The spring of 1980 proved to be fruitful for two veteran singer-songwriters who had not had much in success for years.
And they could thank a one-year old soundtrack song for their success.
Billy Preston was dubbed "The Fifth Beatle" in 1969 for his work with the Fab Four on their No. 1 hit "Get Back" and the flip side of that single, "Don't Let Me Down," laying down his work as a keyboardist. At one point, John Lennon wanted to take him along to wherever the Beatles went off to for which Paul McCartney countered what his songwriting partner said by saying that it was difficult already reaching agreements with the original four guys.
Preston also worked with the Rolling Stones on five of their albums in the 1970s. The star of the Nat King Cole movie about blues man W.C. Handy, St. Louis Blues, for which he played Handy as a young boy in 1958, Preston broke through in 1972 with the No. 2 instrumental hit "Outta-Space" and hit No. 1 singing "Will It Go 'Round In Circles" and "Nothing From Nothing." He also co-wrote Joe Cocker's memorable No. 5 pop hit, "You're So Beautiful" in 1975.
But after making history as the first musical performer on the NBC show that would become Saturday Night Live, Preston left the music scene. By the late 1970s, Preston was let go by A&M Records, however he wasn't without work for long, signing with Motown Records in 1979.
While Preston was trying to find his way back with a new record label, it was on that same record label that Syreeta Wright made a name for herself. Moved into Detroit as a young child, Wright began working at Motown Records as a receptionist after graduating high school in 1964. Before long, Wright was serving as the personal secretary for Motown songwriter-producer Mickey Stevenson, just like one of his proteges, Martha Reeves of Martha & The Vandellas, had done before.
In 1966, she was found singing outside a studio by Eddie Holland of Motown's most successful songwriting partnership, Holland-Dozier-Holland. She was invited to sing the demo tapes that Diana Ross and the Supremes would sing in the studio. One of the songs she would sing was called "I Can't Give Back The Love I Feel For You." Motown CEO Berry Gordy felt so strongly about what he heard in the demo that he said that Wright should be recording the song instead of the star attraction. It didn't chart, but it did get her some attention.
When Ross left for a solo career in January 1970, Wright was considered to be her replacement. Instead, though, Motown went with Jean Terrell instead, and a year later, Gordy had some reservations about the decision he made. He reportedly looked to make the change of Wright for Terrell, but Supreme mainstay Mary Wilson told Gordy there was no way that was going to happen.
Instead of pouting, Wright started to work as a songwriter, suggested to her by fellow label mate Stevie Wonder. Wonder and Wright put the notes and words together on a number of songs: "It's A Shame" for The Spinners, and two songs that Wonder would make hits out of: "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" and "If You Really Love Me."
Before long, Wright and Wonder were falling in love and in 1970, the 20-year-old Wonder married the 23-year-old Wright. They would stay married, though, for 18 months, divorcing early in 1972. But even after the divorce, the pair would work together on a pair of Wright albums and she would work with him on his breakthrough album, "Talking Back."
Still, for whatever success she had as a songwriter and as a backup vocalist, success as a main singer eluded Wright. And as the 1970s were nearing an end, there was uncertainty if Wright would ever make it in the business in what she wanted to do.
Then fate intervened in late 1978. Wright was called into a meeting at Motown Records where she would meet newly signed Preston for the first time. There was a song awaiting the pair to record for a new movie called Fast Break, and was written by the songwriting team of Carol Connors and David Shire. Connors was born Annette Kleinbard in New Brunswick, N.J. on November 13, 1940, and at 18 years old, she sang the lead vocal on the one and only hit by the group The Teddy Bears, "To Know Him Is To Love Him," a song written and produced by group member Phil Spector. As a songwriter, Connors wrote "Hey Little Cobra" in 1964 for the Rip Chords, but her greatest success was co-writing the dramatic theme song from the Sylvester Stallone movie Rocky, "Gonna Fly Now" by Bill Conti, a No. 1 hit in 1977. Shire was the husband of actress Talia Shire, who played Stallone's wife, Adrienne, in Rocky.
Wright and Preston would not only get into the studio in early 1979 to record the song, but they would record other songs for the movie as well. The movie was released on March 2, 1979, but nothing came of the movie, which was a flop, or the soundtrack, where nothing got released. What was worse was the fact Wright's contract was coming up and the idea of extending it was not even on the table.
Six months later, the movie was released overseas ... and to the same bad critiques from foreign film critics. But something happened over in Europe – Motown UK released "With You I'm Born Again," and the song took off up the charts in England. By December 1979, it had reached No. 2 in the UK, kept out of the top spot by Pink Floyd's first No. 1 hit, "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2."
Watching the song fly up the charts in England was good enough reason for Motown Records to give the song another try. With its absolutely lush arrangement and Preston's and Wright's voice flowing together magnificently, it was amazing the song was never released in the first place.
The song made its Hot 100 debut at an auspicious No. 98 on December 8, 1979, climbing to No. 94 and then No. 92 the last full week of the 1970s. Then 1980 arrived and "With You I'm Born Again" struggled to make any moves, inching up to No. 91, then holding their for a second straight week.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to release the song as a single when the movie it was from had long been gone and no one could truly remember the premise of it, let alone who starred in it.
"With You I'm Born Again" began to gain momentum, moving into the Top 90 and moved into the No. 88 spot on January 19, 1980. Then it moved up 10 places to No. 78. Then it was a climb of 11 spots to No. 67. The next week, it was a 12-point climb to No. 55. By February 16, 1980, "With You I'm Born Again" was in the Top 50 at No. 48. A week later, it moved up to No. 44.
Then on March 1, 1980, in its 13th week on the Hot 100, "With You I'm Born Again" moved into the Top 40 at No. 36. From that point, it was nothing but going up for the Preston/Syreeta song. It moved up to No. 31, then No. 25, No. 22, No. 17 and No. 15.
On the weekend of April 12, 1980, Preston and Wright leap-frogged into the Top 10 at No. 7, moving up eight notches and acting as the biggest mover within the Top 40. A week later, the song jumped to No. 4, where it would finally wind up peaking for four straight weeks.
By the time the song finally dropped off the chart, it had spent 29 weeks on the Hot 100, also peaking at No. 2 on the adult contemporary chart.
Motown Records offered Wright a contract, which she signed, thanks to the success of a song that took a year to get any traction.
The unfortunate thing, though, for the pair was that neither would have a Top 40 hit again. Preston would eventually accept a bandleader role as the musical director for a late night talk show hosted by late funny man David Brenner. On the other hand, Wright recorded three albums for Motown, none of which made any dent for her, and left the record label after over 20 years in 1985. She recorded an album for Motorcity Records and in 1993, she took on the role as Mary Magdalene alongside two of the original members of the play Jesus Christ Superstar, Ted Neeley and fellow one-hit wonder Carl Anderson ("Friends And Lovers" with Gloria Loring in 1986).
At the turn of the century, though, Wright's health began to fail her. She contracted both breast cancer and bone cancer. She began doing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. But it was also messing up the passageways for her heart to properly functional. On July 6, 2004, Wright passed away from congestive heart failure, a side effect caused by her chemotherapy.
Meanwhile, Preston continued to record and tour and do it constantly going into the early part of the 21st century. But hypertension he was suffering finally led to him suffering bad kidneys. Preston had a kidney transplant in 2002, but it wasn't helping his health, which continued to deteriorate. He checked in for drug rehabilitation, but began to suffer from pericarditis. Finally on June 6, 2006, Presotn passed away from complications due to malignant hypertension, resulting in kidney failure and other complications. Preston was only 59 years old.
Hard to believe that a decade has passed since losing both artists, who had their own successes in the music industry. And when all was said and done, it turns out "With You I'm Born Again" was about the only thing that remained from a funny movie about basketball that either no one saw or no one remembered.
And that is remarkable in its own way considering how much direction these two artists needed after years of misfires.
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