The Bay City Rollers, out standing in their field, circa mid-’70s (l-r): Drummer Derek Longmuir, guitarist Eric Faulkner, Derek’s brother, bassist Alan Longmuir, singer Les McKeown, and guitarist Stuart Wood. Tartan plaid became a Rollers trademark early in their career. Eventually, in “the great tape measure scandal of 1975,” inseams were cruelly compromised when it was discovered their tailor’s only measuring tool was a ruler. 📸Last.fm
For “Inside Tracks,” we put a couple of cover versions under the audio microscope, and compare them to the songwriter’s original version. How similar or dissimilar are they? What did the songwriter intend with the original, and how were the featured covers crafted?
This second “Inside Tracks” takes a look at Philadelphia native, Tim Moore’s “Rock and Roll Love Letter,” written, recorded and released in 1975. We’ll look at Tim’s original, the 1976 cover by Scotland’s Bay City Rollers, and the 1979 cover by UK’s The Records.
For “Inside Tracks,” we put a couple of cover versions under the audio microscope, and compare them to the songwriter’s original version. How similar or dissimilar are they? What did the songwriter intend with the original, and how were the featured covers crafted?
For his second album for Asylum Records (1975), Behind the Eyes, Tim Moore expanded on the themes and styles featured on his debut the year before. Known primarily as a soft rock balladeer, Moore took the opportunity, here, to not only write a heretofore uncharacteristic rocker, but one that included the phrase “rock and roll,” lest there be any doubt about his desire to avoid being pigeonholed as a mellow pop singer.
As we discovered in “Inside Tracks #1,” Moore was embroiled in a bidding war after his first label, A Small Record Company/Paramount Records, suddenly shuttered. Asylum’s David Geffen and Arista Records’ Clive Davis were clamoring for Moore’s services, and Geffen won out.
Davis, he of the legendary “golden ear” and even longer (if no less legendary) memory, had set about keeping track of Moore’s Asylum output, always on the lookout for songs his growing stable of artists could record (and, of course, have hits with).
He found one: The fifth and final track on Side One (produced by Paul Leka, who produced and arranged much of Left Banke Too in 1968, a tiny hint that will eventually lead us to a surprisingly recognizable through-thread by the time we get to The Records’ 1979 cover):
Moore employs an uncharacteristically gutsy guitar lick, and couples it with a Jerry Lee Lewis pounding piano to give “Rock and Roll Love Letter” a rootsy rock feel.
Curiously enough, Moore’s guitar playing on this song caught the attention of Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards. They became fast friends, and Moore spent two weeks in rehearsals with the Stones and reggae star, Peter Tosh, at Dylan-manager, Albert Grossman’s Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York.
Tosh released his Legalize It LP on Columbia Records the following year (1976).
During the 1970s, Bearsville had become a studio home of sorts for Todd Rundgren, with many of his production projects (as well as his own solo and Utopia albums) being recorded there.
Moore’s arrangement plods just a bit, especially compared to the Rollers’ cover the following year. Moore supplies a melodic bridge, as well as occasional layered vocals the Rollers will make sure they stack all the way to the ceiling when it’s their turn.
Bay City Rollers, “Rock and Roll Love Letter,” 1976
As soon as Clive Davis heard Moore’s “Rock And Roll Love Letter,” he told The Bay City Rollers to record it. It was to be their third of five singles released in the US in 1976 (a fitting call-back to the mid-’60s days of 6 singles and 4 albums a year for pop artists!), following their smash, “Saturday Night,” and their self-penned, “Money Honey.”
“Rollermania,” as both a media force and a fan reality, was huge in the UK, Europe, and virtually worldwide, but lagging stateside at the time. Davis was determined to wrest whatever US sales figures he could out of the tartan plaid-clad quintet.
“Saturday Night” (written and produced by UK hit songwriting team, Phil Coulter and Bill Martin) got to #1 in North America.
Their next, “Money Honey,” was written by Rollers Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood, and, produced by Jimmy Ienner, reached #9 in the US in March 1976, but hit the top spot in Canada for a week.
Carl Cafarelli, in his “Boppin’ (Like the Hip Folks Do)” (April 27, 2021), trumpeted his praise for the song, referencing Moore’s version first: “It was a perfectly fine pop ditty. Its simple charm was transformed into something greater in the unlikely hands of The Bay City Rollers.
“The Rollers discarded extraneous lyrics about being crazy to express themselves this way, revamping and renovating the song’s basic structure. They replaced the easygoing sway of Moore’s instrumental opening with a quick rat-tat of drums, guitars, then taking over to assume command of your heart, your soul, and your radio. It was louder. It was pop. It was a manifesto.
“I feel an ancient rhythm in a man’s genetic code/I’m gonna keep on rock ‘n’ rollin’ ’til my genes explode. A rock and roll love letter.”
Arista head, Clive Davis, chats backstage with Rollers guitarist, Eric Faulkner, after a show, mid-’70s. 📸Maria Day
Raspberries 2.0?
Shrewd beyond belief (and far more hip than a 44-year-old had a right to be), Davis wanted to keep the obvious rock’n’rolling power pop boulder tumbling toward Hits-ville.
Ienner was enlisted again to create a smooth, radio-friendly, super-charged smash that was far less dumb than the schoolyard chant of “Saturday Night,” and infinitely more dynamic than their pedestrian “Money Honey.”
Ienner’s calling card? He produced the first four albums of The Raspberries’ landmark canon!
In other words, beyond Eric Carmen’s singular songwriting vision, Wally Bryson’s guitar work, and the Who-like Jim Bonfanti/Dave Smalley rhythm section, no one is as responsible for the groundbreaking pillar of power pop sound of The Raspberries than Jimmy Ienner:
Harmonies abound and are resplendent around hand-claps and those aforementioned stacked vocal choruses with a punctuating “HEY!” after every “Gonna mail it”! True to the genre, guitars are fittingly more “chiming” than Moore’s grittier sound, and immediately following the first chorus, Ienner employs a discordant 747-flying-overhead downhill guitar scrape which somehow fits, and only appears that once.
At the very least, it’s nothing more than a production element that draws interest. At best, it’s a brilliant “hey, what’s that?” that will sound great on the car radio, adding just a hint of safe chaos.
He’s not done: An explosion sound-effect propels us into the final chorus after the guitar solo/bridge. It all happens in just under three minutes, just as the best rock’n’roll always did. Just ask Chuck Berry or The Ramones; ask Keith Richards.
The elements of the perfect pop song include the songwriter daring to step outside his piano-laden comfort zone, mixed with the genius of a label head envisioning the marriage of a particular producer with the youthful energy of a band still stretching.
The Rollers performing “Rock and Roll Love Letter” in 1976 on TopPop, a Dutch TV show: They’re synching to the studio recording, but with Ienner’s production functioning as the song’s skin as well as its muscle and skeleton, it serves the label’s promotional purposes best this way (the debate about whether the lads could play live competently is for another time):
The Rollers reached #6 in Canada, and #28 in the US. Stunningly, this single was not released in the UK.
Carl Cafarelli: “The fact that The Bay City Rollers catered specifically to that [stereotypical teen] fantasy doesn’t negate the occasional moments when they transcended it. Hey sister poet, dear brother poet, too.
“‘Rock And Roll Love Letter’ exploded from the radio like an effervescent communique from an alternate world ruled by the virtues of pure pop. But I need to spend my body, I’m a music-makin’ man/And no page can release it like this amplifier can.
“The little girls still understand. Older and wiser, maybe we can all understand it, too. It is what it promised it would be: A rock and roll love letter. The words are true, and meant for you. Gonna sign it, gonna seal it, gonna mail it away.”
The Records, “Rock and Roll Love Letter,” 1979
Having been “on” this song in real time for both Moore’s and the Rollers’ versions (while on-air in radio), I was shocked when I saw a plain, red-jacketed, 12-inch single by The Records pop up in my Houston record store’s import bin in 1979…and, even more stunned when I saw which song it was!
The Records had become an immediate favorite of mine, with their 1978 self-titled Virgin Records debut (Shades in Bed, UK title, with different song-sequencing than the US issue, produced by “Mutt” Lange), featuring “Starry Eyes,” “Teenarama,” and others eagerly finding unlimited play on my turntable.
British music veterans already, Will Birch (former Kursaal Flyers drummer) and rhythm guitarist, John Wicks, formed the band in 1977, and added guitarist, Huw Gower with Phil Brown on bass.
From Wikipedia: “The new group was heavily influenced both by British Invasion bands like The Beatles and The Kinks, and early power pop groups such as Badfinger, Big Star, and [our old friends], The Raspberries.”
No one could argue also including the Left Banke as a Records influence, a serendipitous call-back to the Leka-produced Tim Moore original.
Sure enough, three years hence, The Records do steady diligence to the subject matter, completely unadorned, lacking the production “embellishments” Jimmy Ienner added to the Rollers’ catchy radio confection.
Far more guitar-forward (still with pounding piano, though), including a harmony guitar duet, there’s even a hard modulation half-way through:
In their short career, no band (in the modern rock arena) topped The Records in the creation, execution, and the proving of their mastery of the classic pop song construct.
It’s like The Rollers’ older brothers showing the kiddos how it’s done, when Mr. Label Legend isn’t hounding you for another hit…not that there’s anything wrong with that!
In fact, the Rollers’ unabashed power pop classic reflects the jubilant sentiment spoken long ago by the late, great Greg Shaw, BOMP! Magazine publisher, and BOMP! Records founder, and an unabashed apologist for power pop: “A few la-la’s and hand claps won’t kill you!”
Little did Tim Moore know the chart-rattling, genre-propelling tremors he’d created that day in ‘75 when he sat down at the piano…only to pick up his guitar, instead.
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You take a song like “Rock And Roll Love Letters” and it becomes something different in the hands of different artists.
The songwriter, in this case, Tim Moore, gets first shot at establishing his vision. What comes after that depends who cuts the song next and the audience they are trying to appeal to. The Bay City version has a “bubbly” vibe with sweet harmonies.
The Records version looked appeal to very different listenership.
Same song, different vibe. I loved listening to each. I guess my favorite version was Moore’s. I tend to go with the songwriter’s original almost all the time. Except in rare occasions like Hendrix vs Dylan on “All Along The Watch Tower”…Jimi wins that one.
I love “Inside Tracks” for this very reason…
You take a song like “Rock And Roll Love Letters” and it becomes something different in the hands of different artists.
The songwriter, in this case, Tim Moore, gets first shot at establishing his vision. What comes after that depends who cuts the song next and the audience they are trying to appeal to. The Bay City version has a “bubbly” vibe with sweet harmonies.
The Records version looked appeal to very different listenership.
Same song, different vibe. I loved listening to each. I guess my favorite version was Moore’s. I tend to go with the songwriter’s original almost all the time. Except in rare occasions like Hendrix vs Dylan on “All Along The Watch Tower”…Jimi wins that one.
Thx for the trip down memory lane. The BCR taught me how to spell SATURDAY as a kid. 🙂