Songoftheday 5/24/14 - Like I always say what's good for the goose is always good for the gander...

Ready For The World - "Oh Sheila"
from the album Ready For The World (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by the R&B/funk group Ready for the World who came out of the former automotive giant of Flint, Michigan, where they were discovered on local radio before being signed by MCA Records in the mid-80s. They released their self-titled debut album in 1985, and the first single released from the project, "Oh Sheila", was a dead ringer for a Prince track, and with vocals from leader Melvin Riley resembling the Purple One and a chord structure sooooo close to Sheila E's "The Glamorous Life", it caught on with pop and soul audiences alike. And of course, they threw in an Aussie sounding "Sheila" to throw you slightly off...

"Oh Sheila" became a #1 hit simultaneously on the pop, R&B, and dance chart in Billboard magazine in October of 1985. Internationally, the single stopped at the halfway mark on the chart at #50 in the UK, while topping the chart in Canada, top-10 in Belgium, and top-40 in most of the rest of Europe.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


In 1999, the act Angel City from the Netherlands went to #2 in neighboring Belgium and four years later #11 in the UK with an interpolation of the song called "Love Me Right (Oh Sheila)". The single popped into the American charts as well at #95...

finally, here's RFTW at the Montreux Pop Festival in 1986..

Up tomorrow: Scandinavians gets animated.