The British top 40 music charts have always been a bit peculiar when compared to the U.S. Sure, they are often on top of new music trends way ahead of the Americas. But their charts are also sprinkled with weird revivals of a song a decade after it was released or there's the embrace of a song that is just too strange to have been a hit in any other country.

That's certainly the case with the short-lived band Sweet Dreams, which in 1974 had a Top Ten British hit with a cover version of ABBA's "Money Honey." The track briefly charted in the U.S. and some other countries, but in every other country than Britain, the original version by ABBA was the clear-cut winner.

The oddest thing about Sweet Dreams is that during the period when the song was a hit in Britain, the female lead singer inexplicably performed the song in blackface.

The song was recorded by Polly Brown, who had previously has a top five U.K. hit in 1970 when she was a member of the pop-rock band Pickettywitch. The "Money Honey" cover was recorded in the same session that also included "Up In A Puff Of Smoke," which was her first solo hit. Brown and her producers decided to release "Money Honey" under the name Sweet Dreams and recruited singer Tony Jackson to perform with her as the male member of the group. They made an appearance on "Top Of The Pops" and eventually released an album.



While "Money Honey" was a hit in the U.K., none of the group's follow-up singles charted and the group broke up after one album, with Brown going on to release "Up In A Puff Of Smoke" under her own name. Jackson's solo career faltered, with the highlight being his recording of the song that was used as the theme for the film The Cassandra Crossing. He found a bit more success as a background singer, performing on hits such as  "Knock on Wood" by Amii Stewart, "Every Time You Go Away" by Paul Young and "Wishing Well" by Terence Trent D'Arby. 

There isn't a lot of documentation about the band, but when the first single was released, Brown decided to give herself the name "Sara Leone" (an apparent reference to the country Sierra Leone) and perform in blackface. It apparently didn't anyone long to decide this might not be the wisest career move and by the time the dup appeared on "Top Of The Pops," Brown was in semi-blackface, wearing a wig and sporting makeup that made her look more deeply tanned than black. Still, it's a weird thing to do and I haven't been able to determine why she decided to do it.



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If you're a casual classic rock fan, you've probably heard the hit song "Free Ride" by The Edgar Winter Group. Since it was a #14 hot for the band in late 1972, it's been used in countless commercials and movies, thanks to a killer hook ("C'mon, take a free ride") and a guitar riff that's memorable ear candy.

Weirdly, that song wasn't the big hit off the band's album They Only Come Out At Night. The biggest single of the band's career was "Frankenstein," an all-instrumental track that went to #1 on the Top 100 singles charts. At the time, the song was everywhere but over the years its been neglected in favor of the commercial-friendly "Free Ride."

They Only Come Out At Night was the first release by the band, which Winter had assembled after releasing the well-regarded 1970 solo album entrance and two albums released with some musicians from Texas and Louisiana under the name Edgar Winter's White Trash. The second album went gold, but Winter apparently was looking for wider success.

The Edgar Winter Band included Dan Hartman (who sang the vocals on "Free Ride" and later had the 1980s hit "I Can Dream About You"), guitarist Rick Derringer (who had been a member of the McCoys when they had their hit "Hang On Sloopy,"), lead guitarist Ronnie Montrose and drummer Chuck Ruff. Montrose and Ruff had previously worked together in the band Sawbuck, which released their lone album in, 1973, just after both men left the band.

Montrose left the band after They Only Come Out At Night and released a solid string of late 1970s albums under the group name Montrose (the first two featuring Sammy Hagar on vocals). Rick Derringer replaced Montrose on lead guitar for the Edgar Winter Group's follow-up album Shock Treatment. It didn't have the success of the debit album, although the LP was certified gold and the single "River's Rising" went to #33 on the Billboard Top 100 Singles chart. 

The band released the album Jasmine Nightdreams in 1975 and The Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer the following year. Derringer had continued to work with the group, although he released a solo album in 1973 that spawned the hit single "Rock & Roll Hootchie Koo."

So let's remember "Frankenstein" one more time, if for no reason because it contains a very 1970s drum solo. And be sure to check out Edgar Winter in this video, who had invented a strap that would allow him to rock out with the rest of the band while playing his keyboard. The downside is that by the 1980s, this setup had evolved into the cheesy keytar.


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With all of the cultural changes the United States has undergone in the past couple of decades, it's easy to forget that there was a time in the not-so-distant past when racism and homophobia was used primarily as a way to get a cheap laugh. A perfect example of that is the 1974 Jim Stafford hit single "My Girl Bill."

Stafford was a fixture on television during the height of the variety TV show boom of the mid-1970s. He even had a short-lived 1975 summer variety series, The Jim Stafford Show. But he's probably best known for a series of hit singles from his brief two album recording career, including the weirdly homophobic "My Girl Bill."

Stafford grew up in Florida and in high school played in a bad that included soon-to-be country rock legend Gram Parsons and Kent LaVoie (who had a string of 1970s hits under the name "Lobo"). Stafford's first brush with fame was in 1968, when he was a performer/supervising writer on the short-lived The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour Revival Show. In 1973, his old bandmate LaVoie produced his first album, which included the creepy creole rocker "Swamp Witch." But most of the album was comprised of the quirky little comedy tunes that would later make Stafford a fixture in Branson, Missouri. "Spiders And Snakes" went to #3 on the Top 100 and was a gold record. The album also included the #7 hit "Wildwood Weed" and "My Girl Bill," which peaked at #12 on the charts.

"My Girl Bill" is an odd song in that the entire punchline of the song is built on the fact that at first Stafford seems to be singing about his "girl" Bill. What!?!? He has a boyfriend?!?! Of course, it turns out that Stafford is simply singing that "she's my girl, Bill." It's the kind of mildly homophobic joke that was pretty common in the world of show business in the 1970s.

Here are the lyrics to the song:

Bill walked me to my door last night
And he said, 'Before I go
There's something about our love affair
That I have a right to know
I said, "Let's not stand out here like this
What would the neighbors think
Why don't we just...step inside
And I'll fix us both a drink"

My girl, Bill
My, my, girl, Bill
Can't say enough about the way I feel
About my girl
(My girl, my girl)
My girl, Bill

William's hands were shaking
As he took his glass of wine
And I could see we both felt the same
When his eyes met mine
I said, "'Who we love and why we love
It's hard to understand
So let's just sit here on the couch
And face this, man to man"

My girl, Bill
My, my, girl, Bill
Can't say enough about the way I feel
About my girl
(My girl, my girl)
My girl Bill

Bill, you know we just left her place
And we both know what she said
She doesn't want to see your face
And she wishes you were dead
Now, I know we both love her
And I guess we always will
But you're gonna have to find another
'Cause she's my girl...Bill

While Stafford first album was a big hit, his 1975 follow-up "Not Just Another Pretty Foot" didn't chart and while both the "Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne" and "I Got Stoned And I Missed It" singles squeaked into the Top 40, Stafford's pop music career was essentially over.

He opened the Jim Stafford Theatre in Branson in 1990 and was a fixture in that nostalgia country scene until he retired to Florida in 2013.

One other interesting piece of trivia: Stafford was briefly married to famed singer Bobby Gentry in the late 1970s.

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Even in the one-hit wonder rich era of the 1970s, the King Harvest hit "Dancing In The Moonlight" was something memorable. It was recorded as a single by the band in 1972 and released as a single in France, but they couldn't interest a label in the song. The band disbanded six months later and more than year after the song was recorded, it was picked up Perception Records, a small label that mostly specialized in jazz and R&B releases.

"Dancing In The Moonlight" eventually went to #13 on the Billboard American Top 40 chart and #5 on Canada's RPM chart. The band recorded an album to accompany the single, but it peaked at #134 on the album charts. And after a follow-up album in 1974 (with a slightly different lineup), King Harvest was no more.

But this version of the song was actually the second time the song had been recorded.

It had been written in 1970 by Sean Kelly, who was a member of an upstate New York band named Boffalongo. He wrote the song while recovering from a vicious assault by a gang:

On a trip to St. Croix in 1969, I was the first victim of a vicious St. Croix gang who eventually murdered 8 American tourists. At that time, I suffered multiple facial fractures and wounds and was left for dead. While I was recovering, I wrote "Dancin In The Moonlight" in which I envisioned an alternate reality, the dream of a peaceful and joyful celebration of life. The song became a huge hit and was recorded by many musicians worldwide. "Dancin In The Moonlight" continues to be popular to this day.

In 1971 I ran a night club called "The Grass Shack" in St. Thomas Virgin Islands with Alex Brooks, Larry Hoppen, Bob Leinbach, Milton Jay, Wells Kelly, Paul Lisseck and Bobby Simone, the former road manager for the Mama's & The Papa's, and a host of other friends. After that, I joined a band named "Boffolongo" with Larry Hoppen (later of Orleans) and my brother Wells. My original version of "Dancin In The Moonlight" was on the Boffolongo album "Beyond Your Head" released in 1970, which featured my brother Wells on drums and Larry Hoppen on guitar and myself on lead vocal.

A year later, Wells Kelly was in Paris playing drums in King Harvest, along with former Boffalongo member Dave "Doc" Robinson, who was the band's lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist.

When King Harvest broke up, Wells Kelly went on to be a founding member of Orleans while Sean Kelly struggled with health problems:

Roughly a year later in 1973, while meditating with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a teacher training course in Spain, I was notified that my old Cornell friends in the band "King Harvest" had a big hit with "Dancin in the moonlight". They invited me to join the group and tour in support of the hit record. Later that year we recorded an album that was never released until 2007 entitled "King Harvest: The Lost Tapes" featuring 5 songs that I wrote or co-wrote and on which I played and sang.

After having toured with King Harvest, I settled down in the Ithaca NY area in 1974. I had some less than successful low back surgery that took me out of commission for many years. I continued to write songs, frequently collaborating with my brother, Wells, who was a brilliant musician. Wells performed and recorded with many great musicians including "Al Kooper", "The Beach Boys", "Bonnie Raitt" and many others. He was a founding member of the group "Orleans" and played and recorded with them for years. During Wells's tenure with the band, I also co-wrote several songs for "Orleans". After his tragic death in 1984, I found it too painful to work on music and pursued other interests. I received a Masters degree in Social Work and Psychotherapy from Syracuse University. For many years, I have been employed as a social worker/psychotherapist.

The Boffalongo version of "Dancing In The Moonlight" is breezy and fun, but you can also see why it wasn't a hit. The King Harvest version is a bit more-stripped down and doesn't include as much jazzy doodling as the original version. But the original is worth hearing and it's a fun look at what might have been.

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