Songoftheday 1/14/15 - I don´t care what you say you can give it away, your money don´t mean much to me...

"Heartbeat" - Don Johnson
from the album Heartbeat (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day comes from actor/80's heartthrob Don Johnson, who had a not-so-stellar film career that included such movies as the wacky sci-fi of A Boy And His Dog and a showing of his naked self in The Harrad Experiment (one of the first times I saw an adult male naked on the then-new cable TV). But his biggest success was starring in the television cop show Miami Vice as Sonny Crockett, which was one of the most successful programs of the entire decade. Using that as a bargaining chip, Johnson embarked on a musical career, releasing his debut album Heartbeat in 1986. The title track was written by future country songwriters Eric Kaz and Wendy Waldman, and originally recorded by Helen Reddy (of "I Am Woman" fame) on her 1983 Imagination album. With Chicago member Bill Champlin on background vocals and Frank Zappa's son Dweezil in the music video (though it's really Chas Sanford on the recording), the clip runs like a drawn out Vice mini-episode save for Don pretending to be a photographer instead of the fuzz...

"Heartbeat" climbed all the way into the top-5 on the American pop chart in October of 1986, while peaking at #26 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Internationally, the single was pretty big, reaching the top-10 in a big chunk of Europe including Germany and the Netherlands, though stalling below the top-40 at #46 in the UK. Johnson would return to the top-40 in a couple years courtesy of his then-girlfriend "Babs".

And I've at least got to say that he's got at least respectable vocal power in this pre-Auto-Tune time. I mean with that schlager-esque chord change at the end and all.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and just for shits and giggles here's Helen's Reddy's version...

Up tomorrow: a piano man talks about reliability.