Sunday 10 April 2011

So baby hold on to me whatever will be, will be

Songs Everyone Should Know

“Baby Hold On”, Eddie Money, 1977

Believe it or not I had an 8-tack player in my first car. I also had a Radio Shack “Realistic” 8-track tape recorder in my room at home (with my turntable of course!). I was able to make compilation tapes of all my favourite records at the time, and play them in my car. One tape in particular that I played incessantly had “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets for Paradise” by Eddie Money.

Edward Mahoney was a police officer in a family line of police officers until he decided that he liked music better. From New York he moved to Berkley, California to work in clubs. He released his first album “Eddie Money” with the two aforementioned hits, after signing with Columbia.

Eddie wrote all the songs on this first album with the exception of Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me”.  Worth checking out, this album also has “Wanna Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” and “Save a Little Room in Your Heart for Me”.

Eddie was always fascinated with Ronnie Spector1 from an early age, when he heard her sing “Be My Baby” with the Ronettes in 1963. He eventually ‘sampled’ the Ronettes in his 1986 “Take Me Home Tonight”.

Eddy found most of his success in the late seventies and the early ‘80’s. Other hits included “Shakin’”, “Wanna Go Back”, and “Think I’m in Love”. Eddie still does the “oldies” tour to this day.

1.        Ronnie Spector – was born Veronica Bennett in New York in 1943. “Be My Baby” was written and produced by her would–be famed husband Phil Spector in a way that has been dubbed “The Wall of Sound”.   They were married in 1968 for four years before she left a very deranged Phil, who later killed his next wife in 2003 and is serving time for it still.

No comments: