Songoftheday 4/8/19 - The moon appears to shine and light the skies, with the help of some fireflies...
from the albums Unity and Reality Bites (Original Soundtrack) (both 1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 24
Today's song of the day comes from the reggae band who originally came together in the late 1980s, but after a couple of name changes christened themselves as Big Mountain in 1991. Led by singer "Quino" McWhinney. The band released an album as "Shiloh", California Reggae, in 1988, but their debut album as Big Mountain, Wake Up, was put out in 1992. From that set the single "Touch My Light" became their first minor pop hit single, climbing to #51 on the Billboard magazine Hot 100. But when it came to record their third record together, the entire band save for McWhinney and bassist Lynn Copeland stayed on board, hiring five more replacements. The first single from Unity was first used in the film Reality Bites starring Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder and appeared as the final song in the soundtrack. It was a cover of the Peter Frampton rock classic "Baby, I Love Your Way", which Peter originally took to #6 in 1978...
At the end of 1988, the Miami-based dance act Will To Power incorporated the song in a "medley" with the Lynyrd Skynyrd song "Free Bird", and ended up going all the way to #1 on the American pop chart...
So six years later, the reggae-style remake of "Baby, I Love Your Way" from Big Mountain was able to bring the song into the top ten on the Hot 100 for a third time. I'm sure half the people who liked the song at the time thought this was UB40...
Big Mountain's take on "Baby, I Love Your Way" became the band's sole top-40 pop hit in May of 1994. The song also made it to #10 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart, spending a half of a year (26 weeks) on the list. International, the single was also a huge success, topping the chart in Spain, Sweden, and Denmark, and also reaching the top ten in Canada (#2), the UK (#2), Switzerland (#2), Australia (#4), the Netherlands (#4), Austria (#4), Norway (#6), Ireland (#7), France (#7), Belgium (#7), and Germany (#9). A second single from Unity, "Sweet, Sensual Love", wasn't able to build on the momentum of their hit, stalling out at #80 on the U.S. pop chart, although it did make the top-40 in New Zealand at #23. Another track from Unity, "I Would Find A Way", was a minor hit in Germany at #62.
The band put out their next album Resistance in 1996, but the lead single, a remake of the Youngbloods' "Get Together", missed the top-40 by a smidge, peaking at #44 on the pop chart, while climbing to #28 on the Adult Contemporary list. It was bigger in Canada, topping out at #16. A year later, Big Mountain's next set, Free Up, stiffed, only sending its biggest single "All Kinds Of People" to #75 in Germany. Leaving their record label Giant after that, the band still continued on, releasing six more albums independently. Their most recent studio set, Perfect Summer, was released in 2016.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the band appearing on Arsenio Hall in 1994...
And next up, a concert clip I believe from the 1990s...
Fast forward to 2017 at a concert festival...
And finally, the band in an intimate radio performance...
Up tomorrow: A pristine soul band gets to rockin' back and forth.
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