It was from his album Silk Degrees, but it wasn’t released as the first single.  A Cleveland area R&B radio DJ played it from the album and it got a great response prompting the record label to send it out to other R&B radio station nationwide.

Shortly after starting to get airplay on Pop stations, the record label released it as single, making it his first major hit, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Charts.

“Lowdown” went on to win a Grammy in 1976 for Best R&B song.

David Paich wrote this with Scaggs, and would later join Toto and write many of their hits.

Watch a live performance of “Lowdown” below:

The song tells the story of a musician torn between his love for a life at sea and his love for a barmaid.

But the story of the record is that, it was the B-side of the single “Don’t It Make You Feel Good,” and a Washington, DC area disc-jockey, Harv Moore, flipped it over and played “Brandy” instead.

Quickly moving up the charts, it reached number one, and was the bands only hit.

How about that?

The problem was, neither could sing the high notes required in the song. At the time, George McCrae was acting as manager for his wife, singer Gwen McCrae.

The original intention was that Gwen should record it, but she was late for the session and George recorded alone.

“Rock Your Baby” became one of the first hits of the disco era in 1974, selling an estimated eleven million copies worldwide.

Rolling Stone magazine voted it the #1 song of the year in 1974.

Of course a few years later Tommy James and the Shondells released “Mony, Mony” — I can only imagine the court battle and confussion with that!

There are no drums in the song, because the hit version was a demo with hand clapping providing the beat.

When they recorded it in the official session with drums, it didn’t capture the same feeling as the demo, so they went without.

However a version with drums was released later on Neil’s 1966 anthology album.

It was intended for the Grass Roots, who at the time were about to release another single, so it was given to Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds.

The Grass Roots regularly perform it in concert.

Here is the Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds version:

Here is the Grass Roots version:

Jackie Wilson recorded his version in Chicago with members of the Motown house band, The Funk Brothers. The musicians who were responsible for that distinctive Motown sound, didn’t make much money, so they took on side gigs playing other artists, like Jackie Wilson.

During a 1975 benefit concert, he collapsed on-stage from a heart attack and subsequently fell into a coma that persisted for nearly nine years until his death in 1984.

By this time, he had become one of the most influential artists of his generation.

Rita Coolidge recorded a much slower version in 1977 and the title was amended slightly to “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher.”

“Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got)” was recorded by the Four Tops after they left Motown and joined the ABC-Dunhill record label, where they stayed from 1973 through 1978.

From the album Keeper Of The Castle, it was their biggest hit after departing from Motown and was written by producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter.

Question is, would you actually kiss the ground she walks on?

Check out this appearance from The Midnight Special:

“Stay With Me” was the first and biggest America hit from Faces.

It was written by Rod Stewart and future Rolling Stone guitarist Ronnie Wood – know then as Ronald David Wood.

The song gives a step-by-step account on how to pick up a groupie for a one-night-stand, making it very clear that she should be gone in the morning, although he does offer to pay her cab fare home.

Released in 1971, it is from the album  A Nod Is as Good as a Wink…To a Blind Horse

How about this classic video:

The group needed an addition song for their album Commodores, so Orange was assigned to write one.

When he fell asleep trying to come up with something, his wife, also a songwriter, came up with some lyrics about a woman with a great body and left them on a little note pad for Orange to he when awoke.

In the lyrics the phrase “built like a brick house” was originally “built like a brick s**t house,” explaining the horn in the pause between the words ‘brick’ and ‘house.’

It is Orange on the lead vocals, instead of Lionel Richie.

Here’s a live performance from 1978:

Taking nearly 90 hours of studio time and 70 hours of tape, at the time it was one of the most expensive pop songs ever recorded, costing close to $40,000.00.

With at least 12 musicians used during the sessions, it is still not clear who actually appeared on the final release.

The high-pitched sound used throughout the song was produced by an instrument called a theremin, which was mainly used to create eerie sound effects for horror films back in the day.

To re-create the sound for live performances a synthesizer is used.