The Top 500 One-Hit Wonders of the Rock Era Revisited: #480-471

 We've presented 20 artists in our special thus far.  If we've done our homework right, you should begin to see a slight uptick in talent and level of success with each group.  Here we go with the third day of The Top 500 One-Hit Wonders*.

So popular was this group in their native country that their song was named one of the tops of all-time in New Zealand:

 

#480:  OMC--"How Bizarre"

Phil Fuemana, previously in the bands Houseparty and Fuemana, formed OMC, or the Otara Millionaires Club, in 1993 in Otara, New Zealand.  The group name was as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Otara's status as one of the poorest suburbs of Auckland.  Fuemana and younger brother Pauly recorded two tracks for producer Alan Jansson's Urban Pacifica collection Proud.  Pauley suggested that they shorten the band's name to OMC and he and Jansson became the only members of the group.  Pauley was the frontman and played several instruments while Jansson co-wrote all the tracks and also was the arranger and producer. 

OMC signed with huh! Records and released the single "How Bizarre", which became a #1 smash in New Zealand, selling over 35,000 copies, still a record number in their native country.  The song then spread across the globe like wildfire.  It hit #1 in Australia for five weeks, spread across Europe, then finally was popular in North America.  Although it wasn't released as a single in the United States, it was #6 on the U.S. Airplay chart, was #2 on the R&B chart, and reached #1 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart.  The song was a BMI-certified million airplay song two years in a row, a feat almost unheard of.  

The duo then recorded the album How Bizarre, and the third single, "On the Run", reached #56 in the U.K.  The album sold over one million copies in the United States.    "Land of Plenty" was a Top 5 song in New Zealand, but unlike "How Bizarre", it's popularity did not spread. 

Pauley and Jansson had a subsequent falling out over royalties, which ended up in court, and they split up.

This artist scored a big hit in 1961:

   #479:  Barbara George--"I Know"

George was born in Smithridge, Louisiana and raised in New Orleans.  She began singing in a church choir and was discovered by singer Jessie Hill, who recommended George to producer Harold Battiste.  

George wrote "I Know (You Don't Love Me No More" and released it as a single in 1961.  The song hit #3 overall and was a #1 R&B hit.  George released two singles the following year, "You Talk About Love" and "Send For Me (If You Need Some Lovin"), but both were only minor hits, and George largely retired from the music industry by the end of the decade.

Several artists, including Ike and Tina Turner, Bonnie Raitt, and Freddie King, have recorded George's hit song.

A lot of people had a hand in the success of this group:

#478:  Jaynetts--" Sally Go 'Round The Roses"

This group from The Bronx, New York began as the Hearts.  They recorded "Lonely Nights", which was released on a small independent label.  It became an R&B hit, allowing producer Zell Sanders to found her own label, J&S.  

The Jaynetts name came about by adding the "J" in "J&S" to "Anetta", the middle name of vocalist Lezli Valentine.  Justine Washington sang lead for the group before going solo in 1957.  Abner Spector of Chess Records told Sanders to assemble a lineup of female singers and Lona Stevens, Spector's wife, wrote "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" with Sanders for this purpose.

The vocalists were Yvonne Bushnell, Ethel Davis, Ada Ray Kelly, Johnnie Louise Richardson and Mary Sue Wells.  Many J&S session singers also lent vocals to the song.  "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" reached #2 in 1963, so the group recorded an album of the same name.  "Keep an Eye on Her" was released as a single but did not chart, nor did two further singles.  

At #477, this great-sounding doo-wop group:

#477:  Rays--"Silhouettes'

Lead singer Harold Miller, tenors Walter Ford and David Jones and baritone Harry James formed the Rays in New York City in 1955. 

The Rays originally signed a recording contract with Chess Records and recorded "Silhouettes", a song written by Bob Crewe and Frank Slay, Jr.  The group released "Silhouettes" on XYZ Records in 1957, but it soon became so popular that Cameo Records  picked it up for national distribution since XYZ couldn't handle the demand.  "Silhouettes" peaked at #3 and sold over one million copies, becoming one of The Top Songs of the 1950's*.

The Rays had minor hits with "Mediterranean Moon" and "Magic Moon".  "Silhouettes" was covered by the Diamonds in 1957 (#10) and Herman's Hermits (#5) in 1965.  

Three music videos were produced to help this One-Hit Wonder:

 

  #476:  Capital Cities--"Safe And Sound"

We're up to the hit by the pop duo Capital Cities out of Los Angeles.  The group met after responding to an ad on Craigslist and successfully wrote jingles for commercials for three years before forming as a recording artist.  Capital Cities took "Safe And Sound" to #8 in 2011.

We mentioned that three videos were created for "Safe And Sound", with the third one being nominated for Best Music Video at the Grammy Awards.

Capital cities released another album five years later and several singles, but nothing else caught on.

Although he only had one hit, this artist wrote his own Broadway musical:

#475:  Duncan Sheik--"Barely Breathing"

This artist was raised in Montclair, New Jersey.  His Julliard-trained grandmother taught him how to play piano.  Duncan graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, then studied semiotics at Brown University.

Sheik moved to Daly City and began playing for other artists, including Liz and Lisa (with Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell).  In 1996, Sheik released his self-titled debut album, which included "Barely Breathing".  Although the song only reached #17, making it one of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*, it set a Rock Era record by charting for 55 consecutive weeks, hitting the Top 20 on Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40 and earned Sheik a Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance.

The follow-up single, "She Runs Away", reached #24 on the Adult chart but was largely ignored by a mass audience.  In 1998, Sheik released the album Humming, which featured complex string arrangements.  He released two albums in the 2000's which were critically acclaimed but not big-sellers.

In 2002, Sheik wrote original music for the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night.  He composed the score for the movies A Home at the End of the World and Through the Fire.  In 2006, Sheik wrote the music for the play Spring Awakening, a project eight years in the making.  The musical found its way to Broadway in the fall and won Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Orchestration and Best Original Score.  The original cast recording received the Grammy in 2008 for Best Musical Show Album. 

In 2012, Sheik wrote Alice By Heart, an adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.   Currently, he is writing music for the musical adaptation of American Psycho and working on the feature film of Spring Awakening.

Sheik has released seven albums and 13 singles in his career.

Up next, this talented performer:

   #474--Patrice Rushen--"Forget Me Nots"

Rushen was regarded as a child prodigy, exhibiting great talent and potential early in life as a classically trained pianist. She graduated from Locke High School in Los Angeles, then earned a degree in Music at University of Southern California.

After winning a competition at the 1972 Monterey Jazz Festival, Rushen garnered considerable attention and earned a recording contract with Prestige Records the following year. Rushen recorded three albums with Prestige and became an in-demand session player, which led to a major contract with Elektra Records in 1977.

Rushen achieved success on the smaller genre of R&B with songs like "Haven't You Heard" (#42 overall), "Feels So Real" (#78) and "You Remind Me". But it was "Forget Me Nots" that enabled Rushen to reach a mass audience. The single hit #23 in the United States and truth be told was underrated.  The song earned Rushen a Grammy nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. 

By this time, Rushen had become proficient on multiple instruments, including the flute, clarinet and several kinds of percussion. Patrice had released five albums and she was a guest on Soul Train in 1981. Patrice also wrote the opening theme for The Steve Harvey Show.

Rushen became the first female head composer and musical director for the Grammy Awards, the People's Choice Awards and the Emmy Awards and the first woman to serve as musical director for the NAACP Image Awards, a position she held for twelve years. Rushen also was musical director/composer for Newsweek's American Achievement Awards and was musical director for Janet Jackson's janet. World Tour. In 2008, Rushen became a professor at the famous Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

This act's signature hit was named after them:

#473:  Big Country--In A Big Country"

Stuart Adamson (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Bruce Watson (guitar, mandolin, sitar and vocals), keyboardist Peter Wishart, brother Alan on bass, and drummer Clive Parker  formed this group in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1981.  Big Country fused Scottish folk and martial music styles with guitar-driven rock to achieve success in the 1980's. 

The group rehearsed for eight months before playing a concert in Dunfermline.  This led to dates opening for Alice Cooper in 1982, but their keyboard-oriented sound wasn't well-received by Cooper's fans who only liked one kind of music and weren't deep enough to appreciate Big Country.  So the group was dumped from the tour after just two concerts.     

The Wisharts and Parker were fired from the band, which brought in Tony Butler (bass and vocals) and Mark Brzezicki (drums and vocals) to replace them. 

Big Country signed with Phonogram Records.  They recorded "Harvest Home" in 1982, and the single reached #91 in the U.K.  The following year, "Fields of Fire" reached the Top Ten in the U.K., but Big Country still lacked a worldwide audience.  The group recorded the album The Crossing, which included "In a Big Country".  That single finally helped the group score a breakthrough, as it hit #17 in the United States.  Big Country performed on Saturday Night Live and at the Grammy Awards, and the success of their single led to album sales of over one million in the U.K. and Gold status in the United States.

While playing on a worldwide tour in 1984, Big Country released "Wonderland", which was #8 in the U.K. but only #86 in the United States.  Despite the great talent of the group, they would never chart in the U.S. again.  Big Country released the album Steeltown, which was a #1 album in the U.K. but only #70 in the United States.  The group achieved three more U.K. Top 30 songs from Steeltown.

The group participated in the Band Aid project "Do They Know It's Christmas?", then toured in 1985, both as headliners and opening for artists such as Queen.  Big Country also recorded the score for the movie Restless Natives.

The 1986 album The Seer produced three more Top 30 songs in the U.K., including the Irish number one song "Look Away", #7 in the U.K.  For their fourth album, Big Country brought in producer Peter Wolf.  Peace in Our Time was #9 in the U.K. but sold poorly elsewhere. 

The 1991 album No Place Like Home was not received well at all and nearly broke up the band.  Subsequently, Big Country was dropped by Phonogram, their label of ten years.  Without a major label, Big Country faded away, with only the album The Buffalo Skinners in 1993 achieving significant airplay.

But the group was still a concert draw, opening for the Rolling Stones and the Who on tour in the 1990's.  Butler played bass and sang vocals on Pete Townshend's solo hit "Let My Love Open the Door".  Brzezicki played drums for the Cult on their 1985 album Love.  

Big Country gave a "Final Fling" farewell tour, culminating in a sold-out concert in Glasgow in 2000.   The group recorded eight albums and released 29 singles in their career.

The One Hit Wonder at #473 was the music director at Columbia Pictures from 1936-1962:

#472: Morris Stoloff--"Moonglow And Theme From 'Picnic'-"

Stoloff was a child prodigy on the violin, toured the United States as a featured soloist at age 16, and became the youngest member ever of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Soon, movies began including sound, and Hollywood studios needed musicians to provide it. He first worked at Paramount Pictures before being hired at Columbia. He won three Oscars for Best Score (Cover Girl in 1944, The Jolson Story in 1946 and Song Without End in 1960) and was nominated an additional 14 times. 

By the late 1940's, Stoloff began recording some of the more popular songs as singles for Decca Records, even though they had been written by someone else.  In 1956, he released the single "Moonglow and Theme From 'Picnic'", which exploded to #1 for three weeks and sold over one million copies.

When Frank Sinatra founded Reprise Records in the early 1960's, he hired Stoloff as musical director.  Stoloff released 11 albums in his career, but nothing else captured the public's attention like "Moonglow".

At #471, the founder of the Songbird Foundation, who enjoyed his one big hit in 1972:

#471:  Danny O'Keefe--"Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues"  

O'Keefe was born in Spokane, Washington, but got his start in the coffee houses of Minnesota.  He hit #9 in 1972 with his One Hit Wonder, which also sold over a million copies.  O'Keefe's songs have been covered by Elvis Presley, Jackson Browne, Andy Williams, Judy Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Alison Krauss, Leon Russell and others.

O'Keefe's music career has now spanned four decades, resulting in 12 album releases, but he's never been able to

match his 1972 success.

We're now well into The Top 500 One-Hit Wonders of the Rock Era*, with 30 revealed.  If we accomplish one thing with this special, we will have conveyed the tremendous talent of these artists.  With few exceptions, they aren't the "flash in the pan" that many in the media make them out to be, as they mock them, while none of the mockers could actually achieve a big hit themselves.  It takes considerable talent, hard work and perseverance to get to the level these 500 artists achieved, plus a good deal of luck as well.