I love 45’s. And I love One-Hit Wonders. Today is a big day for One-Hit Wonders (OHW). Half of the ultimate OHW, Rick Evans, was born 81 years ago today. He of Zager and Evans. This is the only OHW song to hit #1 in both the US and UK.

There are various definitions of OHW. To my mind, it isn’t the commonly held idea that it is a band or artist that simply had one big hit. Many have had just one hit but have enjoyed long careers without a steady level of commercial success. I wouldn’t call Elvin Bishop a OHW though “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” was his only big single. For me, a OHW is just that: one hit, and that’s the end of that.

Today’s Playlist is a SomethingIsHappening incredibly brief compendium of some legendary OHW’s:

One such example, The Ohio Express, technically began as a band out of Mansfield, Ohio. The truth is it was more or less a brand name under which music would be released by various musicians under contract to Super K Productions. The biggest hit for The Ohio Express was 1968’s “Yummy Yummy Yummy,” performed by New York studio musicians with a lead vocal by Joey Levine.

Joey Levine has been in the music business since 1966. He’s had huge success, not only recording vocals like this, but also by doing the same on singles by the 1910 Fruitgum Company and Music Explosion. In the late 60’s he established Crushing Enterprises and hit it big in the world of jingles. One of the biggest to come out of his jingle house was “Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut, Sometimes You Don’t.” He had a roster of writers, many of whom had come out of the 1960’s record business and gravitated towards advertising.

And it was those jingles that enabled me to know Joey Levine for a few years. I managed Automated Sound Studios, a recording studio in the heart of Times Square. I started there the day after Live Aid and lasted til early ’89 when the place went out of business. It was jingles by day, albums by night. It remains the greatest job of my life, if for no other reason than being paid at the end of the week for some incredibly bad behavior. I’m willing to bet that whatever anyone else has gone on to do, they’d also say this was the greatest gig of all-time. At the time, there was no doubt: these were the people I’d been looking for and finally found, not even knowing I’d been looking. We all figured we’d know each other forever.

Joey and his Crushing crew were there damn near daily. Hell of a nice guy Joey was. He’d even come up with a breakfast sandwich, The Levine Dream, which I believe was your basic egg and cheese but on a croissant with lettuce. But this was a long time ago now, and I barely remember what I had for breakfast today. The studio was a scene and a half, largely populated with jingle producers either formerly in the record business, or people who had unsuccessfully been in the record business and were now resigned to doing thirty second soap jingles. This was when jingles were original pieces, not licensed old recordings. It was also incestuous: this one used to date that one, then they split so he’s with her now, that kind of thing. I may even have been caught up in that on occasion. Joey’s scene was pretty cool though, and his office on 57th between 6th & 7th was a scene unto itself. I used to go up there to hang every few weeks. What a time.

Steely Dan had recorded there as well. Portions of Aja were cut there, along with several songs on Gaucho. One of the biggest bookings was in 1977. The Grateful Dead worked there on parts of what would become Terrapin Station. It’s amazing what you’ll find on the interweb if you snoop around. This picture was taken at Automated, in what I know was Studio A, the large room. That’s Bob Weir, Jerry playing his Travis Bean, and producer Keith Olsen, circa 1977:

I think back now on some of the people I met in my short time there: Leon Russell, The Four Tops, Tina Turner, Richie Havens, Lena Horne, Madeline Kahn, Whitney Houston, Gregory Hines, Michael McDonald. Man alive, what a time. I remain incredibly grateful for the experience. Right around 1988, the studio was billing at $325 an hour. Then technology came in where someone could spend a few grand, have a studio in their kitchen, and create a jingle that sounded just fine in a 1″ television speaker. That was the beginning of the end of the jingle studio scene. Thank goodness I got in for a few years before it all went away.

#JoeyLevine #GratefulDead #TerrapinStation #AutomatedSound #OneHitWonder #OhioExpress #SteelyDan #Aja #Gaucho