Songoftheday 12/10/14 - No more runnin' down the wrong road, dancin to a diffrent drum...

Michael McDonald - "Sweet Freedom"
from the album Running Scared (Original Soundtrack) (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day comes from rock and soul singer Michael McDonald, who landed his first #1 hit apart from the Doobie Brothers with his duet with Patti LaBelle, "On My Own" in 1986. That same year, he also released a single from the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines buddy-cop movie Running Scared. "Sweet Freedom", written and produced by former Heatwave leader and Michael Jackson collaborator Rod Temperton, was a slice of typical bright and flashy soundtrack fare, with a vaguely Caribbean undertone and silky-smooth production. And with the stars in the video, all I could think of was "damn, I was so crushing on McDonald right now"...

"Sweet Freedom" became Michael's third and so-far last top-ten pop hit in August of 1986. The record also landed at #4 on the Adult Contemporary, #8 on the Dance Club Play, and #17 on the R&B charts in Billboard magazine. Internationally, the single made it to #12 in the UK (pretty good for the straight-up pop song) and #25 in Canada. The song was nominated as well for Best Pop Male Vocal at the 1986 Grammys...

Despite the success, he waited four years to release a follow-up album, and while Take It To Heart managed to have a top-ten AC hit with the title track and a top-ten club hit with "All We Got", his music had grown out of the pop mainstream. Like many mid-age stars, his music got a wide audience on the adult contemporary format, and he had a bunch of successes there, with his two Motown albums selling like hotcakes and from it a cover of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" reaching #5 on the AC chart. A third R&B album, Soul Speak in 2008, placed a top ten easy-listening single with "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher & Higher)" (#9) and even a minor R&B hit with a version of "Love T.K.O." (#92).  Most recently he reunited with the Doobie Brothers for a country-remake album Southbound in 2014...

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Here's the top-ten club version of the song, with I had the 12" single of back in my Chicago days (and still own)...

The song made it back to the clubs in 1998 when Shawn Christopher (sister of yesterday's Song of the Day singer Gavin) went to #1 with a house music cover...

In 2002, Danish electronica act Safri Duo teamed up with McDonald for a drumlicious new version of "Sweet Freedom" that went to #2 in Spain, #29 in Germany, and #54 in the UK...

Back to Michael, here he is in concert in 2003 with a more earthy, gospel-influenced version of the song...

...and an orchestra-backed performance in 2002...

Up tomorrow: English rockers have accumulated every bit of romance.