Songoftheday 3/14/19 - We stroll along together I tell you I need you oh so much, I love you my darling can you tell it in my touch?
from the album All-4-One (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 19
Today's song of the day comes from All-4-One, a group of pop/soul singers from California that got together in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. Conveniently (and possibly intentionally) named for the recent #1 hit by Color Me Bad, who they seemed to resemble a lot, the foursome released their self-titled debut album in 1994, after their breakout single on the independent label Blitzz Records became a big hit. It was a cover of a song originally released by the doo-wop group the Tymes in 1963. "So Much In Love", starting out acappella with some beach effects and their snapping fingers until a bass and brushed snare come in, was written by lead singer George Williams with writer Bill Jackson and arranger Roy Straigis. The song climbed to #1 on the pop chart in Billboard magazine for a week in the summer of 1963...
All-4-One, with unassuming but diverse guys Tony Borowiak, Jamie Jones, Delious Kennedy, and Alfred Nevarez, went even more simpler, dropping the bass and drum and relying on the handsnaps, Nevarez' bass vocal, and a single cymbal to carry the song through, and with it seemed even truer to the original intention...
"So Much In Love" became the group's first success, reaching the top-5 on the pop chart in America in March of 1994. The single also climbed to #10 on Billboard's R&B chart (the highest rank of their career), but surprisingly didn't make their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart. Internationally, the song got as high as #3 in New Zealand and made the top-40 in Belgium at #29, while it was a minor hit in the UK (#49), Canada (#50), Germany (#56), and Australia (#62).
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Here's the group appearing live on Arsenio Hall to promote the single...
Besides the Tymes and All-4-One, many different acts covered the song, with a few making the charts in Billboard. In 1982, former Eagles member Timothy B. Schmit recorded "So Much In Love" for the (wildly underrated) Fast Times At Ridgemont High soundtrack. His take went to #59 on the pop chart and #27 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format list...
In 1988, Art Garfunkel also put out a version of the song that almost made the top ten on the Adult Contemporary chart at #11...
Here's the group performing live in 2014...
And finally, making a live TV appearance in South Africa in 2017...
Up tomorrow: British group combined jazz and rap for a flippin' hit.
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