I like lots of one-hit wonders, but this one has been one of my favourites since I was 15.
This is the full-length album version. The single version is only about two and a half minutes and it excludes the frantic guitar break in the middle. It's hard to believe this band didn't get another hit, not even with the highly enjoyable driving-rock song "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel". The song "Black Betty" is a beefed-up hard rock version of an old Leadbelly song, for those of you who didn't already know.
Have you ever heard their unsuccessful follow-up single, SH? It was the aforementioned "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel". It had the hallmarks of a transatlantic hit in the 1970s, but inexplicably it flopped in both the US and UK. I don't know if it charted anywhere else in the world, I have yet to find out any further info on it. This is the song I'm talking about, one of the all-time should-have-been-a-hit songs:
That one I haven't heard before. I do like the Black Betty better though. I did try see if I could find anything about the charts on Keep Your Hands On The Wheel but had no better success than you.
I bought "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel" on a single after I'd already got "Black Betty", and I was as puzzled then (30-odd years ago) as I still am now as to why it wasn't a hit. I can also tell you this, SH. My mum hated "Black Betty", she thought it was one of the worst records I'd ever bought, and when she heard me playing "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel" I told her it was the same band who did "Black Betty" and asked her what she thought of it. Of "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel" she said "I've heard a lot worse, it's better than that other one". Come to think of it, I've never heard anyone saying they don't like "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel", although fewer people know it than "Black Betty". Lol:)
Isn't it funny how time changes things? I can easily understand why your mother liked Keep Your Hands On The Wheel better than Black Betty. Black Betty has not much else than the raw guitar built into its music, what I find fascinating whereas the follow up is more "mainstream" average and thereby also easier accepted as listenable across generations. I do like Black Betty better, I have to say. Thanis sharing, both songs as your stories behind them. :-)
When I first heard "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel" I immediately thought of Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Roll On Down The Highway" with a bit of Rolling Stones and Status Quo mixed in. I still think now that it sounds like that. Lol:)
You'd think that by being more "mainstream" average and thereby also easier accepted as listenable across generations would be all the more reason for "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel" to be a hit. Your comment only makes it all the more baffling as to why it flopped. Lol:)
This post was edited by Bez at October 19, 2016 5:49 PM MDT
I know of them all three, and you might be right. Maybe that's where to look for why it didn't make it into the charts? But then again, I am not familiar with which songs made it into the charts when the single was released. :-)
"Keep Your Hands On The Wheel" was released in the US in September 1977 and in the UK in November or December 1977. The UK Number One at that time was Paul McCartney's "Mull Of Kintyre" (relegated to a B-side in the US). Meanwhile, the US Number One at the time was "Best Of My Love" by the Emotions (not to be confused with the very different song of the same title by the Eagles). The Emotions single reached #4 in the UK. As for the rest of the charts, I'll have to look further into it. I do know Status Quo had a #3 hit in the UK around that time with "Rocking All Over The World" which has a remarkably similar intro to that of "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel". This Status Quo single, however, did not chart in the US. Listen to it and compare the intro with "Keep Your Hands On The Wheel".
My my point was that maybe Ram Jam wasn't able to find their own "tone" and that is the reason they never made it with their follow up. But I do not know enough about the music around that time. I was too young to really remember it.
Sorry it's not the Led Zeppelin album version of "Gallows Pole", but some stupid, selfish, spiteful **** (expletive deleted) has removed that version from YouTube for no special reason other than to annoy people. :(
We're not allowed to explete away on here, Lucia. I had one post edited by JA a few months ago, followed by a message to remind me. That's why I don't use that kind of language on here, although I do post a row of asterisks to represent it in cases such as this. Lol:)
I love them too. I would never have considered their music as one hit wonder. Oh my. What a terrible mistake, they are way beyond this. Thanks bringing them.
I take it you are referring to the US charts, WW. Garbage were far more successful than that in the UK. Here they had 14 Top 40 singles, 5 of them Top 10 ("Stupid Girl" reached #4 here and was their biggest single). They also had three Top 10 albums, their second one ("Version 2.0") going to Number One on the UK album charts. Their self-titled debut album stayed on the chart for exactly 100 weeks although it never got beyond #6. All in all they had a good run for their money here. By the way, the single "The World Is Not Enough" reached #11 in the UK.
Benedict Arnold 