Why is it that so many film and TV stars seem to want to get into music? I don't know if it's that they think they have a good voice, if someone has told them they have, if it's just another revenue stream they want to explore, or what. Maybe they sang in one of their movies/TV episodes and thought they could be a decent singer. Maybe the studio thought it would be a good idea. Maybe they've always harboured an unrealised dream to sing and make records. Or maybe they just need one more beach house in Hawaii --- who can survive with three, really, I ask you?
Whatever the reason, there's a long list of people who have made the crossover from the world of the big or small screen and into the studio, some good, some bad, some awful. A long time ago now it seems I featured an album by Miami Vice's Don Johnson, which to be fair was pretty damn good, but I wonder was that the exception to the rule? Many actors have made quite a successful career, or second career, in the music industry. Should they have? Do they have the talent to back them up, or is it just a case of their fame in the one medium spilling over into the other, and people just buying their records because they're fans of their movies or their TV shows? Of course, this is nothing new: Frank Sinatra was both a multi-talented film star and a million-selling recording artiste, and even David Hasselhoff had a mildly successful career as a singer.
In this section I'm going to be looking at these people and seeing how good, or bad, the albums they recorded are or were, if they deserved the fame they got in the world of music, or if they made a big mistake (in my opinion) in crossing over and should have stayed doing what they do best.
David Soul
The first star I want to look at is David Soul, star of seventies cop show "Starsky and Hutch", and also the miniseries of Stephen King's vampire horror novel "Salem's lot". He won an Emmy for his portrayal of in the film "Rage", released in 1980, but also had a relatively successful singing career, beginning in 1976 and going on, with a substantial break in the early eighties, into 1997. He recorded five full albums (not including greatest hits) and had no less than five top ten singles in the seventies, two of which were number ones.
Of course, his singing career coincided with the period of his greatest fame and popularity on TV, when "Starsky and Hutch" ruled the ratings between 1975 and 1978, so you can certainly trace a correlation between his massively popular hit singles and his run on the show. Not surprisingly, when the show went off the air the hits dried up, as people generally forgot who David Soul was, or relegated him to the position of "Hutch" from the TV show. He did pop up afterwards on the box, as well as numerous movies and stage shows.
It seems he actually began his career singing, wearing a mask on a TV show and calling himself "The Covered Man" in 1967. However when he got the call-up for "Starsky and Hutch" his career took a totally different direction and he became one of America's most famous and favoured actors of the day. I suppose you can't begrudge him then using that fame to return to his singing ambitions; unlike many, it seems not to have been a spontaneous decision or one driven necessarily by a need to widen his profile or beef up his bank balance --- though of course it did both --- but more a chance for him, now that he had the financial clout, contacts and as they say his stock was high in Hollywood, to get back into music.
Here I'm going to take a look at two of his albums, the two that gave him most of his hits and were in fact the first two he released. I'm also going to look at his last ever album, released in 1997 and from which no hit singles were taken, to see if the popularity of the first two was purely or mostly based on his TV show icon status. Once the dust had settled, as it were, was he still capable of making good music, if indeed there's anything on the first two albums other than the singles, which I already know, that constitutes good music? Or was he, without the fanbase he had built up in the seventies, left to record an album nobody wanted to hear?
David Soul --- David Soul --- 1976
So this is the one that started it all for him, the self-titled debut released at the height of his "Starksky and Hutch" fame, and from which two hit singles resulted. I must admit there's a lovely acoustic guitar opener in "(The) wall" which is a short ballad with a cool little piano piece that starts off laidback and then slides directly into a 1920s style upbeat melody for "1927 Kansas City", some nice Dixieland horns and quite a toe-tapper, very jazzy which then moves into a great cover of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a wire", a fine gospel rendition with some great backing vocals. Sort a return to the 1920/30s style for "Hooray for Hollywood" on which Soul augments his admittedly excellent singing voice with acoustic guitar playing. "Landlord" is next up, and one thing that does become quite clear from at least his debut album is that he didn't sit down and write a bunch of songs. Most of these are either covers or written for him, though he did write the opener.
This one is a little embarrassing, with its Caribbean/reggae style and Soul doing what all white men try to do, and fail, on a reggae song, and that is to sound black. Never ever works guys. "Seem to miss so much" is far better, a nice low-key ballad with a wistful, reflective feeling. To be honest, I'm not sure what's going on here. My "Spotify" copy of this album (the only place I could get a copy without paying full-price, and I ain't doing that for an album that's thirty years old!) shows the next track as "Don't give up on us", but other sources don't show it included, so I'm just going to go with what Spotify tells me, and if I'm wrong, well, sue me. You probably know it, one of his big hits, a pop ballad based around piano with a soft vocal and some nice orchestration, nice song and the extra backing vocals from Soul himself add something extra to it. This was his first number one, both here and in the US, though his only time to make any impression on the charts Stateside, which is odd, considering he later had another number one in the UK and a top ten hit.
More nice piano in "Ex lover", touches of my mate Dan Fogelberg about it, kind of folky in its way and Soul breaks out the acoustic guitar again for this, then the rest of the songs are all his own compositions, starting off with "Topanga", a sort of boogie blues number, kind of reminds me of Bob Seger with a sprinkling of Nanci Griffith. "Black bean soup", on the other hand, is as terrible as it sounds and is just totally forgettable. To be honest, "Kristofer David" doesn't really redeem the album much either, a twee little folk song that Cat Stevens would have balked at. It seems to be a children's song, or one written for Soul's kid anyway, lots of laughing, cute insects, children's laughter. All very fine, but keep it in the nursery, David! I don't want to hear it on your album! Luckily it ends, according to Spotify anyway, on his other big hit, at least over here. "Let's have a quiet night in" is another ballad (yeah, there are a lot of them) in which Soul appeals to his partygoing wife to stay in just tonight so that they can have some time together. Not terribly likely to be honest --- I mean, what guy would rather stay in than go out? Other than me, I mean --- but it's a lovely song and Soul gives a very impassioned performance on it.
TRACKLISTING
1. (The) Wall
2. 1927 Kansas City
3. Bird on a wire
4. Hooray for Hollywood
5. Landlord
6. Seems to miss so much
7. Don't give up on us
8. Ex lover
9. Topanga
10. Black bean soup
11. Kristofer David
12. Let's have a quiet night in
As a debut album then this is not terrible. In fact, it's quite good. It does suffer from some bad (and two awful) tracks, but in general it measures up quite well, considering it's the guy's first effort. It does of course follow the familiar pattern of having songs written for the artiste rather than he or she writing the songs and wanting an album to release them on, and of course there are old standards and cover versions to fill up space, but to be fair Soul does write his share of the music (even if two of those are the godawful "Kristofer David" --- I don't care if it
was written for his child! --- and "Black bean soup) and also plays the guitar so he wasn't just seeing himself as a singer. Add to that the fact that he had started singing before acting, by all accounts using his own material, and I think you're left with something of a different picture to most crossover artistes.
Of course, the question was could he maintain that sort of quality into his second album? With his self-titled hitting the number two slot and giving him two chart singles, there was no danger of there not being a second album, but would the novelty have worn off for fans by then, or would David Soul's music have left them --- and, perhaps, casual record buyers and those who had helped the singles to number one and five --- with a hunger for more? Let's find out.
Playing to an audience of one --- David Soul --- 1977
When you're hot you're hot, and record company executives don't let that popularity just sit and percolate, so David Soul's second album was out the next year. It again yielded a hit single, although this time around only in the UK; the US it would appear were no longer interested and the album failed to chart there. It opens with a rockier number, which was in fact to become his second number one in the UK. The tale of a drifter looking to get back with his woman, "Silver lady" was a massive hit here, with a great arrangement and some proper backing vocals, not just his this time out. It seems he'd decided though to cut back on the songwriting, leaving most of that to some guy called Tony McAuley, who also produces the album. He writes three songs on the album himself, and does again play guitar but mostly concentrates on singing.
It's not long before the ballads come though, and in fact the next one, "Can't we just sit down and talk it over" is one such, though it is very nice, looking back to the likes of "Let's have a quiet night in", nice female backing vocals and a twangy guitar with the melody mostly carried on soft piano, a nice little guitar solo near the end. "Tattler" is a semi-country song, mid-paced with what sounds like fiddle but probably isn't. One of Soul's own songs is next, the acoustically-driven "I wish I was", a lazy, laconic almost bluesy track with some nice orchestral backing seeming slightly incongruous with the acoustic nature of the song, but it works. Sort of. Accordion coming in is something of a mild shock too, and the whole construction of the song is pretty fluid to say the least. "Rider", another song by him, is another countryfied one though it's better than the previous, with powerful backing vocals and some sweet pedal steel.
Another big success for him is "Going in with my eyes open", a mid-paced ballad with strong piano lines , while the title track is an upbeat but ultimately throwaway song about life on the road; ah it's not throwaway, but it's not too great. "Tomorrow child" is much better, with a flowing piano intro, very soft and classical sounding. Pretty sure it's some old standard; has a kind of Barry Manilow sound about it. Some lovely violin and acoustic guitar, very effective, also that orchestral touch again. Soul's in fine voice on the vocal too, and it's pretty close to being the standout on the album, the two hits notwithstanding. "By the devil I was tempted" is a fun, uptempo country/gospel song, while "Nobody but a fool or a preacher" has some nice slide guitar work and a Delta blues feel about it.
Soul's last effort on the album is actually co-written, and "Mary's fancy" is without doubt the most soul/disco/funk track on the album, with a big brass section and bouncing piano --- okay, I don't get it. It started off all bouncy funk and then slipped into an orchestral slow interlude and then back into the upbeat part; yeah, like "I wish I was" it's a bit all over the place really, hard to pin down. The album ends on "It sure brings out the love in your eyes", another uptempo song which kind of revisits and updates the basic melody of "Don't give up on us".
TRACKLISTING
1. Silver lady
2. Can't we just sit down and talk it over
3. Tattler
4. I wish I was
5. Rider
6. Going in with my eyes open
7. Playing to an audience of one
8. Tomorrow child
9. By the devil I was tempted
10. Nobody but a fool or a preacher
11. Mary's fancy
12. It sure brings out the love in your eyes
So what can we say about David Soul's second album? Well, it seems that either he quickly realised that he wasn't a songwriter or the label told him they wanted other writers. He also seems to have learned that it's not good to have too many ballads on an album, so there are a lot more uptempo songs here, and although I suspect many are covers they're a reasonably good bunch overall. At least there are no children's songs! Whatever the label, or Soul, did, it worked at least over here, as the album again scaled the charts and two of the singles were hits, one getting to the top spot. Cross the ocean however it seems this album was not met with the fervour his debut was, and whether people were just showing that they're fickle, especially when it comes to actors turning out albums, or had just lost interest altogether, it would be another two years before he would release another album, three years after that for his fourth and a whopping fifteen years before he would finally record his last album, in 1997, by which time most people would probably say "David who?"
Without knowing the story behind the recording of his first two albums --- how much record label input there was, how much creative control, if any, he had or wanted over the albums --- it's hard to say whether David Soul was manufactured in the record company's image, transposed from the small screen onto vinyl. There's no question that he was a hot property: during the seventies everyone knew who he was, much moreso than his partner in the TV show, Paul Michael Glaser, despite his name in the titles being more memorable due to having three words. Having already a decent singing voice and something of a grounding in music, he would have been easy to mould and groom for the big time in the music industry.
Whether that's what happened or not I don't know. Maybe he just decided he wanted to try his hand at getting back into music, now that he no longer had to struggle or wonder where his next paycheque was coming from. You'd have to say he did a pretty reasonable job. I mean, no-one was going to nominate these albums for Grammys or anything, but they're not trash. They show a man with a good singing voice, a lot of emotion and sincerity, and a half-decent guitar player too. Although some of the songs he wrote were frankly awful, he could occasionally turn out something decent, so he wasn't totally dependent on others writing his music, though I think his hits were all written for him.
But whatever the story, when the dust had settled and the hits had made their way back down and out of the charts, and his third album had failed to duplicate the success of the first two, the turnout of albums slowed down for Soul and his fifth release came in 1997, with "Leave a light on", which proved to be the end.