The AT40 Blog/May 28, 1977: Being 'Everything" counts

If Andy Gibb had nobody related to him in the record business, getting in it may have been a tougher deal for him. But since he had three brothers who had already been stars for nearly a decade, it didn't hurt to have those connections.

The youngest of the four Gibb brothers, Andy Gibb found out early he had the chops to be a credible singer and guitarist. He stared his first, Melody Fayre (named after a song by his brothers, The Bee Gees) when he was 16 years old. Already dropped out of school, Gibb had established himself as a singer/guitarist by this point thanks to gigs he played in Ibiza, Spain (where his parents lived) and the Isle of Man, where older brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice were born.

With Melody Fayre, he got to work with a pair of friends who had the same musical chops, John Alderson on guitar and John Stringer on drums. And it didn't hurt that Gibb and his buddies had a credible manager who knew the ins and outs of the music business to help them along -- Gibb's mother, Barbara. Andy Gibb had already recorded a pair of songs written and produced by brother Maurice, so he had established himself.

However, realizing that he couldn't make it in the business from small Isle of Man, Barry, the oldest of the Gibb brothers, urged baby brother to go to Australia where it all happened in a great way for him and his brothers in the 1960s. So he, Alderson and Stringer escaped to Australia to make it in the music business there. Once there, they were able to record six songs Gibb wrote and a man named Col Joye produced. Joye was the Bee Gees' first producer in Australia when they established themselves. They even made an appearance on the Ernie Sigley Show, the hottest variety show at the time featuring the radio and TV personality.

It seemed like Melody Fayre was on its way, but there was one problem: Gibb was so comfortable in his brothers' shadow, not needing to do a whole lot while they helped finance his career, that for long periods at a time, Gibb would go walkabout. This miffed his despondent band mates that both Johns packed up and headed home to England.

That left Gibb alone to make it on his own, but not for long as he joined a group called Zenta. In 1975, Zenta was the opening act for hot artists coming through Australia at the time such as the Bay City Rollers and Sweet. They recorded a song that was set for release called "Can't Stop Dancing," penned by American funny man Ray Stevens. The song was never released, though Gibb would do it later on in a performance on the Australian version of Bandstand. And "Can't Stop Dancing" would find a Top 40 home in America for the Captain & Tennille, who took it to No. 13 on the chart in early 1977.

By 1975, Gibb recorded an album away from Zenta. One of the songs Gibb recorded for the album was his composition "Words And Music," which would get his foot in the door on the pop chart in Australia, though it would peak at No. 78.

In 1976, Robert Stigwood, the Australian in charge of RSO Records, the Bee Gees' record label, as well as the Bee Gees' manager, figured the time was right for Gibb, now 18, to make it big in the business. He signed him to RSO internationally after hearing his demos and soon after that, Gibb was once again moving, this time to where his brothers were living in Miami Beach, Florida. He was to work on songs with his oldest brother Barry and Barry's producing partners, Karl Richardson and Albhy Galuten, the songs that would make up Gibb's international debut album, "Flowing Rivers."

In Bermuda to do work, Andy and Barry Gibb set out to write songs, but by the time baby brother Andy wanted to add something to a new composition his brother was working on, Barry was done with it. Said Andy to Andrew Hughes for the book, The Bee Gees -- Tales Of The Brother Gibb. "So, once we discussed it all and got the deal together, me and Barry locked ourselves in a bedroom and Barry just started writing. When Barry writes, it is very hard to collaborate with him, because he is so quick. And before I knew it, he was starting to do the chorus of ['I Just Want to Be Your Everything'], and I thought, 'Wow what a hook!' He's an expert at his craft. Within about 20 minutes, he'd written a number one record; and then we went right into another one."

That one would be "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water," which Andy was able to get on fast enough with his brother to co-write. But that would be the later single from the album.

Barry Gibb, who was on the early path of an amazing second career in the business starting with the 1975 No. 1 hit "Jive Talkin'," provided the backing vocals, while right next door to the Gibbs doing "Flowing Rivers," the Eagles were finishing up recording their landmark "Hotel California" album at Miami's Criteria Studios. Barry Gibb was able to persuade newest Eagles member Joe Walsh to come into his studio to provide guitar on a couple of tracks, including "I Just Want To Be Your Everything."

With Galuten providing synthesizer work on the song, the Gibbs laid down "I Just Want To Be Your Everything." The song would be the first single from "Flowing Rivers" and made its Hot 100 debut in late April 1977. On the week ending May 28, 1977, "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" made its Top 40 debut at No. 37. And throughout June, the song climbed steadily up the Top 40 until reaching the Top 10 by early July.

Then on July 30, 1977, the song Barry Gibb wrote in 20 minutes, had climbed to No. 1 in its 10th week in the Top 40. It stayed at the top a solid three weeks before being pushed down to No. 2 by the Emotions' first No. 1 hit, "Best Of My Love."

But a funny thing happened -- "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" did not go easily into the night. It held at No. 2 for three solid weeks behind "Best Of My Love" before finally falling to No. 3 the next week, the week of September 10, 1977.

And just when it looked as if "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" would make its descent down the chart, it made the weird 180-degree move and moved back to No. 1 on AT40 the week of September 17, something that had never been before (normallly songs that jumped back to No. 1 only dropped as low as No. 2). However, "Everything" dropped to No. 6 the week of September 24, 1977, as "Best Of My Love" picked up a fifth week at the top.

But in all that time, Andy Gibb became a 19-year-old superstar that made the covers of teen magazines regularly and whose "Flowing Rivers" album cover poster was on the walls of young girls everywhere.

The youngest Gibb had established himself as a star. "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" lasted on the Top 40 for 23 weeks, finally falling off in late October. And the success of that debut allowed Stigwood and RSO to promote the youngest brother to the hilt throughout those months ... meaning they didn't have to rush to get a second single out. By early November 1977, the newest Gibb single was released -- "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water." And just like the first hit, that song climbed the Top 40 steadily after debuting in December and would make it to No. 1 by March, flanked in the top spot by a  pair of No. 1 hits by his brothers thanks to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, "Stayin' Alive" and "Night Fever."

And it also allowed Gibb the time to record another album with his older brother, "Shadow Dancing." The title track debuted in the Top 40 in April 1978 and climbed the chart steadily until hitting No. 1 in June, then spent seven weeks at the top to become the No. 1 hit of the year. And though "An Everlasting Love" and "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" ended Gibb's run of three straight No. 1 hits to start his career, it helped to continue the teen heartthrob's success.

But for large as his success was with his brothers, the shadow was too large for Andy Gibb to escape. And making decisions to use drugs would rule his day throughout the 1980s. He would never completely recover and on March 10, 1988, just five days after his 30th birthday, Andy Gibb was dead at the age of 30 from an overdose.

It may have been a case of "too much, too soon" and some young artists have had a problem coping with such success early on. Who knows if Andy Gibb would have had a second career, maybe with his own music ruling the day.

We will never know. But that run of hits he had to start his career are what most everyone remembers. "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" may have been written in 20 minutes by Barry Gibb, but it's lasted a lifetime for the youngest of the Gibb brothers ... well over a generation since his passing.

The AT40 Blog/May 12, 1979: "Family" wins out

To this day, it is one of the most recognizable songs in the Disco Era. It's even become a sports anthem and helped to spur a baseball team on to a World Series championship the year of its release.

But it actually took some cajoling by the men who wrote the song, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of the group Chic, to get "We Are Family" released as the second single for the act they were working with, Sister Sledge.

The sisters -- Kathy, Joni, Debbie and Kim -- first put together their act in 1971 as teenagers in their hometown of Philadelphia. Their debut album, 1975's "Circle Of Love," made the Top 60 on the R&B album chart, but failed to make the Top 200 pop album chart. And so Atco Records eventually let the sisters go and in 1977, they were signed to Cotillion Records, a New York City-based label and a subsidiary to Atlantic Records.

This was actually the big time for the sisters. In 1977, they released "Together," their second album, but this album failed to chart altogether, not making either the R&B or pop album charts. The sisters were in a rut -- they could sound great on an album, but when no one is paying attention to your records, why bother?

The three oldest sisters, meanwhile, turned to getting their college degrees. Their careers were at a crossroads by 1978 and they were going to need something to fall back on if whatever their third album was going to become failed once again. They could see the writing on the wall as well as the people who pushed them to be stars.

At about that time, the two leaders of a new disco band called Chic showed interest toward Sister Sledge. Rodgers, the band's guitarist, and Edwards, the group's bass player, had heard the group's 1977 failed album and thought maybe a change in a different direction might get people interested in them.

So the pair worked with their Atlantic Records mates to record an album that would turn heads the sisters' ways. When the pair showed interest toward the sisters, it was Atlantic Records president Jerry Greenberg who gave Rodgers and Edwards a review of who they were going to work with. He showed them with high praise of what they do musically and everything they did, they did as a "family."

And so the pair worked on two things. First, they wanted the sisters to blend more together on the songs they were doing. Gone were a lot of the solos of the recent album and in were songs that all four could sing together on, though there'd still be a main lead singer, which in this case was the baby of the family, 19-year-old Kathy.

The other thing they worked on: A track that would be the basis of who they were, simply on the one conversation the Chic pair had with the record label president.

When it was time to record the song, though, the sisters had no working song lyrics. All they knew was they were to sing together the chorus when directed by them:

"We are fa-mi-ly. I've got all my sisters with me. We are fa-mi-ly. Get up everybody and sing." 

Now as for the chorus, Edwards and Rodgers were literally working on the fly as they were recording the song. As a matter of fact, the story goes that while the sisters were recording "We Are Family," it was Rodgers who supplied the lyrics to Kathy for her to sing over the music. Somehow -- maybe miraculously -- Kathy Sledge nailed the vocal in one take and with the sisters singing their heart out alongside an enthusiastic young man wanting to get his career off the ground doing backing vocals named Luther Vandross, both Rodgers and Edwards figured, "A-ha! We have the breakthrough single this group is looking for!"

But when it came time to push for the release of "We Are The Family" as the first single from the album of the same name, it was Greenberg -- the man who painted a glowing picture of the sisters to the duo -- who rejected the idea. Instead, Greenberg went a different route in the winter of 1979. He selected another track from the album with a very infectious disco tone to it as the first single.

Greenberg apparently knew what he was doing because "He's The Greatest Dancer" got the girls into the Top 40 on the pop chart for the first time and got them as high as No. 9. More impressively, it not only became Sister Sledge's first Top 40 R&B hit, it went to No. 1.

With Sister Sledge out there for the whole world to see, Greenberg decided to pull the trigger on the album's title cut next. And so in mid-April 1979, "We Are Family" was released and on the week of May 12, 1979, "We Are Family" made its Top 40 debut as the highest debut of the week at No. 27. One week later, it leaped to No. 13 and the week after that, jumped to No. 6. Looked like it was bound for No. 1.

The next week, it moved up to places to No. 4, then No. 3 on June 9, 1979. The next week, it got to No. 2. No. 1 seemed within reach. But the sisters could not take down Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" from the top spot. That song was entrenched at No. 1 for three non-consecutive weeks and after seven weeks in the Top 40, the song dropped to No. 4 on June 30, but not without being part of a Hot 100/Top 40 first as being part of the first-ever Top 5 featuring all women (Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell" at No. 1, "Hot Stuff" and Summer's "Bad Girls" at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, "We Are Family" at No. 4 and Rickie Lee Jones' "Chuck E's In Love" at No. 5).

The first outside project from Chic featuring Rodgers and Edwards was a smashing success and they'd go on to do more projects over the years with other artists such as Diana Ross, David Bowie and Duran Duran. And the story of "We Are Family" may have ended quietly as that song that nearly hit No. 1.

But during the 1979 baseball season, the Pittsburgh Pirates, led by future Hall of Famer Willie "Pops" Stargell, the National League's co-Most Valuable Player, was bringing "We Are Family" as the team's theme song. And pretty soon, the public address system at Three Rivers Stadium began playing "We Are Family" regularly during games. And in Game 3 of the 1979 National League Championship Series, the wives and girlfriends of the Pirates players jumped up on the roof of the Pirates' dugout at Three Rivers Stadium and they began dancing to "We Are Family" as it was being played. Mere innings later, the Pirates had finished off a sweep of the Cincinnati Reds an were on to the World Series to face the team with the best record in baseball that year, the Baltimore Orioles.

"We Are Family" became the rallying cry by Stargell and the Pirates when they fell behind 3-1 in the best-of-7 World Series. But they won Game 5, then won Games 6 and 7 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore to win the World Series for the first time since 1971.

The song has been a sports anthem for years and has been in movies such as Private Benjamin, Madea's Family Reunion, The Bird Cage, The Full Monty and Mission Impossible: III. It was also played during the Democratic National Convention in New York in 2004.

While the song took on a life of its own, the Top 40 chart life of Sister Sledge was far shorter. In 1982, they remade the Mary Wells No. 1 classic of 1964, "My Guy" and made it into a Top 25 hit. But that would be it here. In 1985, the sisters stunned the music world when "Frankie" made them stars in England, hitting No. 1 in June and July of that year, spending four weeks at the top.

These days, the sisters are a trio now with Kathy leaving for a solo career in 1989. But every so often, the four come together to do some shows or in 2001, re-record "We Are Family" in a show of solidarity in this country after the attacks on American soil on September 11 that year.

"We Are Family" is a part of everyday life and not just because it was a disco anthem.

It also became the savior for four sisters' careers together.

The AT40 Blog/May 8, 1982: "Titles" was all Greek to us ... until a title change

When it started its chart run on December 12, 1981, on the Billboard Hot 100, the song was simply called "Titles," called that for its usage while it was playing over the titles of a hot new movie called Chariots Of Fire.

And thus began the slow climb up the Hot 100. As 1981 turned to 1982, "Titles" was only at No. 88. Usually, that's not a good sign of a successful chart run.

But something happened. The movie it came from began to get Oscar-worthy buzz. And before long, that movie about two track and field athletes from two different faiths -- a Scottish Christian and an English Jew -- fighting for a spot for Great Britain on the 1924 Summer Olympics team, found itself nominated for seven Oscar nominations, including Best Film.

So, too, was the score composed by a man born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou in Volos, Greece on March 29, 1943. Spending most of his life in music, Vangelis helped to form a band that was borne from the French student riots of 1968 with another future Greek music star, Demis Roussos, called Aphrodite's Child. The group sold over 20 million copies of a pair of albums, but it was their third album, "666," based off the Bible's last book, Revelations, that turned heads. But it also caused a rift between Vangelis and Roussos and the band broke up in 1971 before the release of "666."

Vangelis went solo and was a part of 14 solo albums and soundtracks between 1970-80. In 1980, Vangelis began a relationship musically with Yes lead singer Jon Anderson and recorded two albums, "Short Stories" and "The Friends Of Mr. Cairo." A pioneer of electronic music, keyboard wiz Vangelis produced the album that combined his work along with Anderson's vocals, the most famous song from either album being "I Hear You Now" in 1980 from "Short Stories."

It was in 1979 when Vangelis put together the soundtrack to a Frederic Rossif documentary titled Opera Sauvage. His work got the attention of film makers and commercial writers, who used his work from Opera Sauvage for commercials for Barilla pasta (in Italy) and for the wines of Ernest and Julio Gallo (in the U.S.).

In 1981, Vangelis was asked to write the soundtrack to Chariots Of Fire, which like most of his previous work, was heavy on synthesizers and electronic music.

Yet the track called "Titles" wasn't exactly enticing anyone to go out and buy the 45-rpm single or the soundtrack from the movie it came from.

But after moving up to No. 85 on January 9, 1982, the song finally earned a star on the Hot 100 chart for the week ending January 16, moving up to No. 78 -- and immediately losing that star by moving up a mere three notches to No. 75 the next week.

That's when the song's fortunes turned around by a simple change of title, For the week of January 30, 1982, "Titles" became "Chariots Of Fire" and moved up from No. 75 to No. 68. Then it jumped up nine more notches to land at No. 59. Then the big push took place -- "Chariots Of Fire" jumped up from No. 59 to No. 44 on February 13. It was inevitable that "Chariots Of Fire" was going to be a Top 40 hit.

And on the week of February 20, it leaped into the Top 40 at No. 34, the 11th week the song was on the Hot 100. After a four-notch climb to No. 30, it bolted up 10 notches to No. 20 on March 6, 1982.

Three weeks later and in its 16th week on the Hot 100, "Chariots Of Fire" had landed in the Top 10 at No. 8, moving up six notches from No. 14.

This was all in time for the 54th annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. On the night of March 29, 1982, Chariots Of Fire won four Academy Awards and stunned the Best Film field led by 12-time nominee Reds by winning. And for his 39th birthday that night, Vangelis won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the movie.

How did that translate? Very well, thank you. Suddenly, people who wouldn't buy a song called "Titles" were certainly wanting to get their hands on a small little vinyl disc called "Chariots Of Fire." Two weeks after crashing the Top 10, "Chariots Of Fire" had climbed to No. 3. But it got stuck in that position for three straight weeks, just about giving up on its long run up the countdown.

Then came the final push -- on the week of May 1, "Chariots Of Fire" displaced the Go-Go's "We Got The Beat" from the No. 2 spot. Now only one song stood in the way -- Joan Jett & The Blackhearts' "I Love Rock 'n Roll," which was now in its seventh straight week at the top.

Would "Chariots Of Fire" finish the race and get to No. 1?

That would be answered the very next week -- the week of May 8, 1982, when "Chariots Of Fire," the song that once started off as simply "Titles" and struggled on the Hot 100 in December and most of January, pushed up one more notch to land at No. 1, the first and only No. 1 hit for Vangelis and the first time that a Greek native hit the top.

And by getting to No. 1 in its 22nd week on the Hot 100, "Chariots Of Fire" became the new champion for slow rides to the top, breaking the previous record of 21 weeks held by Nick Gilder's "Hot Child In The City" in 1978 and Robert John's "Sad Eyes" in 1979.

Unfortunately for Vangelis, who continued to make soundtracks and albums and CDs, he would never have another Top 40 hit. But while his career on the charts didn't last, his composition more than has stood the test of time. Anytime there's a long running race, chances are that runners will be sent off at the starter's pistol to this song. And in 2012, the song was played (and parodied) at the Olympic Games of London thanks to Mr. Bean himself, Rowan Atkinson.

"Chariots Of Fire" made it big on the chart. "Titles" would never have seen the light of Top 40 day the way the chart run was going.

That's how important the song became: A simple title change that didn't sound generic.

If not for that, Vangelis may not have had a No. 1 hit and may never have been praised for one of the greatest movie songs and instrumentals of all time.

The AT40 Blog/May 7, 1988: A 'Wish' come true

These days, he's known as Sananda Maitreya and his music, quite a bit different and more stripped down than it was in the 1980s.

Then again, no one could make a louder impact with a debut album quite like his "former" persona did.

You see, back in 1988, Sananda Maitreya was better known as Terence Trent D'Arby, the name he was born with in 1962 in New York City and the name he grew up with in the central Florida town of De Land, the name he used as a younger man to box his way to a Golden Gloves championship, while fighting out of a famed church/gymnasium in Orlando.

Music, however, was D'Arby's passion. After one year of college at nearby University of Central Florida, D'Arby quit and joined the Army, was posted to Fort Sill, Okla., then assigned to the 3rd Armored Division in Frankfurt, West Germany. It was there he was part of a music group called The Touch. However, that time with the band took away from his time with his Army unit and in April 1983, D'Arby was court-martialed for going AWOL and was dishonorably discharged. D'Arby kept working with The Touch and even recorded songs with the band that would be the basis of a 1984 album, "Love On Time," which would get re-released in 1989 once D'Arby established himself.

D'Arby left West Germany and in 1986, relocated to London and joined another group, The Bojangels. It was there he worked a deal out to be a solo artist and in 1987, he was signed to Columbia Records. D'Arby and co-producers Martyn Ware and Howard Grey worked on the first album, an album that took a few months to put together. When it was finally all recorded, mixed and placed on an album, it was released in the summer of 1987, first in England.

The album had a pretty complex title -- "Introducing The Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby."

No doubt a mouthful. It contained all songs written by D'Arby with the exception of the Smokey Robinson classic "Who's Lovin' You." The album featured the seductiveness of "Sign Your Name," to the rousing James Brown soundalike "Dance Little Sister" to the pop sound that got him established on "If You Let Me Stay." In the UK, "If You Let Me Stay" hit No. 2, but in the U.S., it never caught on, peaking at No. 67.

A bit of a concern for an album/CD hitting it big overseas, but not on D'Arby's born soil of America. D'Arby was assured that his album would be a huge success, but he also went a step too far, calling his album "the most important one since the Beatles' 'Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band'" album in 1967.

He was called everything from brash to cocky to arrogant and his statement rubbed those in music and in the media wrong. Now, though, he had to prove he had a winning song on an album that he just gave huge praise to.

The next release in the UK was the sassy "Wishing Well." It did well, too, there, peaking at No. 4, featuring D'Arby's rough vocals against a simple music backdrop of song co-writer Sean Oliver's bass guitar and D'Arby's own drum syncopation. But the most memorable part of the song is that melodic whistle-sounding keyboard that made it irresistible and one of the most memorable songs of the 1980s.

In the U.S., D'Arby and Columbia had nothing to lose. It hit the Billboard Hot 100 on January 16, 1988, debuting at No. 79. From there, the song rose modestly until the week of February 27, 1988, when it made its Top 40 debut at No. 40. From there, it would be a two-month excursion up the Top 40 while D'Arby was basking in the glow of being nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist and winning a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Male for the album.

It moved from No. 40 to No. 35 to No. 27 to No. 20 to No. 17 to No. 12 by April 2, 1988. The next week, D'Arby moved up from No. 12 to No. 10 to become the 25-year-old's first Top 10 hit. But it wasn't done yet.

The next week, D'Arby made a big leap of five notches from No. 10 to No. 5. By now, it was becoming clear that "Hardline" was about to have a "talked-about" No. 1 hit. It was only a matter of time. It jumped from No. 5 to No. 4 to No. 2 and finally, the week of May 7, 1988, the 17th week on the Billboard Hot 100, D'Arby had his first No. 1 song, spending one week at the time.

When talking about the song, Ben Green of The New Yorker credited D'Arby's songs from "Hardline" for "bringing soul music into the 1980s." The hip-hop sound was becoming clearer as the '80s were leaving and the '90s were arriving. D'Arby's sound, especially on "Wishing Well," was fresh and hip and helped to lead the revolution.

D'Arby's newly minted No. 1 hit also helped spark "Hardline" to its peak position of No. 4 on the Top 200 album chart the same week. And from there, D'Arby's success soared. He went to No. 4 with "Sign Your Name," which had peaked at No. 2 in the UK and then went to No. 30 here with "Dance Little Sister," a Top 20 UK hit.

However, little did D'Arby or anyone else know that the singer's mega-success was only going to last that one album. In 1989, "Neither Fish Nor Flesh" only got as high as No. 12 in the UK and No. 61 on the U.S. album chart. And though "Sympathy Or Damn" would give D'Arby another Top 5 album in the UK, it only got as high as No. 119 in the U.S.

As far as songs were considered, D'Arby would never match the success of the songs from "Hardline." He had five more Top 20 hits in the UK, but none of them would crack the Top 10. In the U.S., D'Arby had one more chart single as "Delicate," a duet with up-and-coming British singer Des'ree, peaked at No. 74 in 1994. D'Arby, though, did co-write "Letting Go" with Hans Zimmer for the Robert DeNiro/Wesley Snipes movie The Fan.

In 2001 and his best works well behind him, D'Arby made a personal decision in his life. Declaring that "Terence Trent D'Arby was dead... he watched his suffering as he died a noble death," D'Arby legally changed his name to Sananda Francesco Maitreya.

His music is far more stripped down compared to the slick songs he wrote and co-produced on "Hardline." He's released eight CDs under his new name over the last 14 years, the most recent being 2014's "The Rise of the Zugebrian Time Lords," and none have charted. Part of the reason for that is that Maitreya's works these days are being sold online through his own record company.

The artist formerly known as Terence Trent D'Arby continued to do work on movie soundtracks with songs in such films over the years as Frankie And Johnny, Beverly Hills Cop III and Knocked Up.

Sananda Maitreya continues to keep busy in his early 50s. But as Terence Trent D'Arby, he was the hottest thing going in 1988 -- thanks to a song with a memorable melodic hook that will live on for generations to come from an album he unabashedly said was as important as the Beatles' most famous work.

It was quite a time to be him then.