Robbed Hit of the Week 2/17/14 - Maze featuring Frankie Beverly's "Back In Stride"...

Maze featuring Frankie Beverly - "Back In Stride"
from the album Can't Stop The Love (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #88

This week's "robbed hit" is by the soul/funk led by Philly-born Bay Area transplant Frankie Beverly, who formed Maze at the beginning of the 70s. After touring with Marvin Gaye and a band name change from Raw Soul, they released their self-titled debut in 1977. The single from that record, "While I'm Alone", went to #21 on the R&B chart and skimmed the Hot 100 chart as well at #89. By the following year, Maze scored their first top ten soul single with "Workin' Together" from their sophomore set Golden Time Of Day. They closed out the decade with what would be their highest charting pop hit, "Feel That You're Feelin'", which stopped at #67.

It seemed as though their success on R&B radio was unstoppable, while pop stations would stay clear. In 1983, they scaled to #5 on the soul chart with "Love Is The Key", which also grazing the American (#80) and British (#88) singles chart. But their albums were selling, with their last five albums reaching the top 40 on the albums chart in the U.S. before 1985. That year they released Can't Stop The Love, and the first single from the set, the jubilant "Back In Stride", was their most infectious yet...

While "Back In Stride" went all the way to #1 on the R&B singles chart in Billboard, pop radio again stayed clear, and the song stopped at #88 on the Hot 100 in April of 1985. It did marginally better in the UK, reaching #79.

This would be Maze's last appearance on the Hot 100, though the follow up to this single, "Too Many Games", managed to make the top 40 in England (#36). In 1989, the band claimed another #1 soul hit with "Can't Get Over You". They still tour, but haven't released a studio album since the early 90s, and their last charting soul hit, "What Goes Up", went to #32 in 1994. By that time, rap, new jack swing, and rave was dominating the charts, and classic soul was getting pushed out.

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Here's Maze from their tour in 1985 in Los Angeles...

And again from their 1994 set in London's Hammerstein Odeon...