#100 the week of July 8, 1972
What was #1? Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me,” for the first of three consecutive weeks at the top of the chart.
There’s a type of rock ‘n’ roll I call “Vegas rock.” It was at its most prominent in the late ‘60s to mid-‘70s, around the time the general public had accepted that guitar music wasn’t just a teenage fad. I call it Vegas rock because it feels like rock ‘n’ roll, but spruced up for a gaudy Vegas show room. Too many horns, too many backing singers; all sound and fury and you know the rest. Think end of life, prisoner of Vegas era Elvis; or the Blues Brothers*. “Country Woman” is textbook Vegas.
*The Blues Brothers movie is a stone classic; but there is no reason to listen to the musical stylings of Dan Aykroyd and associates as long as the Stax Records catalogue is extant.
With lyrics about a country woman “all the way down in Georgia,” you’d assume The Magic Lantern was a southern rock band. In actuality, the band hails from the town of Warrington in the northwest of England. The Magic Lanterns (note the plural) were one of the many British Invasion bands that hit below the Mendoza Line*. Perplexingly, they actually did better stateside than in their homeland. Back home their biggest chart hit was a 1966 music hall tinged number called “Excuse Me Baby” (#44, UK). West of the Atlantic, they rocketed to #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on Canada’s RPM chart with 1968’s “Shame, Shame.” The latter is an above average mix of Beach Boys inspired vocals over a Yardbirdsesque instrumental. It’s not a must-listen, but it’s a time capsule of what style chasing looked like in ’68.
*I nominate The Searchers as the British Invasion’s Mario Mendoza, but I’m happy to hear alternative candidates.
The Magic Lanterns’ career was snuffed out after their second album, 1970’s One Night Stand, but somehow the band saw minor success in their death throes, as the album’s titular track hit #74 and the non-album single “Country Woman” (credited to The Magic Lantern for some reason) got to #88. By this point, the band members had gone their separate ways and nobody was interested in seeing if these lead-level hits could be alchemized into real gold.
Overall, “Country Woman” is the platonic ideal of a Warm 100 song. Just catchy enough that the enough people bought it to get it on the chart, but too bland to ever become a real hit. A forgettable song from a forgettable band that had some surprisingly unforgettable members. Originally lead singer Jimmy Bilsbury would co-found the German group The Les Humphries Singers and represent Germany in the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest. Members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme would later form 10cc and direct some of the most memorable music videos of the New Wave era (“Every Breath You Take,” “Girls On Film,” and “Two Tribes” to name a few). Latter day member Albert Hammond would find great success as a singer-songwriter and have a few hits of his own including the immortal “It Never Rains in Southern California,” while bassist Mike “Oz” Osborne would spend the rest of his life being confused with John Michael “Ozzy” Osborne.
Rating: 3/10
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