← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade: Red, Red Wine Edition
00:38:41
How a rogue DJ took a flop to #1
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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.
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Hello, Slate Culture Gabfest listeners. I am coming to you on a Friday. This is Julia Turner, the editor in chief of Slate, to tell you about something new. We are launching a feature in this feed called Culture Gabfest Presents, where we will bring you fascinating culture content on days where we don't give you one of our Culture Gabfest shows. Today we are introducing something I'm extremely excited about, a monthly show from one of our favorite Culture Gabfest contributors, Chris Melanfi. Hello, Chris.
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Hey, Julia.
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How are you? Good.
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I'm so excited for what we're unveiling today.
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As am I.
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Please tell our listeners what they are about to hear.
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So it's going to be a monthly podcast called Hit Parade, and it's basically a storytelling podcast. Slightly long form, not too long, telling stories about the hits from yesteryear and bringing you up wherever possible to the present day. So we're going to take just little stories about number one hits or maybe in the future, smaller hits, and talk about how they became hits. As I always say, what's interesting about why songs become hits as part of my why is this song number one column for Slate is it's a mix of art and commerce.
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Right.
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It's the song itself and it's the machinations behind the song. So that's what we will do with.
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Hit Parade and a bit of the historical and cultural moment at which those songs drop. I mean, that's one of my favorite things about your column.
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Exactly.
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I love the idea of doing youg column as a podcast. Obviously, your column is very fun to read. It's studded with video clips and fascinating references. But in the show, you can obviously just pull up the sound and you get to hear the different versions of songs and get a little bit of a sense of the texture of the musical history that you're talking about.
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Yeah.
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When I was proposing this one to Steve Lichtay, I was saying that if I have any not regret exactly, but hang up about my column, it's that I densely pack my why is this song number one Pieces with links. Because I feel like you need to experience a piece of the music to understand what I'm talking about. And I realize that that's kind of disruptive sometimes if you're in the middle of a piece of reading. What's great about Hit Parade is when I talk about a snippet of a song, you're just going to hear that snippet of a song. And we've we've packed the episodes with.
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Just quick little hits like 10 seconds.
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Here, 15 seconds there. But to, you know, either ring a bell if you remember the song from your youth, or to, you know, introduce you to it if you've never heard it before, and I think it enriches the experience.
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Well, I won't spoil the subject of the episode our listeners are about to hear, but I will say that I heard many versions of it that I was previously unaware of and came away edified and with a horrible earworm in my ear. So be warned listeners. And I guess without further ado, we'll.
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Launch the show welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanphy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One? Series on today's show, the story of how this improbable, infectious, insidious song found its way to number one five years after it was first recorded and two decades after it was written. It didn't get to the top of Billboard's iconic Hot 100 chart because of marketing savvy or musical trends or even melodic skill. It happened because of a rogue radio DJ and a bit of luck. In this new podcast from Slate and the Panoply Network, we'll dissect what makes songs popular and also what makes them great or what makes them terrible or at least memorable. We'll tell you stories from chart history about how songs become hits, the glorious intersection of art and commerc that is popular music. Our first episode is just that kind of story. It's about a number one hit that was originally a no. 62 hit and then years later, a number 34 hit. And that was still a half decade before it topped the charts. In short, it's a song with multiple lives. And thanks to that enterprising radio programmer, this hit accidentally kicked off a two year fad on America's airwaves. Whatever you think of this song as an intoxicating party jam, as an easy listener that wafts through your workday, or as a totally obnoxious earworm. What's undeniable is it has endured from the late 60s to the late 80s. And that's where your hit parade marches today, the week ending October 15, 1988, when the song Red Red Wine by UB40 hit number one. It's one of roughly a dozen songs that have topped the Billboard Hot 100 over the last half century that sport a reggae rhythm. Excuse me, rhytm as catchy as it is, UB40's red red wine doesn't so much bounce as lilt. I meant what I said a moment ago when I described it as a.
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That wafts red Wine. It's up to you.
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Red Red Wine was a true transatlantic hit. It was UB40's first number one, both in America and in England, their home country. Except in their native UK. Red Red wine went to number one in September 1983. Here in America, it didn't ring the bell until a half decade later. How'd that happen? And how did a biracial reggae pop group from Birmingham, England, come to record this Brill Building soft rock song as a reggae tune in the first place? For that we'll have to put a pin in 1988 and another one in 1983 and go all the way back to the 1960s. That's when Red Red Wine was written and first recorded by an up and coming singer songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. Perhaps you've heard of this gentleman who still records and tours very successfully today.
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Red Red Wine.
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That, friends, is Neil Diamond, Rock and Roll hall of Famer Blue Jean Bard, a man who loves a hot August night and once improbably called himself the Jazz Singer. But all that was still in his future in 1967 when he wrote and recorded Just for your, the album containing Red Red Wine and only Diamond's second album as a recording artist. Mind you, I don't want to understate Diamond's stature. In the mid to late 60s, he was on quite a roll, having already toted up top 10 hits under his own name and chart toppers as a songwriter for others. I briefly mentioned the Brill Building earlier. That's the actual landmarked building in midtown Manhattan that in the 50s and 60s doubled as quite literally a song factory. Songwriters often in pairs, sitting in a small room with an upright piano, crafting some of the greatest songs of the first wave of rock and roll. The name Brill Building came to stand in for an entire era of polished professional songwriter pop. Neil diamond broke through as a writer at the Brill Building. But unlike his fellow Brooklynite and Brill Building writer Carole King, diamond didn't wait until the 70s to try and break through as a frontline artist. He was already finding success both writing and performing on huge mid-60s hits. He scored his first top 10 as an artist in 1966 with Cherry Cherry. And by 1967, diamond had scored his first number one, not as an artist, but as a songwriter. Again, what distinguished diamond from his songwriter pro peers was often the hits he penned for others were songs he meant for himself or even recorded himself. That was definitely the case with I'm A Believer, a song diamond recorded himself first before bequeathing it to the Monkees, a TV spawned pop band that took it all the way to the top.
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Then I saw her face, Now I'm a believer.
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So where did Red Red Wine fit into Neil's first wave of singing and writing success? Honestly, it was a dud and it arguably even broke his stride. We now think of diamond as a purveyor of chest thumping sing along anthems like Sweet Caroline or America. But in the 60s he had a proclivity for a certain kind of acoustic balladry. Moody, folky, wine, dark. See what I Did There, for example. You can hear diamond in this ruminative mode on his 1966 breakthrough single Solitary Man. And you can hear the brooding Neil again on his 1967 single Girl, you'll Be a Woman soon. Girl, you'll be a woman soon was a number 10 hit in the spring of 67, but it would be Diamond's last top 10 for more than two years. After scoring six straight top 40 hits back to back to back in 1966 and 67, Dimon fell off with his next pair of singles, New Orleans and Red Red Wine, both of which missed the top 40. In fact, a half dozen diamond singles missed the top 40 in 1968 and 1969. Red Red wine was among the worst performers in this period, peaking on the Hot 100 at number 62 in the spring of 1968 in just a three week chart running. Let's listen briefly to Diamond's version of his song again and you can hear where our buddy Neil went wrong.
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I was wrong and I find just one thing makes me forget Red Red Wine.
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The problem, I think, was that Diamond's Red Red Wine was neither fish nor fowl in one sense, its Solitary Man Part two, a morose, regretful saloon ballad about a man looking to drink away the memory of the woman who left him. But it doesn't have the stately grace of Solitary man or the brooding majesty of Girl, you'll be a woman soon. And that's because on the other hand, Diamond's version is just a little overproduced. The strings, the gently plucked guitar. This wants to be a slow dance number, but who wants to slow dance to a regretful ballad about trying to forget someone who's left you? So that should have been the end of the story of Red Red Wine this very short lived hit would have been a footnote in the history of Neil diamond, who by the way righted the ship by the summer of 69 with his top five smash Sweet Caroline. I won't play that delightful brain fungus on this podcast. You can go and find your favorite Boston Red Sox fan and have him bellow it at you if you must. Anyway, by the 1970s, diamond emerged as a perennial Hot 100 chart topper and he became, according to Billboard chart historian Joel Whitburn, one of the decade's 10 biggest hitmakers. Ah, but we can't leave the 60s yet, because that same year 1969 saw another version of Red Red Wine recorded and released, and this version was considerably less dour.
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Red Red Wine.
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That'S Tony Tri, a Jamaican singer of the very influence influential subgenre known as Rocksteady. The predominant Jamaican music of the mid to late 1960s, rocksteady was a bridge between the early 60s, more frenetic uptempo genre ska, and the smokier, groovier, more woke and ultimately more durable genre reggae. As its name suggests, Rocksteady has a steady pulse, but it still rocks, albeit gently. A radio programmer might call the genre mid tempo. If you're familiar with the Paragon's 1966 song the Tide Is High, which was made globally famous in 1980 in a cover by the American band Blondie, you're familiar with the mid tempo groove of.
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Rock study the Tide Is High. But I'm holding on I'm gonna be your number one I'm not the kind of girl.
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And speaking speaking of covers, back to Tony Tribe. Reggae in all its permutations is famous for covers. Indeed, the whole genre is built on Jamaican sound systems sharing and reimagining beats and songs. When a Jamaican artist covers an Anglo pop song, he often reconfigures the very structure of the song from the ground up. And that's what Tony Tribe does with Red Red Wine. His version is utterly transformative. Tribe retains the fundamental sadness of Neil Diamond's song, but brings it up tempo just enough to give it a lilt. It's not a slow dance record anymore. Now it's a drinking your cares away record. Like Rocksteady itself, which is a bridge genre, Tony Tribe's version of Red Red Wine is a bridge between Neil Diamond's flop and the song's second life. Tribe's rendition wasn't just a hit in Jamaica, it was a minor chart success in England, peaking in the UK at number 46 in 1969 and that UK chart peak is important because this is the version of Red Red Wine that the members of UB40 heard as kids growing up in the multicultural British city of Birmingham. In Fred Bronson's classic chart history reference the Billboard Book of Number One Hits, UB40 guitarist Robin Campbell claims, we had no idea Neil diamond had anything to do with it. The only version we were aware of was the Tony Tribe version. UB40 formed in late 1978, a little less than a decade after Tony Tribe's hit single. This group of eight members, half white, half black, came together in a Birmingham awash in ska, rocksteady and reggae, thanks to the city's tens of thousands of Jamaican diaspora and descendants. They named their group after the government paperwork you filled out when living on the dole unemployment benefit form 40 ub 40 got their break when Chrissy Hind saw them playing in a pub and gave them a slot as an opener for her band the Pretenders. They broke fairly quickly. UB40 were lucky enough to catch a wave as it crested at a time when England was mad for the sound of two tone ska and other blends of new wave and reggae, blends like the Special's cover of the 60s rocksteady classic A Message to you. A top 10 UK hit in 1979, Ub40 picked up the ball just as two tone bands like the Specials were tailing off. By the end of 1980, they had already scored three straight top 10 singles on the British charts, leading with their number four single Food for Thought, a diatribe against world hunger. Like Food for thought, most of UB40's early hits were originals, although even in that first wave they were scoring with an occasional remake, notably their B side hit I Think It's Going To Rain Today, a cover of a classic Randy Newman song. In all, UB40 spun off eight straight UK top 40 singles in their first three years, and all but the Randy Newman cover were originals. But by 1982 the hits in the UK were getting smaller, and in early 83 one single missed the British top 40 entirely. It was time for a reboot, and the band promptly did so with their 1983 album labor of Love.
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But I Can't Identify My Baby.
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Labor of Love, as its title suggests, was an affectionate homage to UB40's influences. The album consists entirely of covers, 10 songs the group grew up with, all of them by reggae artists like Jimmy Cliff, the Wailers, Boy Friday and Winston Groovy. As I noted earlier, as far as the band was concerned, Red Red Wine, the album's lead single, was a reggae cover too. They modeled their version not on the Neil diamond original, which was utterly unknown to them, but on the Tony Tribe version. But where Tribe had picked up the tempo from Diamond, UB40 slowed it back down about half a step, turning it from rock steady into a kind of swaying lover's rock. Probably the most original addition the group made to the song was in its bridge when group member Terrence Wilson, AKA Astro, did some toasting, the traditional Afro Caribbean form of rap that in the 60s was the Jamaican precursor to what became hip hop. This was fairly notable for a hit single in the early 80s, at a time when the rap bridge was just starting to appear on Anglo pop records. Like Blondie's Rapture, UB40's version of Red Red Wine devoted a sizable chunk of its running time to Astro toasting over a beat. Red red wine, you make me feel.
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So fine, you keep me rocking all.
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Of the time Red red wine, you make me feel so grand I feel a million dollar when you're just in my in the UK, red red wine was an instant smash, returning UB40 not only to the top 10, but giving them their first number one in the fall of 83. And by the winter of 1984 it even broke them in America. To this point, the group hadn't made the US charts at all, not even the lower rungs of the Hot 100. And by the way, that's not surprising. Americans have a spotty history with reggae. In England, reggae has been a regular part of the pop Stew since the 60s. Songs with all manner of Jamaica derived beats hit the UK charts routinely. In the US we tend to treat reggae like a trendlet or a fad. Small flurries of reggae and dancehall tracks will hit our charts in waves, then recede. In the early 70s, for example, we saw a small boom of light reggae singles topping our Hot 100, like Johnny Nash's classic I Can See Clearly now or Eric Clapton's cover of Bob Marley's I Shot the Sheriff. But then reggae more or less receded on the US pop charts during the late 70s disco years. The early 80s was another small boom time for the Jamaican sound on the US charts, whether it was adapted by British new romantic acts like culture Clubs. Or turned into reggae funk hybrids like Guiana's Eddie Graham, Or just delivered as straight up traditional reggae like Birmingham's Musical Youth. All of these songs were top 10American hits in 1983. So it wasn't entirely surprising when in January 1984 UB40's Red Red Wine debuted on the Hot 100. Two months later, it broke into the top 40 and got not much further, peaking at number 34 for the week ending March 31, 1984.
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American Top 40 Top 40 I'm Casey Kasem.
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Here's the eight man reggae band with a recent number one song in Great Britain, it's UB40. They climb two notches to 34 with Red Red Wine. Still, this is a perfectly respectable US showing for a reggae pop band in 1984. American pop fans don't listen to much reggae to begin with. One year later, UB40 even managed to capitalize on this US success with another cover. In 1985, they recorded a remake of the Sonny and Cher classic I Got yout Babe with their mentor Chrissie Hind of the pretenders in the UK, this cover became UB40's second number one hit in the summer of 85 in America. That same summer, I Got yout babe reached number 28 on the Hot 100. A little better even than Red Red Wine had done the year before. Again not setting the colonies on fire, but respectable. Quietly, UB40 began selling albums here slowly but steadily. By the summer of 1986, three years after its release, the labor of Love album, which never got higher on the Billboard album chart than number 39, finally went gold in America, signifying a half million in US sales. So heading into the late 80s, this modest profile looked like the best UB40 would do in the United States. In their native UK, the band kept scoring top 10 and top 20 hits. But on this side of the Atlantic, a couple more albums went by with not much to show for it. UB40's US label, A& M Records, kept trying to break the band here, continuing to release singles and promoting them to American radio programmers. The men who pick the hits their stations will play. And that's when everything changed for UB40, thanks entirely to one of those programmers. In 1988, A&M was trying again at US radio with yet another UB40 single. This time the song was called Breakfast in bed. In the UK, where UB40 were now radio staples, breakfast and bed reached number six. Perfectly normal for them. It was yet another cover. By now, UB40 had established their formula. This time they were remaking an old Dusty Springfield single from 1968. And once again they teamed up with their old pal Chrissy Hind.
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Breakfast and Bread, Kisses From Me.
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Doesn'T sound like much of a smash, does it? It certainly didn't in the summer of 1988 to Guy Zapolian, a legend in the radio business who's worked for numerous stations over the years and back then was the program director for KZZP FM in Phoenix, Arizona. Two of Zapolean's staffers in Phoenix had been serviced the Breakfast in Bed single by A and M Records. Playing it led them to dig back in their archives to refamiliarize themselves with UB40's catalog. Listening to Red Red Wine again for the first time in four years, Zapolian and his associates, the apocryphal story goes, said to themselves, see, now that's a hit. One of the things I've always used throughout my career, zapolean told Fred Bronson in the Billboard book of Number One hits, is what I call would've been should've beens. If the current music wasn't up to snuff, I would dig into a pile of songs that I thought should have been a hit. Zapolian, as it happened in 1988, had a fairly low risk way to test out old records he thought missed their mark the first time he programmed a Saturday night dance show on KZZP called Party Patrol. So just for kicks, he threw Red Red Wine into the rotation on Party Patrol, and the requests Bronson reports, came in hot and heavy. Zapoleon moved Red red wine into KZZP's regular rotation, ignoring UB40's current single entirely. It's hard to say what had changed since 1983 that suddenly made Red Red Wine sound like a smash to Phoenix listeners that hot summer of 88. By the late 80s, new wave and reggae had largely fallen out of favor at top 40 radio. The charts by then were dominated by what I call diva pop of the Whitney Houston and Madonna variety and hair metal ranging from Bon Jovi to Def Leppard. On the other hand, the late 80s also saw the rise of hard, harder R B music like New Jack Swing. Along with some of rap's first pop crossover hits, These movements had given pop radio a taste for the hip hop sound. Astros toasting on the bridge of Red Red Wine suddenly must have seemed rather prescient. And on the schlockier side of the dial. In 1988, that summer's hot movie was Tom Cruise's Cocktail, which by the fall had spawned two number one hits, both vaguely, very vaguely island flavored the Beach Boys, Hokey kokomo and Bobby McFerrin's goofy don't worry, Be Happy. Here's a little song I wrote you might want to sing it note for note. Don't Worry, Be Happy Americans might not have been too interested in reggae per SE in 1988, but if it sounded like an adult beverage with an umbrella sticking out of it, they were all in. Two decades earlier, Tony Tribe had turned Neil Diamond's sad drinking song into a fun drinking song, and UB40 were the ultimate beneficiary of that reinvention. David Jeffries, a critic for the music website AllMusic, later wrote that omnipresence has turned UB40's red red wine into pap reggae's Don't Worry, Be Happy. I would say that's exactly right. Anyway, in the summer of 88, Zapolian reached out to A and M Records telling them about the dozens of requests on his station for Red Red Wine and urging them to consider re releasing the nearly 5 year old hit. At first, A and M balked. For one thing, they had a current UB40 album and single to promote. For another thing, this is not how the industry is supposed to work. Labels offer their priority singles to radio programmers who can then choose to play or not play the current hit as per their regional needs. They're not supposed to go off the reservation and revive a track from a five year old album. The label isn't actively working right now, but Zepolian was already all in, and as word of KZZP's success with Red Red Wine started to spread, the song essentially went viral. One by one, other pop stations added the old UB40 song to their playlists, essentially killing the momentum of the current UB40 single. In fact, Breakfast in Bed never even made the Hot 100 at all. By late summer, A and M switched its promotional focus from UB40's current record to Red Red Wine. Luckily, the band hadn't changed American labels in all that time. A and M probably figured they'd make money either way, even if the new record was a dud. The label pressed new cassettes of the Red Red Wine single. By the way, a funny aside. In 1983 and 84, the so called casingle hadn't been invented yet. Red Red Wine was only issued on 45 RPM vinyl, so this 1988 re release was the first time the Red Red Wine single could be bought on tape. Likewise, newly pressed copies of the labor of Love album on CD and cassette made their way to the nation's Sam Goodies and strawberries. On the Hot 100, dated August 13, 1988, red red wine debuted at number 85. Actually, because the record was coming back after a four and a half year gap. Billboard properly listed the song as a re entry, now in its 16th week on the chart. Three weeks later, Red Red Wine was back in the top 40. A week after that, it leapt to 28, UB40's biggest hit since I Got yout Babe in 1985, and higher than Red Red Wine had gone the first time it hurtled into the top five. Less than a month later, and finally, nine weeks after it re entered the Hot 100, the song guy Zapoleon and his staff in Phoenix plucked from a pile of old records, was the number one song in America for the week ending October 15, 1988. Around the same time, labor of Love, the 1983 album, reached a new 1988 peak of number eight on the Billboard album chart and ultimately went platinum. In total, UB40's red red wine spent a dozen weeks in the top 40 during its second run. And here's where things get interesting. The week in late November 1988, when the song slipped out of the top 40, there was another re entry toward the bottom of the Hot 100. Coming in at number 84 was a ballad called When I'm with youh by the Canadian band Sheriff. What exactly does this gooey powerball have to do do with UB40's Breezy Island Jam? Nothing at all musically. But UB40 and Guy Zapoleon had started a small fad. Radio programmers were now raiding their vaults for old records they thought deserved a second chance to become hits. When I'm with youh, Sheriff's one and only hit, had peaked at number 61 back in 1983. In late 1988, inspired by Red Red Wine, Minneapolis radio programmer Brian Phillips plucked the power ballad from his library and put it into rotation. And it too went Viral. Capitol Records, Sheriff's label, played along reissuing the single in the fall of 88. But the label brass were a little annoyed. Unlike UB40, a band that at least still existed, Sheriff, the band behind When I'm with youh, had broken up four years before. The single climbed the hot 100 rapidly. But capital was in essence promoting a mirage. We should be looking forwards rather than backwards, capitol's vice president of promotion told the LA Times. There are so many great records out there that deserve exposure that it's kind of a waste of time to expose these old records. You don't have anything to build. There's no future in it. However, Capital's promotions department felt by February of 1989 Sheriff's When I'm with youh had repeated UB40's feat and reached number one on the Hot 100. The programmer mutiny was on. Guy Zapolean's would have been, should have been experiment had become a phenomenon by the middle of 1989. With programmers digging through their vaults and fans phoning in radio stations to request old songs they thought deserved another shot, the Hot 100 was suddenly awash in three, five and even nine year old singles. These included Where Are youe Now? A ballad by the Pennsylvania band Cinch, which stalled at number 77 in 1986 but made it all the way to number 10 in its 1989 run.
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And.
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The song whose second run turned it into a radio staple, an impassioned 1980 ode to jailbait by Benny Mardones into.
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The Night if I could fly I'd pick you up and take you into the night.
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Not every re released single did better. The second time into the night, for example, was a number 11 hit in 1980, but only made it as high as number 20 in 1989. The same went for Peter Gabriel's in youn Eyes, which in its first release in 1986 as the follow up to the number one smash Sledgehammer, had only gotten as high on the chart as number 26. Given a second release in the summer of 89 after its appearance in the Cameron Crowe movie say Anything, in youn Eyes did no better. It just missed the top 40, peaking at at number 41. But these lower second run chart peaks for into the Night and in youn Eyes didn't much matter. In both cases, just having a second run improved the song's long term fortunes. Flip on easy listening or adult contemporary radio today and in your Eyes is the Peter Gabriel song you're likeliest to hear. You're also far likelier to hear Benny Mardones into the Night than you would have been prior to 1989. Just charting a second time put these songs into permanent oldies rotation. The would have been, should have been fad didn't last long. In typical fashion, the music industry tried to co opt the fad, actually sending bands back into the studio to re record their old hits to make them more current sounding. In some cases this worked. Real life's Send Me an angel was actually a note for note re recording of the 1983 original with slightly updated synthesizers and six years later it reached number 26 three notches higher than it did the first time.
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Send me an Angel, Send me an angel right now.
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But by 1990, when early 80s synth poppers modern English tried to re record their new wave classic I Melt with youh with more modern percussion, the fad was spent. I Melt with youh was truly a would have been, should have been. In its 1983 chart run, it peaked at number 78, surprisingly low considering how immortal that MTV classic is today. And the 1990 re recording peaked at number 76, two notches higher, sure, but no top 40 immortality for all that effort. The problem with the fad, as that grumpy Capitol Records exec noted, was that few of the act's careers benefited much from the sudden burst of attention. Polygram Records had lost touch with Benny Mardones and needed to hunt him down just to send him royalty checks. Sintra's lead singer, Jimmy Harnon, had already gone on to a solo career, which went nowhere and was over by 1991. Sheriff Again had been defunct for years. Cleverly, the band's lead lead singer and guitarist quickly formed a new group, Alias, and recorded another power ballad, more Than Words can say, that sounded like When I'm with youh Part 2. It reached number two in 1990. But the act that benefited most from the would have been should have been fad was the band that started it all way the in 1988, UB40. They had already spent the middle of the 1980s becoming, in essence, a reggae pop covers band to only middling success. But after Red Red Wine, they went for the jugular and hit the jackpot. They came back in late 1989 with the album labor of Love 2, of course, and this time, rather than remaking hardcore reggae deep cuts, the remakes were of big, unmistakable pop classics of yesterday. The album spun off its first big hit in 1990. UB40 returned to the US top 10 with their cover of the Temptations the Way youy do the Things yous Do, a number seven hit. From the same album. They did even better with their take on Al Green's Here I Am, Come and Take Me, a number six hit in early 1991 Here I Am Baby.
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Come and take me, Here I am baby.
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And two years after that, UB40 had the biggest hit of their career when their cover of Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling in Love spent seven weeks on top of the Hot 100. It was the third biggest hit of 1993 after I will Always Love you and Whomp There it is. By the way, in all three cases, these covers by UB40 charted higher on the Hot 100 than the Temptations, Al Green's and even Elvis's original singles did. Come to think of it, so did Red Red wine, the dud 1968 Neil diamond single that took three tries to top the charts. One try by diamond and two tries by UB40. So what does Neil diamond think of his transformed single? It's pretty clear he's charmed by it financially. It's all upside for him. His songwriting royalties for what originally was a minor single must be welcome. But more important, even Neil regards his song as a transformed work. Now, often when diamond performs it live, it's got the rocksteady tempo of Tony Tribe and UB40. And Neil even takes the toast style rap break of UB40's Astro out for spin.
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Red Red Wine made me feel so good even if the words aren't understood Everybody get to have some fun with UV40 we be number one red red white.
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I hope you enjoyed this debut episode of Hit Parade. My producer and the Executive producer of Slate Podcasts is Steve Lichti. Panoply's Chief Content Officer is Andy Bowers. Check out their entire roster of podcasts at Panoply fm. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanie.