Stories (band)
Stories was a short-lived rock - pop band from New York during the first half of the 1970s.
Band history
Ian Lloyd (singer and bass player) and Michael Brown (keyboards) met through their fathers who were friends. Brown had already been successful with the group The Left Banke ( Walk Away Renee , Pretty Ballerina ) in 1966/1967 . In 1972 they decided to form a band and played their debut album Stories with Steve Love (guitar) and Bryan Madey (drums) , which was released on Kama Sutra Records . The first single I'm Coming Home was a small hit parade.
After the completion of the second album About Us produced by Eddie Kramer in 1973, Brown, who had written most of the previous tracks together with Lloyd, left the band to focus on other projects. The remaining musicians also found another mission in the studio to record a demo of the Hot Chocolate title Brother Louie . Although initially intended for another project by the artist Exuma , who also worked for Kama Sutra , Brother Louie was finally released as a single with Lloyd as singer and Kenny Aaronson on bass under the band name Stories. Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise produced the recording. The R&B song, interpreted with funky rhythm and soul , hardly matched the band's previous keyboard-heavy repertoire due to Michael Brown's influence.
Ironically, this song, which is atypical for the band, became the number one hit on the US Billboard charts in the summer of 1973 and also achieved gold status . Inspired by the success of the single, the last album came as a reprint with Brother Louie as the 13th track up to 29th place in the LP charts. In Germany, Brother Louie just missed making it into the top 40 of the single hit parade.
Brother Louie , written by Errol Brown and Tony Wilson, is about the mixed-ethnic love relationship between an unnamed black woman and the white man Louie ( "She was black as the night, Louie was whiter than white" ) and the racially motivated one Discrimination in this relationship in both families of the couple. While in the original version of Hot Chocolate, which was a top ten hit in Great Britain in the spring of 1973, the fathers of the two can be heard in instrumental passages with derogatory remarks made by Alexis Korner about the daughter / son's undesirable partner ( " ... I don't want no honky in my family ... / ... get it, no spook in my family ... " ), the Stories version is limited to hints in the second stanza ( " .. . ain't no diff'rence if you're black or white, brothers, you know what I mean " ).
After the LP Traveling Underground (1973) Ian Lloyd also left the band. Bassist Kenny Aaronson and keyboardist Ken Bichel completed the band before Steve Love left and was replaced by Richie Ranno. No other singles were able to make it into the top 40, despite the fact that, driven by their record company, they tried to repeat the success of their big hit with titles like Mammy Blue (known two years earlier as Mamy Blue in the version of the Pop Tops ) . After the last single Another Love in 1974, the band finally broke up.
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 UK
|
 US
|
|||
| 1972 | Stories | - | - | - | - |
US182 (9 weeks) US |
First published: 1972
|
| 1973 | About Us | - | - | - | - |
US29 (19 weeks) US |
First published: 1973
|
gray hatching : no chart data available for this year
more publishments
- 1973: Traveling Underground
- 2007: Stories / About Us
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
DE
|
AT
|
CH
|
UK
|
US
|
|||
| 1972 | I'm coming home stories |
- | - | - | - |
US42 (12 weeks) US |
First published: June 1972
|
| 1973 | Brother Louie About Us |
DE41 (4 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
US1  (18 weeks)US |
First published: June 1973
|
| Mammy Blue Traveling Underground |
- | - | - | - |
US50 (8 weeks) US |
First published: October 1973
|
|
| 1974 | If It Feels Good, Do It Traveling Underground |
- | - | - | - |
US88 (5 weeks) US |
First published: March 1974
|
gray hatching : no chart data available for this year
More singles
- 1972: You Told Me
- 1972: Top of the City / Step Back
- 1973: Darling / Take Cover
- 1973: Love Is in Motion / Changes Have Begun
- 1973: What Comes After?
- 1973: Traveling Underground
- 1974: Circles
- 1974: Another Love / Love Is in Motion
Web links
swell
- ↑ AMG, Stories, Charts & Awards, Billboard Pop Singles
- ↑ tomguerra.com, Tom Guerras Mambo Sons Page, Interview with Kenny Aaronson: From Dust to Dylan
- ^ AMG, Song Review Brother Louie / Stories, by Joe Viglione
- ^ Joel Whitburn: The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits . 7th edition. Billboard Books, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8230-7690-3 , p. 607.
- ↑ AMG, Stories, Charts & Awards, Billboard Pop Albums
- ↑ Günter Ehnert (Ed.): Hit-Bilanz, Deutsche Chart Singles 1956-1980 . Taurus-Press, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-922542-24-7 , p. 197.
- ↑ Hot Chocolate in the UK charts
- ↑ Jeremy Simmonds: The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars . Updated edition. Chicago Review Press, Chicago, Illinois 2008, ISBN 1556527543 , p. 186.
- ↑ a b Chart sources: DE US