JOHNNY NASH – "Tears On My Pillow"

I’m never sure what to make of this. It’s pleasant enough, and I seem to remember it went agreeably with sitting out in the sunshine in my parents’ garden (parents being still in Canada and the last lot of tenants having been removed so that I could slob about in it for the summer!) with a glass of something cool and a book (I think this was about the time I sat and read the whole cycle of G K Chesterton’s Father Brown stories in a week).

Agreeable it may have been, and its jaunty melancholy is certainly infectious, but it doesn’t induce any particular emotions in me. I’d rather remember Johnny Nash for I Can See Clearly Now from a few years earlier, but that might be an age thing.

I may be a meringue but I believe we’ll be seeing this again at some point as another recycled title, if not a thinly-disguised recycled song.

Not the Little Anthony and the Imperials song but *SPOILER* a version of that is still to come *END OF SPOILER*…

Not too much to say about this one; I wish “I’m Not In Love” had been succeeded by a more potent record than this (for instance, “Jive Talkin'”) and while Nash stands as a key-ish figure in terms of popularising reggae – his “Stir It Up,” two years ahead of Clapton’s “I Shot The Sheriff,” introduced the music of Bob Marley to our charts – “I Can See Clearly Now” is so clearly his one great record that it seems bizarre that it stopped at #9 in the UK and yet this entirely unremarkable midtempo smoocher went all the way. Pop as Chinese food – half an hour later, you’ve forgotten it. Except that the first part of the song seems to come from another record altogether.

The “I Can See Clearly Now” album is rather splendid.

I always thought he was a Jamaican or a Brit and was quite surprised to find out he was a Yank, I believe he even had a few minor R&B hits before he discovered Reggae (and a young lad by the name of Marley) while on holiday in Jamaica.

I’ve a feeling I like this one more than most people here but I’m a sucker for 70s pop reggae.

Radio 1 weren’t exactly going out of their way to spin things like “King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown” or “Slavery Days” during the daytime. Probably the closest the ’75 charts came was “Hurt So Good” by Susan Cadogan, produced by Lee Perry and marketed in Britain by Pete Waterman, but otherwise, apart from “No Woman No Cry” (which seems to do its best to avoid sounding like reggae at all, he says controversially), 1975’s pop reggae crossover as such was more accurately indicated by Judge Dread’s top ten cover of “Je T’Aime,” though the appearance of Paul Davidson’s splendid cover of the Allmans’ “Midnight Rider” right at the end of the year was most welcome.

I have a Nash ‘best of’ CD which is mostly great throughout. But I agree his masterpieces are “I Can See Clearly Now” and “Stir It Up” (the latter included on the first LP I ever owned, a K-Tel comp I’ve mentioned on about four Popular threads now).

SELF-CORRECTION (if only):
“I Can See Clearly Now” actually made #5 in the UK, so that wasn’t so bad. The four above it? Donny and his Puppy Love, the double G with Rock ‘N’ Roll Part 2, the good Dr Hook with Sylvia’s Mother (the bad Dr Hook we’ll come to later) and the New Seekers sing Harry Chapin (“Circles”).

Marcello, i appreciate Diddy David Hamilton and The Hairy Cornflake weren’t spinning much I-Roy or Burning Spear at this time but would i be correct in believing that by ’75 unashamedly “pop” reggae was , at least for the time being, well past it’s commercial peak (apart from the odd exception of course, such as the track under discussion) and reggae had instead began to become seen by many as “proper” music, appreciated by serious, young white men with beards who read “Sounds” every week, worshpped Zeppelin and Clapton, and only bought albums, considering singles as “kids stuff”? Again i could be way off mark but i’m curious to hear from those around at the time.
(Btw good point re: “Jive Talkin'”- a much more worthy number 1 than this, I say…)

The West Indian kids at my school derided even the sainted Bob Marley as “white man’s music” as they played their heavy 12″ dub tracks on the youth centre record player.

Stevens’ “Misty” was wonderful says I. I remember having to correct someone once when he insisted that it was in fact JOEL Garner who had written it, Erroll presumedly being the fearsome pace bowler for both the West Indies and Somerset.

Bunny alert, LondonLee. Tread carefully!

Re: Post 8, subsection 2:

Yeah, I always thought the Clash song had it “You can’t put UK pop reggae through backin’ fine sound systems”

In fact, it was “Ken Booth, UK Pop reggae” and was being approved of. (It was the supposedly more ‘radical’ stuff that was ‘four tops all night’)…

sorry pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør- i read ur v interesting post (#8) AFTER i’d written my own second post! Sorry for any confusion. Since i wasnt around at the time ive unfortunately had to rely on the “established history of pop and rock” as outlined by rock hacks(many of whom probably werent around then either)and i appreciate the chance to read post here about how these developments and changes in pop felt to real people who actually were there. I wasn’t actually enquiring about the percieved “coolness” of Nash and the like, merely the chart success of pop-reggae artists which i thought had dwindled by this point(and which, as several have been kind enough to point out, i was completely wrong in doing so!) Thanks to all for their thoughts on this matter…

unlike the last three No.1s, all of which marked their time indelibly (particularly ‘I’m Not In Love’), this one doesn’t seem to have left a trace in my memory for these things. Not a bad record, but I found myself saying: ‘so THAT’s when it came out. ’75. Hm..’

yes, i didn’t mean to sound snippy! and i wasn’t jumping on yr point, lee, which i think is perfectly valid re marley, more that i’m just not sure if you can extrapolate from how marley was being talked about by angry black london schoolkids in the late 70s (?)*, to how they (or their parents) (or uncles and aunts back in jamaica) would have been talkin about the infinitely less “cool” johnny nash a few years earler: bcz very very uncool dadreggae or mumreggae — if broadly popular in jamaica or brixton — might still not in ANY sense be “white man’s music”; where marley (can be said to have) sold out, johnny nash never pretended to have “sold in”, and so wd have continued to have been held in much more fond regard (possibly)**

*you didn’t actually say when exactly yr schooldays were!
**of course there’s also that element of dread that was deliberate baffling black hipsterism — whereby notably “uncool” things wd be embraced precisely to throw off and trip up neophytes… this is what’s being celebrated and mocked, i think, on the legendary cover of dr alimantado’s “best dressed chicken”, where he has his flies open and his scarlet underpants on show… yr meant to be thinking “haha is this man the COOLEST GUY ALIVE?” (or is his flies undone?)

re:#27- I’m intrigued with the comment that Nash, Ken Booothe etc ‘might still not in ANY sense be “white man’s music”- i’d always figured that their records had been specifically designed to be exactly that i.e. unashamedly ‘pop’ records, aimed at a mainstream (white, in other words)audience who bought records in the charts by anyone from Mud to Tammy Wynette as long they had a nice tune, a beat you tap your toes to, and a sound that was earcatching witout being too disorientating or ‘alien’. Surely it was these people who sent these records to number 1 more than the ‘mums and dads in Jamacia and Brixton’you refer to?

Rosie, i by no means meant any “racial stereotyping” by my comments.Obviously many white music fans love many different reggae artists as well as Marley while others, like yourself do not have much time for the genre beyond him. Both are equally valid. What i was commenting on was the people(and i have meet many)who adore Marley but seem unaware of practically any other reggae artist- people who would list UB40 as their 2nd favorite reggae then struggle to name a third. You, however, seem to have some knowledge of the music and simply don’t find most of it to your taste which is obv fair enough. As i acknowledged my opinion was probably ” a slightly stupid stance” and i apologise for any offence caused.

there’s two different things going on, i think, crag:

i: these are artists who are beloved in the black communities in london and in the caribbean, over many years…
ii: … who at a particular point have a very sizeable crossover hit, possibly by design, possibly by accident…
iii: no doubt some of them then spent a season trying calculatedly to recapture the effect, but to no avail…
iv: … so they relaxed back into being adored by their first and most loyal audience, for many years to come

whereas marley was certainly seen (by some) as having spurned his roots audience for worldwide attention, as a long-term proposition: at the behest of chris blackwell, he changed his band and his sound, dispensing with the services of the great bunny wailer and the er occasionally great peter tosh, and made music with a rock audience in mind (to be fair, others were pleased by and proud of this wider success, and didn’t hold it against him)

in other words, a lucky one-off doesn’t make you “white man’s music”; but a long and deliberate campaign MAY DO SO (especially in a politicised context, as a key strand of reggae was increasingly to become)

and, yes, all caveats about rubbish generalisations apply

a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt (#33, i totally agree with you regarding ‘selling-out’, ‘crossing over’ etc etc. I imagine its the same with reggae as it is with every single type of music usually seen as outside the “mainstream” when an artist working in the genre achieves “mainstream” chart success.
Surely one of the points of Popular is, as well as sharing musical opinions, memories, amusing anecdotes etc is to work out HOW certain records made it to number one, particularly if as in the case of “Tears on my Pillow” their musical merits are not especially obvious(IMO). This was why i was enquiring what section(s) of music fandom would have been purchasing the record and figured those of you around in ’75 may have had some idea.
I will try to keep any generalisations(rubbish or otherwise) to myself in future..

no, i agree — why this crossed over in such a way at such a moment (and who did it cross over to) is very intriguing, but i think any guesses on my part will end up plunging into exactly the assumptions i’m trying to be a bit sceptical of!

taking this plunge:
one thing we have been seeing a little of — with “whispering grass” for example — is a little mid-70s bubble-up of music redolent of pre-rock’n’roll pop styles, a sort of post-60s-turmoil old-timers chart insurgency, perhaps fuelled by DJs *NOT* simply working the “kids’ market”; marcello will be way better than me on who in particular these DJ might have been

in other words, treating the reggae beat as just happenstance colouring, is this a song that would via vocal styling appeal to, i don’t know, a brook benton fan, say? [or insert other late-50s pre-soul crooner here…] [my dad would always talk about singers who were CLEAR, as a value: he didn’t like the rock or soul shout-and-grunt]

this is pure speculation — for all i know it was the tune for a humorous lawnmower commercial

Aren’t you all over thinking this? It was a hit because it had a catchy tune and people liked it.

It’s not rocket science.

Yeah, I think it’s quite simple as well. It was Engelbert with a backbeat, and hence universally wishy-washy enough to strike big with the Harmony Hairspray brigade, in a way that the patently superior “Stir It Up”, “I Can See Clearly Now” (and to a lesser extent “There Are More Questions Than Answers” couldn’t). A random break-out, that just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I dare say much loved by the “Diddy” David Hamiltons of this world.

(And also, as others have said, remarkably forgettable; I couldn’t have put a tune to it at all.)

The discussion is far superior to the single! It’s hard to find much to say about it – its not the sort of thing that you could mind much, but a bit pallid and dull, and the more interesting exercise of comparison will have to wait until we get to the nineties.

It fails to evoke what crying in bed actually feels like, in my experience.

Re post 22, something that I’m always remembering is – a few years ago, I was in the Central Birmingham branch of HMV and in front of me in the queue was a young black woman buying a Mott the Hoople box set. Had the customer been any two of this combination of age, race and sex, I wouldn’t have thought about it very much, but she just seemed such a long way from the expected audience for such a thing… So I often wonder – Was it a present for someone? Or, if she was getting it for herself, was it what she expected? Either way, I hope that her purchase made her happy.

one thing we have been seeing a little of — with “whispering grass” for example — is a little mid-70s bubble-up of music redolent of pre-rock’n’roll pop styles, a sort of post-60s-turmoil old-timers chart insurgency, perhaps fuelled by DJs *NOT* simply working the “kids’ market”; marcello will be way better than me on who in particular these DJ might have been

Well, by summer ’75 the “kids’ market” had kind of imploded – it was essentially the Rollers now and everyone else had fallen off or dropped out for one reason or another; the Osmonds, Cassidy, Slade etc. were still getting hits but these were getting progressively smaller and people got progressively less excited about them (possibly relevant is the emergence of Barry Manilow in ’75 as a commercial force just in time to catch those who had “grown out” of Donny and David). Meanwhile the Big Blokes (Rod, Bowie, Queen, Floyd, Zep &c.) continued to thrive but they were not “kids’ market” orientated as such.

Set against that 1975 saw number one greatest hits albums from Perry Como, Jim Reeves, Tom Jones and Elvis so the Radio 2 demographic of that time were clearly leading the way and – as Abigail’s Party proved – weren’t invariably old timers in age terms but were maybe worried.

In terms of pop that kids could buy there probably wasn’t too much except for dance music (and paradoxically 1975 was one of the great years of dance music). Daytime Radio 1 and Radio 2 playlists and broadcasters were more or less interchangeable (Johnnie Walker excepted, and R1 may have had greater disco input); this was the era of Blackburn having his daily nervous breakdowns and playing nothing but weepy ballads, of aural valium/sherry cocktails.

For the novelty hits, though, look to Noel Edmonds (R1) and Wogan (R2) and the undervalued and always forgotten Junior Choice with Ed Stewart which was largely responsible for the popularity of things like Mike Reid’s “Ugly Duckling,” “Trail Of The Lonesome Pine” and what have they.

Just a few stray thoughts: what’s time specific about the Marley marketing for the global audience – which comes across very clearly in the episode of Great Albums Catch A Fire – is that what was happening to the music was the opposite of the conventional notion of a ‘sell-off process’. IE, the songs were made less bright and perky so as to be more acceptable to ‘serious rock fans.’
For those who are interested in the ever-contentious subject of white fetishisation of “authentic black music”, Marybeth Hamilton’s In Search Of The Blues is really interesting, if ultimately a little unsatisfying.
Finally, I’ll try not to mention this again, but… the African-Caribbean population of Britain isn’t very big, so any black hit ever will have had predominantly white buyers.