1972 B. J. Thomas – Rock and Roll Lullaby
B. J. Thomas had nearly a dozen top forty singles between 1966 and 1971. Beginning in 1969, his singles had done even better on the Adult Contemporary (AC) chart, yielding two number one records and three more that reached the top five.
He and producer Steve Tyrell wanted to create his next record using unique classic sounds from earlier days of pop music. They took a song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and started it out with Barry playing electric piano and Duane Eddy playing his twangy guitar. Al Gorgoni also dubbed in acoustic and fuzztone guitar.
B. J. sang lead vocals on the single. Darlene Love and two other members of the Blossoms provided some of the background vocals. Towards the end of the record, the former lead singer of the Diamonds (Dave Somerville) and the Ron Hicklin Singers provided a spot-on imitation of the sound of the Beach Boys.
The song clocked in a little over four minutes, although AM radio had a tendency to cut it off sooner. The record peaked at #15 on the Hot 100 in 1972 and gave B. J. his third chart-topping single on the AC chart.
After two more singles on Scepter Records failed to reach the top forty, B. J. moved to Paramount Records in 1973. The highest any of his recordings for Paramount reached was #41. It would be two more years before he moved to MCA Records and finally reached the top forty again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Thomas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Thomas_discography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_Roll_Lullaby_(song)
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