I'd like to take this opportunity to say "I'm sorry" to Leo Sayer for ignoring him for the last 50 years. Until very recently, I never owned any of his albums or really paid any attention to him whatsoever. As a devotee of serious rock 'n' roll like the Beatles, Stones, CSNY, The Allman Brothers, The Who, etc., I lumped Sayer in with soft rock icons like The Captain & Tennille, Seals & Crofts, Gilbert O'Sullivan, and whoever did that godawful song called "Afternoon Delight." Sure, back in the mid 70s I heard Sayer's hit singles "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" and "When I Need You" on the radio about every five minutes, but I didn't rush out and buy them or the album they were featured on, Endless Flight.
But life is funny sometimes. A few weeks ago I put on my mask and ventured out of the music cave quarantine to a nearby antiques mall which has a couple of used vinyl dealers. It's one of my regular haunts, and I usually go by every couple of months to see what's new. With the virus, I've been doing all my vinyl shopping online, so hadn't been there in about six months.
As luck would have it, one of the dealers had an amazing sale going on, offering any 20 albums for $15. Seventy-five cent records? Yes, please.
Unfortunately for me, the sale had been going on for nearly a month, so the selection was a little picked over. Nevertheless, I managed to find 60 albums in pretty short order. I got some nice jazz titles, a couple of albums by French crooner Charles Aznavour, a handful of minty classical LPs, a bunch of R&B (that I enjoy but don't listen to all that much), and 10-12 rock albums that I already own but bought anyway because the copies looked cleaner than mine. And I also found 12-15 albums by performers that (as I mentioned in a post from last year about the New Christy Minstrels) I'm normally sort of embarrassed to buy. One of these was Leo Sayer's 1976 album Endless Flight. To be honest, the main reason I bought it was because it looked absolutely pristine -- like it just came out of the rack at Tower Records in 1976. I have an archaeological interest in just about any 45-year-old album that looks brand new.
With so many albums languishing in my intake pile, it normally would have been months before Endless Flight resurfaced. However, I knocked over a pile of records that were stacked near my desk, and the cover (above, of Leo in midair) caught my eye. So I thought "what the heck," cleaned it and gave it a spin.
The first thing I noticed was that the musicians are tight. The band is locked in like session pros from the The Wrecking Crew. And then I noticed the sound; the production is excellent, with a natural sound stage and great dynamics. So I grabbed the dust sleeve to check the credits. Holy cow! Everybody plays on this thing, including Lee Ritenour, Ray Parker, Nigel Olsson, Trevor Lawrence, Chuck Rainey, Steve fricking Gadd, Larry Carlton, Willie Weeks, Jeff Porcaro, Michael Omartian, Bill Payne, and Lee Sklar, just to name about half. Well, hell, no wonder it sounds so good.
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| Sayer and Producer Richard Perry |
Next I checked the technical credits. It was produced by Richard Perry, who has helmed more than 800 albums ranging from Ringo Starr to Carly Simon to Rod Stewart to Captain Beefheart. The album was engineered by veterans Bill Schnee and Howard Steele, and mastered by Brian Gardner at Allen Zentz Mastering in San Clemente, CA. It's on the Warner Brothers label. With so many ace session guys, a first-rate production team, and a custom, full-color dust sleeve, this was a big-budget production that the label clearly supported.
At this point I started to pay a little more attention to the music. By the end of the record it hit me that this is not only an exceptionally well-produced and well-played album, the songs are really good. I don't mean Bob Dylan Blonde On Blonde good for Pete's sake, but well-crafted pop songs that Sayer really nails. He wrote or co-wrote about half the songs, and others were penned by pros like Carol Bayer Sager, Andrew Gold, Barry Mann, and Motown's Holland-Dozier-Holland team.
I don't want to go overboard. It's not my new favorite album, and I'm not planning to run out and buy Sayer's entire back catalog. But listening to Endless Flight reminded me once again that some of the music that I am kind of embarrassed to admit I own, is actually really good stuff. No question I will pull this out from time to time to enjoy.
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| Daltrey, from 1973 |
Since I knew next to nothing about Sayer, I did a little research. He was born in Sussex, England in 1948, and like a lot of the UK's future rock stars (John Lennon, Keith Richards, Freddy Mercury, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, and Pete Townshend for starters), he went to an arts college where he studied art and design. In the early 70s, he started co-writing songs with David Courtney (who later produced Sayer's first two albums), and the pair had their first top ten single in 1973 with a song called "Giving It All Away" off of Roger Daltrey's self-titled solo album, Daltrey (left). In addition to the hit single, Sayer and Courtney co-wrote a total of 10 of the 12 songs on the album, while Courtney played guitar and piano and also produced the album. That same year, Sayer released the first of his own singles (once again produced by Courtney). The second one out of the gate, "The Show Must Go On," made it to number 2 on the UK pop charts. In 1974, Sayer had several more top ten singles in the UK, and his first top ten single in the U.S. His early albums also sold well, including Just A Boy, which made it to number 16 in the U.S. in 1974.
Sayer's breakout success came with the release of Endless Flight, which reached number 4 in the UK and number 10 in the U.S. album charts. (Though released at the end of 1976, the album and the singles from it charted in 1977.) Two singles from the album,"You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" and "When I Need Love," were both number one hits in the U.S. "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" ended up being the number 13 best-selling single of 1977. By way of comparison, the number one Billboard hit that year was the cringe-worthy "Tonight's The Night" by Rod Stewart. I know which one I'd rather hear on the radio every five minutes.
Sayer's next few albums did well, but by the early to mid 80s he had mostly dropped from sight. He had a series of financial and legal problems due a larcenous agent and corrupt financial advisers. (In a 2019 article in The Times of London, Sayer says he lost five million pounds.) However, he continued to record and had chart hits in the UK as recently as 2006. In 2005 he moved to Australia, and became and Australian citizen in 2009. He continues to write and record in his home studio. His latest release from 2019 is called Selfie.
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| Sayer in a 2019 photo. |
Once again, my apologies to Leo Sayer, but better late than never.
Enjoy the music!
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