THE ONLY Female Voice in HISTORY That Is TOTALLY UNCOPYABLE! | Professor of Rock
9,875Coming up, we’re going to have fun with the stories of songs that were denied the coveted position of reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, settling for #2. I always call them the bridesmaids. Well, today they really are the bridesmaid to the bride, as in the greatest female #2 hits of the 70s, with some of your favorite singers ever. Including the legendary Linda Ronstadt, who had 21 Big hits in her career, and most people are shocked when they realize they were all written by someone else, and most were cover songs! Then there’s the story of a Crystal Gayle song that was inspired by an unfortunate incident where a beloved pet was nearly blinded in one eye from a rock thrown by a garbage man. That incident inspired a song that brought Crystal out of the shadow of her legendary sister. Then there was the song Fire that was written especially for a comeback for ELVIS, but he passed away before he could record it. And it was almost buried forever until the Pointer Sisters turned it from a male perspective to a sensual female smash. And finally Karen Carpenter, who turned a jingle written for a bank commercial into an all-time standard…and then 3 years later she did the same thing with a song written for a toddler’s TV show… It’s coming next on Professor of Rock.
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Hey Music Junkies, Professor of Rock always here to celebrate the greatest artists and the greatest songs of all time. If you remember printing on green-lined computer paper back in the day, you’ll dig this channel of deep musical nostalgia. Make sure to subscribe below right now to be a part of our music history daily, straight from the artists.
We’ve talked about the term bridesmaid for years, the #2s. Well, this week I was trying to listen to something uplifting because it’s been a couple of tough weeks personally. My son has been very sick, and someone I was close to recently passed away… the world has been heavy for all of us, so anyway, I was listening to the Carpenters because Karen’s voice always soothes my soul, and I realized that the Carpenters were the King and Queen of the Bridesmaid position… They had 5 Number Two hits. Five. So it sent me down this rabbit hole of the various #2 hits by female or female-fronted bands, and there were so many great ones.
So today, we are going to count down the greatest #2 female hits of the 70s. They never made it to number #1, but they made beautiful bridesmaids. So let’s celebrate those prolific songs of the 70s, sung by some of the most talented female vocalists of all time- honestly. These tracks had a lot in common…they were fabulous, romantic, emotional, timeless, and all peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Our countdown of the Top 7 Bridesmaids of the 70s female fronted songs that peaked at #2 begins with a timeless celebration of unity and sisterhood, but brothers sing it just as loud and proud…Sister Sledge with “We are Family” at #7.
The masters of rhythm & rhyme, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic, were in the room with Sister Sledge’s label when a simple turn of phrase prompted an iconic song that is a huge part of our culture. Jerry Greenberg, the president of Atlantic Records, asked them to write for the group and described them as “like family to the label,” saying they “stick together like birds to a feather.” Those notes became the seed for the song’s powerful chorus—a unifying anthem that helped bring Sister Sledge back into the mainstream. The melody came after the idea, with a family-centered theme at the very heart of an anthemic party jam.
Nile Rodgers recalled what happened with some interesting nostalgia: that little musical snippet right after the line "Get up everybody and sing" actually came from a song called "Do What You Wanna Do" by a group named Children Of God. He recalled seeing them perform at Woodstock, with Martha Velez on lead vocals and her brother Gerardo behind the congas during Jimi Hendrix’s legendary set. Rodgers..