In 1973, English band Hot Chocolate released Brother Louie which peaked at number 7 on the UK chart. The song is about an interracial love affair, but due some of the racist and graphic spoken words in the song, the single was not played at many radio stations in the USA. As a result, Hot Chocolates version never made the charts in America and many music lovers had never heard of the song. Meanwhile, at Buddha Records in America, a fairly new band named Stories were recording albums and releasing singles, but they were still looking for their first Top 40 hit record. One day they were going through some of the recorded demos and they accidentally came across Hot Chocolates Brother Louie. At first, the band didnt realize that they had just heard the master tape, not demo, of Hot Chocolates Brother Louie but after hearing the song, Stories lead vocalist Ian Lloyd knew that he had a major hit on his hands. Although, for radio stations to play the song, Ian Lloyd knew he had to change or eliminate the racist lyrics spoken by the parents. In Hot Chocolates version, the woman, who is black, takes Louie, who is white, home to meet his parents. When he is introduced to her parents, the father says, I dont want no honky in my family. Next in the song, Louie, takes her home to meet his parents and when she is introduced to his parents, her father says, I dont want no spook in my family! Ian Loyd eliminated the racist remarks spoken by the parents and also eliminated the part where she takes him home to meet her parents. While the band was recording Brother Louie, they had went through a major change, their bassist Michael Brown who had been with the band since 1971, left Stories and was replaced by Kenny Aaronson. Not a bad move because when they were experimenting with different ways to lay down the music for Brother Louie, the new bassist Kenny, had a great idea to put a Motown-like bass line which made the song sound funky. The bands changes to the song worked and when they released the single, it became a huge hit peaking at # 1 for 2 weeks and was certified gold. The song was so popular that it skipped over the # 2 song Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney & Wings on the Billboard Hot 100 and jumped into the number 1 position. Unfortunately, the band was not able to duplicate the success of Brother Louie and Ian Lloyd left the group in late 1973 and the band disbanded in 1974. Since then Ian Lloyd was had a great career as a backup singer and has released many solo LPs. https://youtube/watch?v=aJxZL9L6YWc
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:10:02 +0000
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