Chicago -- If You Leave Me Now

 

Welcome to the regular weekly Reminiscings of Youth. Back in May, I wrote one ROY on Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze", an early 1970s soft rock hit that was suddenly used in a drink commercial earlier this year. And of course, me being all about the nostalgic music, I was quite happy that an oldie could be dusted off to a new generation even if for a TV ad. 

Cue ahead a few months, and lightning has struck twice. Recently, the household goods store in my nation, Canadian Tire, has dusted off its own oldie-but-goodie that I used to hear on AM radio all the time, Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" from July 1976. The ad has a good dollop of bittersweet humour as Canadian Tire staff wipe a tear but smile in happiness as their favourite products get bought up and taken to their forever home while songwriter Peter Cetera croons away.

When I was hearing this on radio as a kid, I first noticed the French horns and strings, and I categorized it with my limited musical knowledge of the time as "fancy music". There were quite a few of these French horn-laden songs popping up in the 1970s. Nowadays, something like "If You Leave Me Now" would be considered to be 70s soft rock. Ironically, considering how beloved it seems to be now because of the Canadian Tire commercial, I remember the intro for this song popping up on a hard rock radio station ad and being treated as something like the Antichrist.

"If You Leave Me Now" didn't leave the radio-listening public for quite a while as it hit No. 1 in both the United States and Canada along with nations including Australia. It also won a couple of Grammys and by the middle of 1978, it had sold 1.4 million copies just in America alone. This might be Chicago's first ROY article but the band has popped up before on KKP due to "Street Player", the band's disco dance tune.

Well, couldn't find enough kayo kyoku from July 1976 so let's go with June 1976 in terms of what was being released at around the time of "Ai aru Wakare"（愛ある別れ）which is the Japanese translation for "If You Leave Me Now" when the single was being released over there.

Momoe Yamaguchi -- Yokosuka Story （横須賀ストーリー）

Seiko Miki -- Machibuse （まちぶせ）

Teruhiko Aoi -- Anata dake wo (あなただけを)

Spectrum with Hatsumi Shibata, Yukari Ito and Marlene -- Street Player

"Street sounds swirling through my mind..."

Well, how about an earworm swirling through my mind?

Now, when it comes to the band Chicago, even though I did come to realize that they had been together since the late 1960s as the Chicago Transit Authority, I only knew them mostly for their 1980s power ballads such as "Hard Habit to Break". Y'know...these were the guys (including Peter Cetera) who were probably responsible for all those love songs that played during various proms during that decade.

However, just in the last few days, my senses have been hit with this song from before all of that Chicago balladry in the 80s. Namely, I discovered "Street Player" from their 1979 album "Chicago 13" on YouTube, and it's been impossible to resist pushing Play on the various videos of the song on the site. And good golly, the album version is nearly 10 minutes long!

To be honest, another thing that was swirling in my mind was how I would be able to someday insert it into this blog since "Street Player" has been so irresistible with those damn fine horns, Cetera's vocals, and the fact that I knew the Japanese would probably have loved this tune as well since they have warmly welcomed Earth Wind & Fire all these years and of course, there is "Ai no Corrida".

I needn't have worried since it looks like the Japanese fusion band Spectrum（スペクトラム）took care of things very nicely with their own cover of "Street Player". I tried looking on J-Wiki whether the band actually recorded this on one of their early albums, but I couldn't find the song anywhere, so perhaps this video was a one-off extravaganza performance they put together on a TV show back in 1979.

And yowza, what an extravaganza! Not only did Spectrum get their brass in fine fettle for the song, but they had quite the trio of singers helping out: Hatsumi Shibata（しばたはつみ）, Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）and Marlene! Moreover, the performance went for those 9 minutes plus just like the first track from "Chicago 13". As for the choreography, though....I just kinda got that thought, "And now, here come the Solid Gold dancers!". Yup, it was indeed the 1970s, wasn't it? That aside, though, I would like to tip my beret to Spectrum.

One of the videos for "Street Player" that have been getting repeat performances on my computer has been this remix version having a whole bunch of street dancers strutting their stuff. And the YouTube channel happens to be called Street Player as well. Now, I really am gonna bid you a good night.