Songoftheday 2/11/17 - Big bill collectors they ring my phone, they bother me when I'm not at home...
from the album All The Way (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15
Today's song of the day comes from the sibling soul duo Calloway. Reggie and Vincent Calloway came from the funk/post-disco band Midnight Star, who had scored a top-40 pop hit in the winter of 1985 with "Operator". After producing a few R&B hits for the likes of Gladys Knight and Natalie Cole, the brothers recorded and released their debut album as a pair in 1989. The first single from the set was a bubbly upbeat pop-dance track about the trials of wanting it all, "I Wanna Be Rich". It was a funky enough for what sounded like a Billy Ocean soundtrack to a Bill Murray film vehicle but miles away from their club fare with the Star...
"I Wanna Be Rich" became Calloway's sole top-40 pop hit, climbing to the runner-up position in May of 1990. The single also climbed to #5 on Billboard's R&B chart (a sign of how "pop" the single was), as it also crossed over to #20 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. Across the pond, the record slipped on to the British singles chart for a solitary week at #100.
They followed this hit up with "Sir Lancelot", a new jack swing track that missed the pop chart, but was a respectable R&B hit at #19. Their third single from the set, "All The Way", did manage to reach both the pop (#63) and soul (#39) charts. In 1992, the brothers released a second (and so far last) album together, and the title track, "Let's Get Smooth", peaked at #33 on the R&B chart.
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And here's Calloway performing live on the Arsenio Hall show to promote the single in 1990, and the band is pretty tight...
Up tomorrow: She fits the bill for these explosive hipster rockers from New Jersey.
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