[Blogger's Note: Hold your horses--while it is Friday, I'm late as noted below. You'll still have to wait for my once-a-year music post that's actually on the correct Friday....]
My introduction to this week's tune came, for the umpteenth time, via my time at Camelot Music. 'Twas very early in my career--first year in fact--and my guess as to why a relatively neophyte musical performer would be given such prominence in our in-store play would most assuredly be his career making role as Dr. Frank-In-Furter in first the play, then the movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. If memory serves (though often it doesn't), the album--though decidedly not a hit--was very popular with our team....
Tim Curry was born in Cheshire, England in 1946, and contrary to just about every artist featured here on Friday Night Jukebox has had the vast majority of his success as an actor. Curry's big break came in 1968 with a role in the London cast of the musical Hair, and then in 1973, again in the London cast, with the role noted above. Since then, he has had a steady supply of acting work, mostly in supporting roles, in a wide variety of plays, movies, and television shows. Curry has been nominated for three Tony Awards, two Emmys (winning a Daytime Emmy), and a Grammy Award (for spoken word). Surprisingly to me, Curry's music career was rather short-lived. He released three studio albums between 1978 and 1981, and in the late eighties a greatest hits package. A previously unreleased album from 1976 debuted in 2010. His last two studio albums did hit the charts, and his second album yielded a top 100 single. Curry has also penned a memoir. Sadly, he suffered a major stroke in 2012 and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since.
Fun Fact: The movie version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1976) is still in limited release as of this year and is the longest running theatrical release in movie history (for those who suck at math, fifty years).
"Working on My Tan" was the first single from his final studio album in 1981, the rather sincerely entitled, Simplicity. The single did not chart, while the album peaked at #112. Also, the album was the only one of his three to chart in Canada, hitting #45 (so many cool kids in the Great White North!).
Sometimes a song doesn't have to be earth shattering and can just be fun, and "Working on My Tan" is one such song. It's right up my alley--catchy stanzas, catchy chorus, and a lovely theme of living the chill life in the sunshine. The music is reggae inflected, and Curry sings it with a respectful Jamaican accent. The lyrics make generous use of simply rhyming patterns (always enjoyable when singing along), and the "oh man" in the chorus is just to die for. An ode to the sun that is simply divine.
Lyric Sheet: "Hunt yourself an island/Hitch down to the beach/The sun belong to everyone/In everybody's reach..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
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