1981 Diesel – Sausalito Summernight
One of the few Dutch groups to reach the US charts, Diesel was formed in 1978. Two years later, the band completed an album.
After several singles charted in the Netherlands, the group finally got their record label to release Sausalito Summernight as a single. The original song ran for over five minutes on the group’s album.
The original release of the song in the Netherlands contained a misspelling that listed the song title as Sausolito Summernight. That was corrected for the US/Canadian release. One member of the band was inspired to write the lyrics for the song by the time he spent living in California in the mid-sixties.
The US promo records that were initially sent to radio stations ran only six seconds more than three minutes. Before it went into major release, they created a different edit that lasted three minutes and forty seconds.
The song sounded a great deal like something The Steve Miller Band might have released. The single peaked at only #25 on the Hot 100 in 1981 but sold over 600,000 copies worldwide. The record did much better in Canada: it topped the chart!
The group recorded another album in 1982, but when sales stalled, the group rotated its membership for the next three years in search of a winning sound. No additional singles were successful, and the group disbanded in 1985.
Several reunions brought the band back together a few times, but they remain a one-hit wonder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_(band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausalito_Summernight
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