Robbed Hit of the Week 9/23/13 - Juice Newton's "A Little Love"....

Juice Newton - "A Little Love"
from the album Can't Wait All Night (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44

This week's "robbed hit" belongs to country-pop singer Juice Newton, who had a string of seven top-40 hits in the early 80s, during a boom for lite-pop music. however, by the time 1984 came around, rock and new wave had taken over the radio waves and the record store shelves. Juice's last album in 1983, Dirty Looks, managed one top-40 single with a remake of the Zombies' hit as "Tell Her No".

In 1984 she released Can't Wait All Night, which tried to move more in the pop/rock direction, and the first single, "A Little Love", did have the bounce of her previous hits to boot. Written by Danny Douma, Richard Feldman, and Todd Sharp, the song was produced by Richard Landis, who has had success with crossover acts like Van Stephenson and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band..

However, MTV was in no mood to play a soft-rock song, and while the record got a little love from country radio, it only managed to make it to #64 of the format chart. "A Little Love" did the best on adult contemporary radio, where it peaked up at #7, but on the big chart the single would stall right under the top-40 at #44. She would chart one more single from the album, the title track penned by Bryan Adams, and that guitar-heavy track would be her last appearance on the Hot 100.

After this, Juice returned to pure country music full-force, and in the second half of the 80's she topped the chart in that format three more times with "You Make Me Want To Make You Mine" and "Hurt", along with a cover of the top-5 pop hit "Born To Each Other (Friends And Lovers)" with fellow pop/country convert from New Jersey Eddie Rabbitt. Juice's most recent top-10 country single came in 1987 with "Tell Me True", and she ended the decade with her last top-40 country hit "When Love Comes Around The Bend".

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...and here's Juice performing "A Little Love" live in 1985...

Up next week: America's low-key introduction to what would be a record-breaking singer.