the song was none other than the woman who wrote the song to begin with -- MacColl. Already a No. 2 hit in her native England, "They Don't Know" would ultimately peak at No. 8 and would be the only Top 40 hit in the U.S. for Ullman, born Trace Ullman in Slough, Berkshire, England, on December 30, 1959.

Ullman, though, was a comedienne, making her living on the British television show Three Of A Kind when she was approached by the wife of Stiff Records wife Dave Robinson at the local hairdresser if she wanted to make an album. Said Ullman, "I said, 'Yeah I want to make a record' I would've tried anything."

But the producer of Ullman's TV show was not so sure. Said that producer in a 2010 interview, "When I first met Miss Ullman, I was a TV producer, and I called her into my office in London and I told her that she had a big career in comedy, and she said to me, ‘Well actually, I’m doing a record next week,’ and I said, ‘Now listen here Miss Ullman, if I know anything about show business, is that you shouldn’t get involved with singing.' Imagine how stupid I felt about four months later, I’m in London driving around and I hear, ‘And now, the Top of the Pops, Tracey Ullman with ‘They Don’t Know About Us.’”

That man who had the doubts, TV producer Allan McKeown, married Ullman in late 1983 and the pair would be together raising two children until McKeown lost his battle with prostrate cancer on Christmas Eve, 2013, at the age of 67.

Then again, Ullman dealt with her share of heartbreak growing up. Her father had a heart attack and passed away when she was 6. Her mother had a difficult time trying to raise two young girls on her own and had to work odd jobs just to keep things above water. And when her mum was depressed, it would be Trace and her older sister Patti who would entertain their mother on the window sill of their home in Hackbridge by doing all kinds of entertaining skits.

Even in the worst of times, Ullman said it was having a sense of humor that got her through her childhood. When she was older, she was awarded a scholarship to attend the Italia Conti Academy of the Arts in London, one of the first students at the school established in 1971. Always battling the looks of other students there because of her "ethnic features," Ullman managed to earn a role in the ballet troupe of the German version of the show Gigi at 16. She joined the dance troupe Second Generation after returning from Berlin and branched out into musical theater, doing the West End-based stages for Grease, Elvis The Musical and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

She branched out into comedy theater where she did the improvisational Four In A Million and won Best Newcomer Award honors for her portrayal of born-again Christian chanteuse Beverly. Soon after, she was given the chance to continue to make funny ways in the TV show Three Of A Kind. At 21 years old, Ullman's career took off.

Ullman would have a number of UK on the record chart hits from her two albums, the first one being "You Broke My Heart In 17 Places." She would continue to do comedy on shows like Girls On Top and A Kick Up The Eighties when U.S. TV producer James L. Brooks of Taxi and The Mary Tyler Moore Show fame approached her about doing a show in the U.S. in 1986.

Years earlier, a clairvoyant had told a younger Ullman that one day she would be approached by a producer to go to the U.S. and become a big star there. She more than took advantage of that and in 1987, work began on The Tracey Ullman Show on fledgling FOX TV. It was a comedy variety skit show that had Ullman playing many different characters and whose choreographer had just worked with Janet Jackson on the music videos for her "Control" album -- Paula Abdul.

The series lasted three seasons and earned four Emmy nominations. But the show isn't remembered for those Emmy nominations or the dancing or anything Ullman did really. It was best known for what Brooks' friend, Matt Groening, put together as a small side project "short" on the show -- a cartoon family called The Simpsons. By 1989, the Simpsons had their own gig on FOX and Ullman's show came to an end the following May.

So if you need someone to "thank" for the longest-running cartoon show in history, it's Tracey Ullman.

Since her show, you can find Ullman via cable television, most famously her HBO show Tracey Takes On ... and her 2005 Emmy-nominated show Tracey Ullman: Live And Exposed. In 2007, Ullman moved over to HBO rival Showtime and in 2008, debuted Tracey Ullman's State Of The Union, which was 19 episodes long over three seasons.

In 2014, Ullman stayed busy: She played the role of Genevieve Scherbatsky in three episodes of the TV series How I Met Your Mother, did an episode of Sofia The First, and played Jack's mother in the Walt Disney movie Into The Woods. She also played Lily Martin in the New York City Center-hosted play The Band Wagon.

And in early March 2015, it was revealed that Ullman was to do her first BBC-based TV show in 30 years -- and the six-show, comedy skit series is called, you guessed it, The Tracey Ullman Show.

Still, if that wasn't enough, she was co-starring in Paul McCartney's 2013 music video for the song "Queenie Eye." Really, she was just paying the Beatle legend back for him making a cameo at the end of her 1984 breakthrough hit "They Don't Know" as she was filming a small role in his 1984 movie Give My Regards To Broad Street. 

Tracey Ullman's music career may have been short, but it was just a small part of the talents this British lady has put forward practically her whole life. And "They Don't Know" had a small starring role in it.

Not bad for an established comedienne, huh?