Can-Con 45 Of The Day - December 27

Can-Con 45 Of The Day - December 27

Postby radiofan » Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:13 pm

Today's Can-Con 45 is from 1971 ... The second hit single for R. Dean Taylor ... "Gotta See Jane" ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrZJnc4_C8A

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Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: Can-Con 45 Of The Day - December 27

Postby Richard Skelly » Wed Dec 27, 2017 3:40 am

In the long and fabled history of Motown Records, there were a few righteous Caucasians who contributed to the success of African-American artists in Berry Gordy’s illustrious stable. A few of these musical honkies came down from Canada. R. Dean Taylor was quite likely the first. Think Gordy issued a Taylor single in 1964 (which stiffed), but quickly saw R Dean’s songwriting and producing talents. One of those early cowrites, A Little Bit For Sandy, was recorded by heartthrob Paul (Donna Reed Show) Petersen...and smartly raced up charts in Australia.

Maybe as a Canadian citizen, Taylor got a subliminal break from radio programmers in other Commonwealth nations. Gotta See Jane actually charted in the United Kingdom In 1968, even though—in North America—it was one of several so-so followups to his subsequent smash Indiana Wants Me. Weirder still, one of his 1967 singles, There’s A Ghost In My House was successfully reissued six years later in the UK.

One of R Dean’s last Canadian hits was Taos New Mexico. It was co-written by fellow Canadian label colleague Tom Baird. A former mainstay of Vancouver-based The Classics (which later evolved into The Collectors/Chilliwack), keyboardist Baird helped Tommy Chong write Does Your Mama Know About Me. It broke big for Tommy’s band, Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers, another Motown catch. Baird was later pivotal in the success of white urban funksters Rare Earth who, unsurprisingly, released hit singles on Motown subsidiary Rare Earth. Sadly, Tom Baird passed in 1975, apparently swept out to sea from a sailing boat found abandoned. Prior to that tragedy, he’d worked with A&M Canada’s Charity Brown who wanted to cover some old Motown material.

Other than Indiana Wants Me, R Dean Taylor is probably best remembered in the US for helping fill the songwriting void created when Brian Holland-Lamont Dozier-Eddie Holland left Motown. They went on to form Invictus Records. Taylor, who’d previously worked with both Hollands, quickly co-crafted such classics as Love Child and I’m Living In Shame for Diana Ross & The Supremes.
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