FORCED to RECORD Other People's Songs…Band Did 1 ORIGINAL in SECRET…Became a SMASH—Professor of Rock

Below, a spectacular story of a true '70s

rock

classic from one of the most underrated

band

s of the

rock

era. Initially, this

band

had relied heavily on a famous production team to write each of their hits and they had many hits. but this band was fed up with this songwriting team having total control over them, so they decided to show what they could do. They had written a good song, but no one thought it had the potential to be a single, except for one executive on the band's album. label, he really believed in it, the only thing is that this executive wasn't getting any cooperation to restructure the track, so when this songwriting team and this production team were out of town, the band

secret

ly went into the studio and they produced a new version themselves and added a synthesizer to it.

Even though they were a rock band, they proved everyone wrong as the song

became

one of the biggest hits of the '70s. In fact, the production team heard the song on the radio when they were out and about. angry with what they had done with the band. The next song we retrace the steps of this covert operation that led to one of the biggest international hits of the 70s and also an

other

band's claim that they had copied their hit from a few years earlier and find out what happens next .

professor

rock hey music addicts

professor

rock always here to celebrate the greatest artists and the greatest

songs

of all time, you know, if you remember watching the antics of the foghorn Leghorn from Looney Tunes, you'll love this channel of deep musical nostalgia.

Be sure to subscribe below right now. I know you will find something to explore on this channel. Be sure to click the bell to find out when our stuff comes out. Visit us on Patreon for even more content and to continue helping us stay informed. Daily Channel Man I love learning the foghorn I'll say I'll say I'll say I love that so it's time for an

other

edition of the number one in our hearts This is one of my favorite shows we do here It's a show that honors the

songs

that were so undeniably great songs that should have been a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but for whatever reason, whether radio play, label support, lack of marketing, or just plain stupidity, the song fell a little short today.

Let's celebrate and honor one of the catchiest diddies of the '70s by talking about Fox on the Run by Sweet fo about singer Brian Connelly and drummer Mick Tucker recruited bassist Steve Priest to set up the candy store at 196 8 to give you a little background before getting into the song, but just a few weeks before they released their debut album, they found out that there was another band called Sweet Shop, so they had to change their name and they did, they changed it to the suite afterwards. Adding Le Guitar to Andy Scott, the sweet hooked up with hitmakers Mike Chapman and Nikki Chin and began one of the most successful four-year chart runs in UK history.

I mean, between 1971 and 1974, Chapman and Chimp wrote the British Top 11. 40 hit singles for the suite, including their first hit, the fun little Willie Blockbuster and Ballroom Blitz, also big hits in the US, the success should have been sweet for lack of a better word for this quartet. By 1974, they were tired of the perception that they were simply posing as Chapman Chin's puppet masters, so when an opportunity presented itself to change that stigma, the band took advantage and covertly re-

record

ed a track from the album and he rebuilt it into one of his biggest hits, one of the best songs of the '70s that transformed the track. none other than Fox on the Run at the beginning of rock here in the '50s and '60s, the most popular soloists in groups were essentially talent performing material written by someone else, it's one of the main reasons they act like you ,Buddy.

Holly and the Crickets and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were so revered that they created and performed their own material that they didn't use outside songwriters now the sweet that a few years after their Siege on the pop charts

became

Simply Sweet, you know, for In short, they longed for the same respect from their peers, they wanted to do it so sweetly, they were rolling hit after hit after hit all over Europe and across the pond in the United States and Canada, but they were becoming restless artistically, especially the former wanted writing, producing and, frankly, managing. everything they put out mck Tucker once lamented to a journalist that he and his bandmates felt like a date of four dissipated old hookers producing pop on a computer and just before Christmas 1974, the members of Suite were already quite frustrated with receiving poor quality songs and you know, slipping into priority within the orbit of Chin and Chapman's roster, which of course included many artists like Susie Quattro.

Their discontent reached a breaking point when the songwriting duo also served as co-managers of swetes increasingly focused on their companies in California, they were always traveling then something happened the proverbial puppeteers Mike Chapman and Nikki Chin at that time were once further out in the country tending to a brooding Biz in Los Angeles while thousands of miles away Brian Andy Mick and Steve got a call from the head of RCA Records, the label was reviewing tracks from Desolation's upcoming album Boulevard Sweet and they just didn't listen a song that would keep the band's hit streak alive, in his opinion, the manager's call actually came to Andy's home phone when the four members happened.

To be together at his house, the director proceeded to tell Andy that he and his colleagues had a feeling that if they re-

record

ed the song Fox on the Run, it could become a hit single, but it turned out that Fox on the Run was Written by the band and not Chin and Chapman, as Andy recalled, the director told him and his bandmates that we're not getting the right answer from Mike and Nikki, but we really think Fox on the Run could be a hit. if you repeat He recorded it, the label head believing the

original

version rambled and was too long.

He encouraged the band to improve it, you know, make it tighter. Now the band took what the director said very seriously despite a claim from Sounds magazine that it withheld Sweet's previous one. The sweet Fanny Adams LP as perhaps the best Glam Metal Mayhem collection ever presented on vinyl, the album composed mainly of the band, produces more hits that increase the urgency of leading the way for Desolation Boulevard with a hard-hitting track, so there was a little pressure there let's find out what happened after I mention our sponsor Zen. I wear the glasses. I always use the best frames that Zeni has at the moment, they are their blue light glasses with multi-color lenses.

The first of their kind. Innovation. Block Plus 10 technology blocks more blue light than ever, filters digital screen glare and UV light with eight different tinted lenses to choose from, just click our info button to get yours today or you can click below to accept it a week later completely in the download. The quartet entered a recording studio that was recently acquired by Deep Purple's Ian Gillan and began working on a

secret

operation to revise Fox on the Run and return to the

original

version. Fox on the Run was more of a gritty rock track that lacked energy.

Pizzaz really needed, you know, it needed a new Snappy Arrangement now Fox on the Run is officially credited to the whole band, but it was actually Scott's creation, his theme focuses on a nameless groupy, hence the lines where you talk about all the bands except the names. The names you drop are secondhand, despite being labeled as produced by sweet Andy Scott, as a budding producer took over the session. His main goal was to give the track a more radio-friendly feel. Interestingly, the guitarist ended up contributing a crucial element. so he wasn't really known while the rest of the band had gone for a few pints in the pub and he introduced the pulsing synth sound at the beginning of the song and added it to the conclusion too, eh, there were no synths in there. the original version of Fox on the Run, so the addition of the synth gave it a completely different vibe.

When the band returned to the studio and heard what Andy had come up with, they turned around. The clandestine mission was accomplished. RCA hastily released the Fox on the Run reboot without bothering to inform Chin and Chapman, prompting them to hurry up and get back on the next plane to England. Ah, this duo was really angry, to say the least, they weren't consulted about changes to anything. on the next album, but they were also concerned that the band had done something on their own that could lead to their dismissal as the site's navigation team, one of the UK's most popular groups.

Now, upon hearing the news, the band had done a reworking. from Fox on the Run Mike Chapman was really confused, he said in that quote that the song is not a hit, he told this to the anr board and that's the point in its original form, it wasn't a hit, not even the band thought about it . was a hit, but that's why they weren't happy with Chapman and Chin it seemed like they just put the sweet on autopilot and weren't giving them the expert attention they'd earned, especially during a critical time in their career. He should have had that attention now when Chapman heard the new version of Fox on the Run.

He couldn't lie. He was really impressed with what Andy Scott had done with the song's arrangement. Chapman actually called Andy and gave him support. Well, finally. That's what he said. Andy found those words a tremendous compliment coming from Chapman. Fox on the Run gained recognition as the first sweet single written by the bans themselves and, in fact, came from the partnership of Nikki Chin and Mike Chapman. It marked the single's 14th release overall, notably the song rose to the top of the charts in Australia in 1975, holding the number one position for six consecutive weeks. Fox on the Run also topped the charts in South Africa and West Germany and secured the number two spot. in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom it reached number three in New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark.

Here in the US it reached gold status selling over a million units and peaked at number five on the Billboard Hall 100, eventually tying for the second highest charting song. In the US, Ballroom Blitz only followed Little Willie which reached number three in 1972. As many of us know, foxy is slang used to describe someone who is physically attractive, referring to someone as a fox was very common. In the late '60s and '70s, particularly after Jimmy Hendricks immortalized the term with his 1967 release of Foxy Lady, Foxy Lady Fox on the Run is about a specific groupy.

All the members of the band knew her, but they deliberately left her nameless to protect her. topic to write about in rock and roll, I mean, besides Fox on the Run, a lot of other greats, uh, we just covered one a few months ago, what's your name? Skinnard's, she's also Billy Jeene and Michael Jackson's dirty Diana, once a little and twice shy. the Ian Hunter tune that brought Great White and a bunch of ACDC's Rosie about Rosie from Tasmania, those are just the ones I can remember, maybe the most famous groupy that was actually named in a rock song.

It was Sweet Connie who was doing her act and Graham Funk Railways were an American band Sweet Connie just like there are two versions of Fox on the Run there are two versions of Desolation Boulevard in the UK or the RCA version released in 74 features the original offering to Fox on the Run, a raw performance of the song recorded to more closely simulate a live Sweet performance. The UK-released album also includes SW's version of The Who's My Generation on Chapman and Chin's composition, LOW, which was excluded from US or Capital. The Desolation Boulevard version along with two other tracks, "Bájalo", was actually the second single from the UK version of Desolation Boulevard, but had problems airing on the BBC.

It was mainly due to the line "For the love of God", which is kind of interesting and fell just outside the top 40 on the British singles chart, at number 41, surprisingly very unusual for a sweet single during that period, many of the biggest rock bands that came out in the '80s and '90s were heavily influenced by sweet, I mean, there's my team. Def Leopard Scorpions Red Hot Chili Peppers just to name a few, in fact the Peppers occasionally played Fox on the Run during their lifetime as a demonstration of their esteem for Sweet Fox on the Run.

It has also been covered by Girls' School The Nip Drivers uh The Replacements Kiss GuitarsHe originals Ace Fry, among others, in 1968, although Manfred Man released a completely different song called Fox on the Run, which reached number five in the UK, it didn't do so well here, I think it reached number 97 , uh, his song explored a different lyrical theme that focuses on the feeling of being like a fox on the run after a romantic breakup. It had nothing to do with a group. Now, of course, the titles themselves can't be copyrighted, but Tony Hazard, the writer of the Manford Man song, found it in bad taste, he would say in a quote.

Fox on the Run is such a distinctive title that any trip or trip worth it would leave it alone. He also criticized him in another interview saying that he sweetly even replicated the ascending harmonies in our song. end of quote, so here's a clip of Fox on the Run versus man for man, what do you think my opinion? A lot of songs have the same title, it's no big deal, I mean how many songs have been called lady right lady lady Fox on the Run has been a favorite nostalgic piece in many movies Detroit Rock City When in Rome catch 44 uh Lords of dog town the Goods live Hard Sell Hard and the black phone and Dazed and Confused a new generation of fans discovered Fox on the Run when it was used in the trailer for the pop culture sensation Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 that led to the song arriving to the top of the chart. iTunes rock chart in late 2016, number one after all those years after the passing of Connelly in 1997 and Tucker in 20 2, two competing lineups of sweet emerged.

Steve Priest's group focused here in the US, while Andy Scott's band continued creating new music and getting on board. on regular tours of Europe with Steve's death in 2020, although Andy Scott became the site's only surviving member. Andy's prowess at producing Records was revealed in a major way in the reworking of Fox on the Run when Prohibition and the label decided to renew Foxy uh sweet's regular producer, Phil Wayman, assumed he would be at the helm, but Andy He ignored it by saying we'll do it ourselves and we're so glad he did it using the ARP 2600 subtractive synthesizer.

I mean, it was such a genius move on Andy's part, it was a very high-tech instrument that had only been available for a couple of years at that time when Andy used it for Fox on the Run and it also gave Brian Connelly's explosive voice that hotter tone. he mixed it deservedly and also, you know, enhanced Mick Tucker's drums and Steve Priest's Baseline to give the song More Rhythm. He also fattened up the hook, including Steve's sly delivery of On The Run at the end of the chorus, now the lead single from Give Us. the sweet wink follow up to Desolation Boulevard, uh, the slam and action on the track that rose to number 15 in the UK and number 20 in the US on 75ce 76, the second single from give us a wink , The Lies in Your Eyes lost steam at number 35 in the UK.

It didn't even chart in the US, it took two years and two albums later to produce the next big hit, When Love Is Like Oxygen. , which returned the band to the top 10, rising to number nine in the UK and number eight on Billbo Hall. 100 with that irresistible Andy Scott guitar in the wake of the massive love generated by Fox on the Run, success slowly dissipated for Sweet You after they split from Mike Chapman and Nikki Chin, there's no doubt about that, but a Although the chart success diminished, the four members of Suite did what they really wanted to do, I mean, it's a divorce that happens a lot in an egomaniacal business like the music industry, when an artist reaches a certain level of success. fame, they have a tendency to believe that.

They no longer need to depend on anyone or come to the delusional conclusion that they ever needed anyone; They are big enough to make all the decisions in their career; Unfortunately, Swoot was an example of that mentality when asked about their decision to produce their own records in a BBC article Andy Scott summed it up in a succinct statement: We are the only ones who know what we want, as I mentioned, sweet had 15 hits and were as talented and unique as any band of the time for once they arrived. They have been largely forgotten at least by many

people

under 40.

It's time to rectify. Let's bring back his music. Thank you very much for seeing us. Leave us a comment about Sweet and Fox on the Run. Without a doubt it is a perfect song. What are your memories? They really put out a great song, um, let's have a great discussion about Sweet. I think they're one of the great underrated bands of all time, uh, we need to introduce the new generation to these guys, um, if you want. our content we invite you to subscribe below we would love to have you until next time three chords and the truth friends