Songoftheday 4/12/16 - Shadows grow so long before my eyes, and they're moving across the page...

"Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird (Free Baby)" - Will To Power
from the album Will To Power (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's song of the day comes from the Miami-based dance act Will To Power, which was put together by radio DJ Bob Rosenberg in the mid-80s. Rosenberg, the son of singer Gloria Mann, who herself scored two top-20 pop hits in the accepted first year of the "rock era", 1955. Joining with vocalist Suzi Carr and naming the group after a philosophical idea by Frederick Nietzsche, they released the independent 12" single "Dreamin'", which got picked up by the majors after becoming a regional hit, and peaked midway up the pop chart at #50. Their second release, "Say It's Gonna Rain", did about the same, reaching #49 pop, but ending up being a big club hit, topping Billboard's dance chart. For the next single from their self-titled debut album, Rosenberg put together what would now be called a "mash-up", fusing parts of two songs together for one recording, in this case two classic album-rock radio tracks. "Baby I Love Your Way" was originally a #6 hit for guitarist Peter Frampton from his massive live album in 1976, along with the southern-rock standard "Free Bird" from Lynyrd Skynyrd from the year prior. Both of those reached the top-20 on the American top-40 originally, but were way more remembered than their chart peaks belie. With a slowed-down shuffle beat and synths flashing around, this treatment of such behemoths of rock music bordered on blasphemy, but somehow 1988 was a perfect year for this sin, as Nirvana and the return to dirty rock would be years away. Suzi Carr's vocals had just enough authenticity and not the usual nasal dramatics that freestyle music was accustomed to, which softened the blow. And radio went along for the ride, with mustachioed Rosenberg motorcycling like the leather guy in the Village People...

"Baby I Love Your Way/Free Bird" went the distance all the way to #1 on the American pop chart in December of 1988. The record also made it to #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy-listening") radio chart. Internationally, the single topped the singles charts in Canada and Norway, reached #3 in Ireland, and #6 in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It also climbed to #20 in Australia. It was the act's biggest hit single by far, earning itself a gold record.

Up tomorrow: A British superstar gets intimate with a dumbo.