5705 started out as Turn On To Jesus which sounds just as good. The follow-up single to 5705 was What a Night but that only reached #39. The Day The Earth Caught Fire would later 'peak' at #67!
5705 started out as Turn On To Jesus which sounds just as good. The follow-up single to 5705 was What a Night but that only reached #39. The Day The Earth Caught Fire would later 'peak' at #67!
With the arrival of my City Boy cds I have been able to listen this afternoon to Young Men Gone West ................. must be over thirty years since I last heard it. What an extraordinarily good album it is!
Interesting piece in the booklet too, with recollections by band members. What different times those were! Book Early was deemed to be a flop ................... even though it sold 120,000 copies. This album peaked at 115 in the U.S. ................. but they still got a million dollar advance for the follow-up! Definitely another age!
Listened to Heads Are Rolling in the car tonight - hadn't played it for a few years. Still good even without Steve Broughton.
And I miss it.
Jon
It has taken me a mind-boggling 43 years to hear City Boy's debut lp. Under its spell after just one listen ..................... the second half from 5000 Years to Haymaking Time is just fantastic pop-prog.
The mini-essays in the booklets are informative. Guess that left no room for lyrics .................. these seem v. clever and worth perusing.
I always dug the vocal interplay on their albums. Liked them all but my fave is The Day The Earth Caught Fire.
I'd never heard of City Boy until a reviewer said my band sounded like them! I then got the Anthology album which is a great primer. I then bought every album-even the final It's Personal album which includes a great one called "Rat Race". I think they didn't get popular because of the lack of one great vocalist rather than a few very good singers. They also sounded a lot like Queen and other Art Rock bands but their albums sounded as good as Steely Dan and the songwriting almost as strong.
To this day I always think of City Boy and Gentle Giant as bands that ended before I was even old enough to go to concerts and I wouldn't even know about either band for decades later anyway. I think all the albums are pretty strong.
With Book Early the boys from Birmingham England went hell for leather for the American market .................... they remember schoolyards (playgrounds back home), they spend dimes (50p pieces back home) and the girls are called Laurielie (Julie back home). Its energetic and laden with choruses. It bombed back home.
Originally Posted by Iris
The album wasn't a huge hit in either country, but "5705" did even better as a single in the UK-- it was #8 there, #27 in the US.
...a gambit that blew up in their face when they made The Day the Earth Caught Fire. As much as I love “Ambition” (an appropriate title), the reference to “Interstate One-Five” never fails to make me cringe!
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
I had a used, cassette album of The Day The Earth........
I remember liking it, but the cassette took a shit after one listen. I remember a proggy, 12 minute track that was pretty good. Been probably 15 or more years ago.
Saw the same tour at the Santa Monica Civic.
Also thought they were moderately enjoyable, but not worth following up on.
Maybe I'll listen to some samples.
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
Of course City Boy were not the only seventies Brit band that sought to Americanize itself. Supertramp re-located permanently to Los Angeles and released Breakfast in America. BJH went to San Francisco to record with Neil Young's producer and soon after were to be found singing about toons, sidewalks and Polk Street.
This "Brit-Yank" emulation thing is cyclical imo. For instance, after the 60s British invasion (based in great part on 50s American music & earlier blues), it gave way to a myriad of Yank bands trying to emulate both the Mod & Rocker Brit bands in both musical style & vision and even more their way of dress.
A bandmate of mine in the early 70s used to refer to it as the "Atlantic Ocean rock n' roll yo-yo".
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
Some groups from American went to the UK too like The Walker Brothers.
...and Chrissie Hynde.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
.....and some lefty upside-down guitarist
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
And, in this roster of Brit-American musical exchanges, let us not forget the great Sir Roderick! Atlantic Crossing was the name of the album and for the single there was a video of Sir Rod kitted out in a sailor's outfit as he made his way singing across the ocean.
Two Brits who's careers, and credits have always fascinated me are Ansley Dunbar and Nicky Hopkins. I've seen their names on liner notes for so many American bands it's ridiculous (Journey, Zappa, Quicksilver, etc. etc.)
Funny I was watching an old Tony Banks interview, and he happened to mention he was a big fan of It Bites.
Dunbar was Journey's original pre-Perry drummer before the great Steve Smith, and Hopkins was an actual listed member of Quicksilver post- Duncan-Cippolina, in addition to all their other hired gun stuff.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
One among My all time favs , i own all their 7 albums on both vinyl and cd ,and i still play them every now and then .
Wonderful band .
Cheers
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