Robbed Hit of the Week 10/7/13 - Bon Jovi's "She Don't Know Me"...

Bon Jovi - "She Don't Know Me"
from the album Bon Jovi (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48

This week's "robbed hit" was the second single from New Jersey hair-metal band Bon Jovi's debut album, after scoring a top-40 hit with "Runaway" in the spring. "She Don't Want Me" was written not by Jon or guitarist Richie Sambora but by former Wild Cherry keyboardist Mark Avsec. Avsec, a master of power-pop tunes who collaborated with Donnie Iris for a while (which produced one of my top-10 favorite rock songs of all time, "Ah Leah!"), had originally written the track for the disco group La Flavour (who had the club classic "Mandolay"). The band had changed style and their name to Fair Warning (I guess to signify their rock leanings), and Avsec's "She Don't Know Me" begun their first album under the moniker.

Bon Jovi's version would be the definitive take on the song, as it was a big hit in the band's local area, and got big play on MTV...

However, despite the big push, "She Don't Know Me" would stalled below the top-40 on both the pop and rock (#44) charts. I'm still kind of dumbfounded on its lack of success, but timing wasn't on their side, since this came between heavy metal booms of late 1983 and 1986 (which they were a part of helping).

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...and here's the version from Fair Warning/La Flavour...



The song also appeared on 60s pop/soul veterans the Grass Roots' 1982 album Powers Of The Night...

Avsec himself even appeared on a version by singer Sonny Geraci of the soft-rock group Climax ("Precious And Few") under the moniker Peter Emmett..



And here's Bon Jovi themselves live in Japan in 1984..