EMOTIONAL RESCUE
EPISODE 2

From Studio C Chicago this is “Emotional Rescue,” a tuneful tapestry of all things 1970 to 1980, with plenty of air time given to pop, soul, funk, postpunk, classic rock, Afrobeat, New Wave, film music, jazz, disco, and much more. I’m Andy Miles, and this is The Grateful Dead.

The Grateful Dead “The Music Never Stopped” (1975)

Eddie Kendricks “Date with the Rain” (1972)

The Free Design “Bubbles” (1970)

Fleetwood Mac “Think About Me” (1979)

Music from the “Tusk” album; it came out in 1979 as the double-LP follow-up to the megahit “Rumours.” “Think About Me” was one of the album’s four U.S. singles, reaching number 20 on the pop singles chart. It didn’t fare as well as the album’s title track and follow-up, “Sara,” both of them top 10 hits, but it far outpaced the single that followed it, “Sisters of the Moon,” which barely managed to chart. The mixed results were reflective of the uneven, somewhat slapdash 75-minute “Tusk” album, which sold far fewer copies than “Rumours” had and was much slower to earn the love of fans and the respect of critics.

The Free Design before that, “Bubbles,” a 1970 release that could have just as easily been a late ’60s record. The album it comes from is called “Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love,” one of two LPs the family band released in 1970. It includes soft rock songs penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Laura Nyro, and Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the Broadway scores for “Godspell,” “Pippin,” and “Wicked,” but the song we heard was one of The Free Design’s originals, written by founding member Chris Dedrick.

Eddie Kendricks before that, “Date with the Rain” from 1972. Kendricks was one of the lead vocalists for The Temptations, singing lead on the number one single “Just My Imagination” just the year before, which The Temptations recorded while Kendricks was working on his debut solo release, “All By Myself.” The song we heard comes from the follow-up to that album, “People . . . Hold On,” released in the spring of 1972.

And The Grateful Dead at the top of the show, “The Music Never Stopped” from their 1975 album “Blues For Allah,” the band’s most commercially successful record of the decade.

And you’re listening to “Emotional Rescue” from Studio C Chicago. I’m Andy Miles. Thanks for joining me. Lots of good stuff on the way, including Rick James, Little Feat, Gladys Knight & The Pips, the jazz singer Johnny Hartman, and this from Bryan Ferry.

Bryan Ferry “Let’s Stick Together” (1976)

Rick James “Bustin’ Out” (1979)

Astrud Gilberto “Light My Fire” (1970)

Roy Ayers “Hummin’ (1970)

That’s Roy Ayers singing a song from 1970, “Hummin’,” also known as “Hummin’ in the Sun.”

Astrud Gilberto before that, her cover of The Doors’ “Light My Fire,” released in 1970, by which point the song had been a huge hit for both The Doors and Jose Feliciano; performed on television by Trini Lopez and The Ventures — as a medley with the theme to “Hawaii Five O”; been used in a late ’60s Buick ad on TV; and covered by hordes of easy listening acts, including Johnny Mathis, Jack Jones, The Enoch Light Singers, The Lettermen, B.J. Thomas, Shirley Bassey, and Nancy Sinatra. Soul versions of the song came from Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, Jackie Wilson, and Clarence Carter. I think Gilberto was the only Brazilian bossa nova singer to get in on the song’s popularity, although I could be wrong about that; her version came out on the album “September 17, 1969,” which Verve Records released in 1970.

We heard Rick James’s “Bustin’ Out,” the opening track on the funk record “Bustin’ Out of L Seven,” released in the first weeks of 1979, with a cast of more than two dozen studio musicians, including a number of semi-well-known jazz instrumentalists, the harpist Dorothy Ashby among them. “Bustin’ Out” was released as a single and hit the R&B chart’s top 10.

And Bryan Ferry “Let’s Stick Together” at the top of the set. The song was popularized by its composer, Wilbert Harrison, in 1969, under the title “Let’s Work Together,” which Canned Heat had a hit with the following year. Ferry’s version came out as the title track of a 1976 solo album, using the song’s original title, which dated back to 1962. The Ferry cover got airplay on American progressive rock radio stations in the late ’70s; in his native Britain, though, it was a top five pop single, and the biggest hit of his solo career.

From Studio C Chicago, this is "Emotional Rescue," a show devoted to a great decade in American music: the 1970s. Next up: Little Feat.

Little Feat “Time Loves A Hero” (1977)

Gladys Knight & The Pips “Somebody Stole The Sunshine” (1974)

Jefferson Starship “With Your Love” (1976)

George Harrison “Not Guilty” (1979)

The verdict is in: “Not Guilty.” It’s a George Harrison recording that dates back to the late ’70s, but the song was more than a decade old when Harrison included it on his self-titled solo album in ’79. The Beatles had recorded it during the 1968 sessions that ultimately became the “White Album,” but shelved it, to George Harrison’s continuing ire. The song itself was an expression of discontent about his status in The Beatles, where he was often overruled and overlooked.

Jefferson Starship before that, “With Your Love,” a hit in the year of America’s bicentennial, 1976. It was one of the band’s five top 15 hits of the decade, climbing to number 12 on the Billboard pop chart.

We heard Gladys Knight & The Pips, “Somebody Stole The Sunshine,” a track released in 1974 at the height of their popularity, when they won a pair of Grammys and placed four consecutive singles in Billboard’s top five, starting with their only number one hit, the Grammy-winning “Midnight Train To Georgia.” During that time, they dominated the R&B chart even more, with four chart-toppers in ’73 and ’74.

And from 1977 we heard Little Feat, “Time Loves A Hero,” the title track from their sixth record, released by Warner Brothers.

From Studio C Chicago, this is “Emotional Rescue.” I’m Andy Miles. One last full set of music on the show; it starts with The Detroit Emeralds.

The Detroit Emeralds “Baby Let Me Take You (In My Arms)” (1972)

Linda McCartney “Mr. Sandman” (1977)

John Lennon “One Day (At A Time)” (1973)

Lennon and McCartney concluding that set: John Lennon with “One Day (At A Time)” from the “Mind Games” record of 1973, and Linda McCartney doing her reggae cover of the ’50s song “Mr. Sandman,” which included her husband Paul playing various instruments and singing backup. Fittingly, it was recorded in Jamaica, in 1977, and it earned a place on the “Wide Prairie” album that Paul compiled shortly after Linda’s death in 1998.

At the top of the set we heard The Detroit Emeralds’ 1972 hit “Baby Let Me Take You (In My Arms),” the group’s highest-charting single on Billboard’s pop chart, and a record later sampled by De La Soul, among others.

And you’ve been listening to “Emotional Rescue” from Studio C Chicago. I’m Andy Miles. Thanks for joining me. I usually end the show with one final song; this time I’ve got two, both of an entirely different tone and tempo. The first is Johnny Hartman’s 1972 version of the Gershwin song “Summertime,” first performed on stage in the “Porgy & Bess” opera in the mid-’30s. It will be followed by music from the movie “All The President’s Men,” composed by the brilliant David Shire.

Johnny Hartman “Summertime” (1972)

David Shire music from “All The President’s Men” (1976)

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