Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Singles, Part 4

Can’t stop spinnin’ those singles!  Today we listen to a handful from the other side of the Big Pond, from our friends in the United Kingdom.  They will take us on a little tour of the isles across the ocean.

Let’s begin in the northern Isles … in Scotland, where Al Stewart comes from.  Stewart, best known for the 1976 hit album Year Of The Cat (and its title track, a hit single), has also worked with a number of big names including Alan Parsons, Jimmy Page and Rick Wakeman.  Stewart followed up the platinum Year Of The Cat with 1978’s Time Passages, which spawned another hit with its title track and “Song On The Radio,” which barely managed to climb into the American Top 30.

MP3: “Song On The Radio” by Al Stewart

Now we catch the train south to Wales for Andy Fairweather Low, a Welshman, who made his name by performing with the group Amen Corner – they had a top single “Half As Nice” in 1969.  But Fairweather Low (or is it just Low?) is perhaps best known for playing with superstars like the Who, Roger Waters, Eric Clapton and many more.  “Spider Jiving” is the title track and single from Fairweather Low’s first solo album in 1974.

MP3: “Spider Jiving” by Andy Fairweather Low

Let’s hop over to London to find Tim Curry, an acclaimed stage and screen actor.  Of course you knew he could sing – he absolutely wailed as Dr. Frank N. Furter in the play and movie Rocky Horror Picture Show.  In the late 1970s Curry attempted to be a recording artist and his 1979 LP Fearless was fairly successful.  Curry co-wrote most of the songs on the album including the tongue-in-cheek single “I Do The Rock,” which dented the Top 100 for about two seconds.

MP3: “I Do The Rock” by Tim Curry

Lost Classics! Shel Silverstein

 

Most people probably know Shel Silverstein as that guy who wrote lovable stuff for kids, like the book Where The Sidewalk Ends and A Light In The Attic and The Giving Tree.  If you have kids, you probably read these to them at one point or another.  But your kids have probably never seen some of Shel’s early work – hope not, anyway.

The guy got his start in the 1950s working for Playboy magazine and its founder Hugh Hefner.  Silverstein drew cartoons and wrote poetry for that magazine until the 1970s.  Before he quit the publishing gig, though, Silverstein became a songwriter.  Among the songs he wrote were “The Unicorn,” a 1968 hit for the Irish Rovers that became their most popular song.  Two years later, Johnny Cash rode Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue” all the way to No. 1 and the song earned Silverstein a Grammy Award.

CAUTION: After the jump we feature some of Shel Silverstein’s adult material.  This is NOT for kids!   If you want to read about this author’s work for children, go here or here.  What follows after the jump is NOT FOR KIDS!!!  Whew.