I have heard this song for two straight days in a row while driving in my car listening to the Love Station on Sirius Satellite. It's such a smooth tune and I couldn't get it out of my mind so I had to write about it!
I remember hearing “My Angel Baby” when I was a kid at least a million times! Funny thing is I always thought this group was a Tex Mex Chicano band that just happened to sing this song in english. In fact, I had one fact right. It was a band from Texas but they only had two chicano band members and they called themselves Toby Beau. Totally not Chicano. The name is more... well, definitely not Chicano.
These guys formed in the Rio Grande Valley in the early 1970s and released their hit single "My Angel Baby" in 1978. The original members included Danny McKenna, Baldemar Silva, Art Mendoza, Steve Zipper and Rob Young and the song was co-written by Danny McKenna and Baldemar Silva.
A little known fact- The group name "Toby Beau" was the name of one of the last original wooden shrimp boats docked in Port Isabel Texas.
I remember it as if it were yesterday. The year was 1978. I was 12 years old. That’s when I saw the movie “The Buddy Holly Story” at the theatre starring Gary Busey as Buddy Holly.
I was so obsessed with that movie and the music that Buddy Holly created that I quickly bought Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits that year and played that record every single day! That’s what initially inspired me to want to play the drums. My parents couldn’t afford a drum set so I made a makeshift drum kit out of a couple of padded kitchen chairs, a couple of bicycle rims and a sawed off old broom stick handle that I made and used as my drum sticks.
Wow! Those were the days! I eventually gravitated to teaching myself how to play the bass guitar because I always appreciated the sound of the bass and would ALWAYS hum/sing the bass lines to every song I heard.
Yes. Buddy Holly was a major musical influence on me. It’s hard to believe his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in 1959 in an airplane crash.
“Rave On” was one of Holly’s last hits during his lifetime and one of my favorites. Although the song wasn’t written by Holly (co-written by his manager Norman Petty), he recorded it in January 1958 at Norman Petty's New Mexico studio where Holly laid down most of his hits. Petty wanted to give it to another act, but Holly protested and persuaded the songwriters to let him record it.
Holly is described as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll.” His works and innovations inspired and influenced later musicians, notably The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, and had a profound influence on popular music. Holly was also among the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time".
I have the Little River Band’s greatest hits CD and my favorite song from this band is ‘Reminiscing”.I can play this song over and over and over and never get tired of it. The music made such an impact on me when I was 12 (so melodic) but I wouldn’t fully understand the lyrics until I was older. It’s just such a brilliant song.
It was written by the band’s founding member and guitarist, Graeham Goble (initially spelled “Graham” but he later changed it) and was recognized as one of the most frequently played songs in the history of American radio, with more than four million plays to its credit.
The song first appeared on their album Sleeper Catcher in 1978 and Goble had to fight to have it included. Goble states:
"I loved watching old black and white movies, and I always also loved the music of Glenn Miller and Cole Porter, that whole era of writing, and it was my attempt to write a song to depict the romantic era. It came out very quickly, I wrote it in about half an hour. Even though a lot of people think it sounds complicated, on the guitar it's very simple to play. It nearly never got recorded - when the time came to record it, the keyboard player I wanted to use, Peter Jones, was out of town, so we cut the band track with a different keyboard player. It didn't work. A few days later when we tried it again with a different keyboard player, again it didn't work, and the band was losing interest in the song. Just before the album was finished, Peter Jones came back into town, the band and I had an argument because I wanted to give “Reminiscing” a third chance. Peter played on it, we cut it, and finished it, and sent the album to Capitol. Capitol said that they couldn't hear any singles on the album, and didn't know what to release. Five weeks later, someone at Capitol's New York office said 'You're all crazy, “Reminiscing” is a smash.' Capitol put it out, and it just immediately caught on fire, and became our highest chart hit."
"It's quite staggering; you don't realize you've written something like that until it happens, until it's history."
Goble also wrote "Lady" and "Take It Easy On Me".
According to Albert Goldman's biography, John Lennon named "Reminiscing" as one of his favorite songs who listened to it over and over. The legendary Frank Sinatra also regarded the song very highly, saying that it was "the best 1970’s song in the world".
