It might be, it could be, it is...three weeks in a row on time....
It was the spring and summer of 1974 when my musical journey began in earnest, so this week's featured tune would have been...a hit right before that, but still close enough for rock and roll. It was all over the radio when my family moved to Indiana in December of 1973 (first week's big surprise? Twenty inches of snow and the discovery of snow days), so it most assuredly had to be WLS-89 out of Chicago where I heard it again and again because it would be a couple more years before we owned a car that had that new-fangled FM radio....
Every now and again here on Friday Night Jukebox, I come across an artist that I had thought was a one hit wonder but actually had quite a successful career, and David Essex would be one such case. Born in Essex, U.K. in 1947, he originally had dreams of a soccer career but turned to music in his teens. Essex released his first single in 1975 (ripe old age of eighteen) and toured with his first band, David Essex and Mood Indigo, for two years. He'd release seven more singles and star in Godspell before the double whammy of starring in the critically acclaimed coming of age movie That'll Be the Day and the international success of our single of the week. While the song would be his only international fame, he parlayed the two into nineteen top forty singles and sixteen top forty albums in his native Great Britain, and would have numerous acting roles in movies, television, and theater there as well. For his career, Essex has released twenty-six studio albums, five live albums, and sixty-eight singles (not to mention numerous soundtracks and cast recordings). He continues to release new music on his own label and still tours the U.K. every year.
Fun Fact: As I was doing my half-assed research for the week, I had a feeling that back in the day I'd seen Essex in a movie about a fictional musician but when I read the synopsis of That'll Be the Day it didn't seem familiar. As I read more, I learned that Essex starred in a sequel to that film called Stardust, and when I read the ending to that film it came back to me as it's not an ending you're likely to forget.
"Rock On" was the first single released from his 1973 album, the rather correspondingly named Rock On. The single would reach #5 (with a bullet!) in the U.S. and #3 in the U.K. The album hit #32 here in America and #7 in Great Britain. It should be noted again this week, that our neighbors to the north delivered a #1 for "Rock On," proving yet again that there are so, so, so many cool kids in Canada!
You know you're onto something special when the Wikipedia entry for the single is about five times as long as the entry for the album. And special "Rock On" is--just a bass guitar (one of the greatest bass lines ever), percussion, and a smattering of carefully inserted strings and horns. Essex's vocals are enhanced with plenty of reverberation as he delivers a paean to rock and roll's past...and its future. Extra, extra credit for slyly name checking Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" and Carl Perkin's "Blue Suede Shoes," as well as giving a shout out to the colossus of cool, James Dean. A tour de force, a signature song of the seventies--if you're going to have one moment of rock and roll greatness, "Rock On" is the moment you'd want.
Lyric Sheet: "Hey, shout, summertime blues/Jump up and down in your blue suede shoes..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
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