Hotlegs
Hotlegs | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Doctor Father |
| Years active | 1970–1972 |
| Labels | Philips |
| Spinoffs | 10cc |
| Past members | Eric Stewart Kevin Godley Lol Creme Graham Gouldman |
Hotlegs(very brieflyDoctor Father) was a short-lived English band best known for their hit single "Neanderthal Man"in 1970. The band consisted ofEric Stewart,Kevin Godley,Lol Cremeand – briefly –Graham Gouldman.In 1972, the band re-branded themselves as10cc.
Premise
[edit]Stewart had earlier enjoyed success as a member of the 1960s pop bandThe Mindbendersand had delivered the vocals for that band's best-known track, "A Groovy Kind of Love".The Mindbenders disbanded in November 1968[1]and Stewart teamed with Peter Tattersall, a former road manager forBilly J. Kramerandthe Dakotas,and Gouldman, a fellow Mindbender and successful songwriter, to become joint owners of aStockportrecording studio which in 1969 was renamedStrawberry Studios.
Stewart and Gouldman enlisted Godley and Creme, longtime friends of Gouldman who had earlier launched an abortive career under entrepreneurGiorgio Gomelskyas duo Frabjoy and Runcible Spoon, and the team gained work writing and performingbubblegumsongs under a variety of band names for US producers writer-producersJerry KasenetzandJeffry KatzofSuper K Productions,as well as other session work.
History
[edit]"Neanderthal Man" andThinks: School Stinks
[edit]"Neanderthal Man"was created by the trio of Stewart, Godley and Creme as they dabbled with newly installed recording equipment at Strawberry Studios, perfecting drum layering on a four-track machine. (At that time, Gouldman was in New York City working out the final six months of his contract withSuper K Productions.)
The song consisted primarily of a chanted chorus backed by Stewart's and Creme'sacoustic guitarsand a lumbering drum rhythm provided by Godley. The song was released as a single under the moniker Hotlegs[2]and reached No.2 in theUK Singles Chartin July 1970 and No. 22 in the US, ultimately selling two million copies worldwide.[3]The band recorded a follow-up album,Thinks: School Stinks,forPhilips,which was released in March 1971.
Doctor Father
[edit]Before the release ofThinks: School Stinks,Hotlegs rebranded themselves asDoctor Fatherin August 1970 for the release of a single, "Umbopo" (backed with "Roll On" ), on thePye Recordslabel.
"Umbopo" was written by Godley and Creme, produced by Creme and featured Godley on lead vocals. Released on Pye, it was an expanded reworking of "There Ain't No Umbopo", a song the trio had recorded in 1969 under the guise of Americanbubblegum popgroupCrazy Elephant.That song had emerged from an intense three-month period atStrawberry StudiosinStockport,nearManchester,writing and performing songs for American hitmakersJerry KasenetzandJeffry KatzofSuper K Productions.[3]
Despite regular airplay onRadio Northsea,"Umbopo" did not appear on the British charts and was the sole release by Doctor Father. A brief sample of the song was included onThe History Mix Volume 1byGodley & Cremein 1985, while the full version – along with the shorter Crazy Elephant version – appeared on the 2003 Castle Music collectionStrawberry Bubblegum: A Collection of Pre-10CC Strawberry Studio Recordings 1969–1972.
The decision to create a new band name for the release of "Umbopo" was consistent with the trio's operating procedure of the previous year: working with Kasenetz, Katz and Manchester songwriterGraham Gouldman,they had recorded a large number of songs under names including Silver Fleet, Fighter Squadron and Festival.[4]Creme later recalled: "Singles kept coming out under strange names that had really been recorded by us. I've no idea how many there were, or what happened to them all." After "Umbopo" the band reverted to Hotlegs.[3]
Chart failures and rebranding as 10cc
[edit]In October 1970 the band was invited to tour Britain withThe Moody Blues.Gouldman, newly returned to the U.K., joined the band on bass, marking the gigs as the first at which the four future members of 10cc played live on stage. After just four shows, however, the tour was cancelled whenJohn Lodgeof the Moody Blues contracted a virus.
Gouldman recalled that the band returned to their homes in Manchester expecting something else to turn up. "But nothing happened," he said. "It was really quite amazing. We'd opened a tour with the Moody Blues... we were expecting offers of work to arrive, but no one asked us to do anything. The next Hotlegs records flopped and we didn't get a single offer of work. It was extraordinary. We'd had a hit record that had sold two million copies and nobody wanted us."[3]
The group was put with comedianJohn Paul Joansin order to record a single aimed at the Christmas market, and the result – "The Man From Nazareth" – was a top 30 hit.[5]Another Hotlegs single was released in Britain – "Lady Sadie" (1971, a very naughty lyric with a standard arrangement) – and two others overseas ( "Run Baby Run", US[6]and "Desperate Dan", Germany and Spain[7]), but none charted.
In 1976 Stewart, by then achieving success with 10cc, admitted: "'Lady Sadie' had no class and no originality. It was a very mediocre pop song." The album also presented a problem, he said: "That was so different to 'Neanderthal Man' that it was totally alien to what people were expecting from us. It was a good record, a little ahead of its time. It was similar to the things we are doing now. It was very melodic with chord structures that hadn't been used before – and some of the sounds that we used on that album hadn't been heard at the time."[3]
The band returned to the studios to work with other performers. Stewart said: "We sat down one day and said, 'Hotlegs is defunct – let's face it.' And we decided to carry on with our production work."
Godley, in a 1976 interview, described the band as "doomed":
"I'm afraid we blew the whole thing. The first thing we did was take a holiday, and because I'd never been able to afford a good holiday I flew off toAntigua.We'd been working ever since we'd left college and we were knackered, so Lol and I just bought the tickets to Antigua and off we went. We also bought cars as soon as we came back and then went into the studio to make the LP. "We did the whole thing wrong. We should have stayed in England, gone on tour, made promotional appearances, given interviews to the Press and TV and so on, but we just vanished to Antigua. And when we came back Hotlegs had gone cold. The record had now gone out of the charts and no one had ever really discovered who we were. The follow-up single 'Lady Sadie' just bombed out and the album hardly sold at all – though I still say that was a bloody good album. Basically it included the songs and the ideas that we had been hoping to bring into that LP for Giorgio Gomelsky. Most of the tracks were from the Frabjoy period and it's an interesting LP."[3]
AfterThinks: School Stinksreceived worldwide release, it was repackaged (in the UK) by thePhilipslabel in December 1971 asSong,with several tracks replacing originals, including "Neanderthal Man". A compilation album was issued in Britain in 1976 asYou Didn't Like It Because You Didn't Think of Itputting together previously released material.
The lack of further chart activity saw Hotlegs labelled as aone-hit wonder.In 1972, Hotlegs was relaunched as10cc.
Aftermath
[edit]Thinks: School Stinkswas reissued byOne Way Recordsin 1994 on CD. This edition included the line up from the original album release only.
You Didn't Like It Because You Didn't Think of Itwas reissued by 7T's (a division of Cherry Red) on 22 October 2012. The reissue featured a new cover commissioned for the new release and a booklet with information on the making of the album. The track listing includes all of the original tracks as well as the title track and the US stereo mix for "Neanderthal Man".This was the first CD release for the album which includes all the tracks that Stewart, Godley & Creme recorded as Hotlegs.
Name
[edit]According toEric Stewart,in the 2009 BBC radio documentaryThe Record Producers,the band's name came about because "there was a lovely girl at the time, a receptionist called Kathy, and she used to wear these hot pants, and we always used to call her 'hot legs', and so we thought we'll call the group Hotlegs".
Discography
[edit]Albums
[edit]- Thinks: School Stinks– 1971
- Song– 1971
Compilation albums
[edit]Singles
[edit]- "Neanderthal Man"/" You Didn't Like it Because You Didn't Think of It "(1970)
- "Umbopo" / "Roll On" (1970, as Doctor Father)
- "Run Baby Run" / "How Many Times" (US, 1971)
- "Desperate Dan" / "Run Baby Run" (Germany and Spain, 1971)
- "Lady Sadie" / "The Loser" (UK, 1971)
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Q Rock Stars Encyclopedia,ed. Dafydd Rees & Luke Crampton, Dorling Kindersley, 1999.ISBN0-7513-1113-8
- ^"10cc: A Pure Injection Of Pop".The10ccfanclub.com. 11 April 1997.Retrieved29 June2014.
- ^abcdefGeorge Tremlett (1976).The 10cc Story.Futura.ISBN0-86007-378-5.
- ^Liner notes toStrawberry BubblegumCD, written by David Wells, June 2003
- ^Lisberg, Harvey."John Paul Jones".I'm Into Something Good.Retrieved2 February2024.
- ^"Hotlegs".Alexgitlin.com. 26 April 1998.Retrieved29 June2014.
- ^"HOTLEGS singles".Tencc.fan-site.net. Archived fromthe originalon 3 September 2007.Retrieved29 June2014.
