Song of the Day: 'Keep On Dancing' by the Gentrys

 

In what should be a surprise to no one, I was on yet another Carly Simon bender over the weekend -- this time fixated on 1985's "Spoiled Girl." (How funny to hear interviewers at the time stacking the 40-year-old singer/songwriter up against Cyndi Lauper and Madonna!) The album is an AOR masterpiece -- "Come Back Home," "Black Honeymoon" and "Can't Give It Up" compare with her best songs -- homing in on topics Carly knows well: love, lust, fame and infidelity. But reading the credits it jumped out at me that the first single was the one song she didn't write. At the time "Tired of Being Blonde" kind of struck as one of those tracks that gets shopped around to older singers who haven't had a hit lately -- think Debbie Harry's "French Kissing in the USA," which was penned by TV producer Chuck Lorre in an earlier life. But the lyrics are actually smarter than your typical hit factory product, so I wasn't entirely surprised to learn that it was written by Larry Raspberry, guitarist and co-vocalist of the Gentrys, who had a smash in 1965 with "Keep On Dancing," on which Larry happened sing lead. How a middle-aged man came up with something like "Tired of Being Blonde" is anybody's guess. But kudos to the A&R rep who got them together for a real sizzler, even if the record-buying public was too dumb to appreciate it.  

Shake it, shake it, baby!