GROW BIGGER EARS #5: The "Audio Autopsy" Power Pop Playlist Goes Airborne
"Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane!" No, it's a bitchin' tune with a catchy melody & swirling harmonies that's easy to sing along with! There's 5 of 'em, all having to do with flight!
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” - Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath
1. The Motors, “Airport,” Virgin Records, 1978
To gain access to a conveyance that can get us airborne, we need a ride to the airport, and, appropriately, it’s The Motors who give us a ride. We promise to return the favor.
Andy McMaster wrote the song, as it led off the band’s second album for Virgin Records, Approved by The Motors, in May 1978. McMaster co-founded the band in 1977 with Nick Garvey, formerly of early-’70s pub rockers, Ducks Deluxe (and a former roadie for the Flamin’ Groovies, about whom more needs to be heard; that’s where FR&B comes in. Stay tuned).
Other Motors were guitarist/vocalist, Bram Tchaikovsky (who replaced original guitarist, Rob Hendry early on; Bram also had a solo recording career shortly after his Motors tenure), and drummer, Ricky Slaughter.
“Airport” became the biggest single for the band in their UK home, reaching #4, while failing to chart in the states. FM radio in the US didn’t pick up on The Motors, either, so it’s likely American readers have never heard the band (or this album).
In fact, Rolling Stone once listed Approved by The Motors as one of “20 Rock Albums Rolling Stone Loved in the 1970s That You Never Heard.” Our “Audio Autopsy” Power Pop Playlist is happy to remedy that dilemma, at least for one song!
Related: More about The Motors here:
2. The 5th Dimension, “Up, Up and Away,” Soul City/Liberty Records, 1967
From a song virtually no one has heard to the high-flying Jimmy Webb classic, a song virtually no one hasn’t heard, as we climb to our cruising altitude of about 8 miles!
The song was produced by Soul City Records founder, Johnny Rivers, and Marc Gordon, who was President of Motown Records’ L.A. office. Gordon introduced the group to songwriter Webb and producer Bones Howe, and remained the group's manager through their later recordings.
Howe went on to produce several of the Dimension’s hit albums, as well as some by The Association (at this point, we’ve taken a glorious side-trip to the tropical, and even topical, island of all things Sunshine Pop)!
Asked by rock critic Richard Cromelin in 1993 in the L.A. Times about how he felt about “Up, Up and Away” after so many years, Webb replied, “I’m proud that a 17-year-old kid who was one year off the farm could write a song like that in one afternoon. Am I proud of winning a Grammy for orchestration when I was 21 years old? Yeah, I’m proud of that.”
“I think [the songs I wrote] were good songs. I don’t think they were indicative of any of the currents of change or problems that were sweeping our society. I don’t think that ‘Up, Up and Away’ was a significant song in a social sense, but it didn’t hurt anybody.”
The 5th Dimension’s recording of the song hit the top spot in Canada and Australia, while peaking at #7 in the US.
Special mention, though, goes to The Sunshine Company, a hallowed kingpin of the Sunshine Pop sub-genre, who recorded Webb’s masterpiece within a few weeks of The 5th Dimension (they may have even beaten them to the punch recording it, ever-so-slightly, but it’s inconclusive):
More 5th Dimension? Here’s a peek into the life of Dorothea Joyce, who wrote the 5th Dimension’s 1971 #19 hit, “Love’s Lines, Angles and Rhymes”:
3. The Leathercoated Minds, “Eight Miles High,” (with Snuff Garrett, Leon Russell, and J.J. Cale), Viva/Dot Records, 1967
They were (and still are) little-known and little-heard, but at least they’ve got plenty of excuses:
1) The Leathercoated Minds were solely a studio-grounded band. 2) They recorded just one album (A Trip Down the Sunset Strip), and 3) They were on tiny Viva Records (a vanity label of producer Snuff Garrett’s), distributed by slightly less tiny Dot, who wouldn’t enjoy more mass distribution until 1974, when ABC Records picked them up.
With Leon Russell on keys, J.J. Cale (who also produced and co-arranged) on guitar, and Jimmy Karstein on drums, the Minds take on the Gene Clark/Roger McGuinn/David Crosby psychedelic classic, “Eight Miles High,” as our aural-plane climbs to our cruising altitude. The song, of course, was a smash #14 hit for The Byrds in 1966 (#24 in the UK).
Screamingly and proudly a product of its time, the album’s liner notes are hilarious when read in the 21st century, to wit: “On street corners [of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip], hundreds of the ‘beat’ set gather to discuss everything from LSD to politics, but foremost in their conversation is ‘what’s happening in music.’”
Furthermore, the notes dutifully assure us that the street noises and extraneous voices you hear are authentically recorded on and from Sunset Blvd. Unfortunately, in the conversations we’re afforded an ear to on this track, none seem to be discussing illicit drugs or President Johnson. Bummer, man.
4. Cheap Trick “Mighty Wings,” Columbia Records, 1986
Tethered exclusively to Columbia subsidiary, Epic Records, for years, it was no problem for Cheap Trick to move laterally to the “mother label” for this song they didn’t write, but recorded for the 1986 Tom Cruise film vehicle soundtrack album for a little thing called Top Gun.
“Mighty Wings” was written by Harold Faltermeyer and Mark Spiro, and produced by Faltermeyer:
5. 20/20, “Jet Lag,” Portrait/Epic/CBS Records, 1979
We stay in the same corporate label family (Epic’s short-lived boutique Portrait effort) for our approach to the runway with one of the more authentic power-pop outfits of the era, 20/20. With origins in Tulsa, OK, they made Hollywood their late-’70s home base.
We do hope you’ve enjoyed your trip, and as we begin our decent descent, kindly return your tray tables (and flight attendants) to their original, upright positions.
“Jet Lag” and the band’s debut album was produced by Earle Mankey, a founding guitar-playing member of Sparks in the early ‘70s, who eventually produced albums by The Runaways, The Dickies, and more, and engineered albums by The Beach Boys (Love You and M.I.U., late -’70s), Elton John (Blue Moves, ‘76), and others.
Written by singer/songwriter/keyboardist/drummer (and native of Buffalo), Mike Gallo (above, center, with Steve Allen and Ron Flynt, flanking), “Jet Lag” is one of the more melodically memorable from a debut album full of ‘em. Gallo, realizing they were all about 20 years old, came up with the band’s name following a trip to England.
Unfortunately, during the recording of the first album, Gallo was let go from the band. Phil Seymour (later part of the Dwight Twilley Band and solo work) played drums on this track.
Mike opened his own label, Two Moons Records, in 2008 to release his catalog of previously unreleased 20/20 recordings, and his two post-20/20 bands, RadioMusic and Two Moons. He writes and records at his Buffalo home, and has also signed a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell. Mike is currently focused on songwriting, his label and publishing.
If you’d like more Playlist fun, try GROW BIGGER EARS #4, with the theme of “Eyes”:
JJ Cale & The 5 Dimension in one article! Be still my beating heart. I think Florence La Rue is still touring and singing their songs? At least up until COVID, anyway.