(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
Thelma Houston - "Don't Leave Me This Way"
Hit Number 1: April 23, 1977
Stay at Number 1: 1 Week
Well if this isn't the most ironic thing ever. I haven't written a Hit Hammer review in about 10 months, which I know is ridiculous, but the break was good for me for a few different reasons. Now I'm back and the first song I come back to is called "Don't Leave Me This Way." I'm sorry Hit Hammer and to whoever reads these reviews, I won't leave you that way again. But now that that's out of the way, let's actually start talking about "Don't Leave Me This Way." Just thought that was kinda funny.
Like seemingly many songs around this time, "Don't Leave Me This Way" was not first recorded by who made it a hit. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes were the ones with that distinction, and though their version wasn't even released until after the hit version, they still had a few other hits in the '70s. (Their highest-charting single in the U.S. was "If You Don't Know Me By Now," a song that will actually show up later in this series as a cover. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' version made it to #3, and it's a 7) That version has a great, powerful soul lead vocal by Teddy Pendergrass, a super underrated singer from back in the day, and honestly it could have been a hit. However, those in the Harold Melvin camp went with a different song for single release, the obscure "Tell the World How I Feel About 'Cha Baby," which peaked at #94. In other words, it might as well not have made the Billboard Hot 100 at all. We'll never know how big of a hit Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes could have made out of it, as we all know today the song is no longer theirs. (After the Thelma Houston version made it to the summit of the charts, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes would release it as a single, but it didn't seem like it did much of anything. I have to think the history could have been different if they had just gone ahead and released it before Houston's version. But, I digress)
Which brings us to Houston. She had been around the music scene since the mid 1960s, but bounced around from label to label, unable to land any kind of breakthrough hit. She would earn a Grammy nomination in 1974, but again, that was kind of her peak moment at this point. Hal Davis was a producer who worked with Houston, and he happened to hear the original Blue Notes version, despite it not being released at this time. At first, everyone, including Davis, thought the song would have been perfect for Diana Ross as a follow-up single to her #1 smash "Love Hangover" a year earlier. However, somewhere along the way the song was reassigned to Houston instead. Truthfully, I would have loved to hear what Ross would have done with the song, but I guess that will just have to be left up to imagination. Ross would never record the song.
This wasn't necessarily such a bad thing, however. Houston's version isn't much of a departure from the original Blue Notes version, and Davis and company pretty much kept the same template. The song starts slow and unassuming, which can almost trick the listener into thinking it may be a ballad. But it slowly builds up more and more before finally reaching the chorus. The lyrics reflect the mood greatly too. Houston sounds like she's pretty sad and lonely, practically begging this guy to stay around. It's nothing new for love songs, obviously. But then that chorus hits you like a sack of bricks, and at this point, Houston has lost all of her pride and she's revealing everything to us. "My heart is full of love and desire for you/Now come on down and do what you got to do/You started this fire down in my soul/Now can't you see it's burning out of control!" This is no longer some sad woman dreading a potential life without her lover. No, this is now a woman who is tossing her pride out the window, and giving one last Hail Mary attempt to keep him around. It's a truly great chorus and I really like it a lot.
The chorus obviously makes the song, but I think it's cool how the song sort of reflects the mood and the feelings of the narrator. I wouldn't say there's anything super flashy about the song, but it's a nice, upbeat and fun disco-sounding tune. And Houston, of course, has a great voice. It's actually unbelievable she had her 30th birthday before landing a breakthrough hit. (Also no, she is not related to Whitney Houston, in case anyone was wondering. That was the first thing I checked before writing the review)
I wish I could say the song lead to more success for Houston, but unfortunately it did not. She would never hit the top 20 again, with her second-biggest hit being "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning" which stalled out at #34. But again, she did at least achieve a #1 hit, which is something some of the best artists in history can't say they've ever been able to do. She's still around today, and appears to still be active, so that's cool. "Don't Leave Me This Way" might not be the most iconic song to come out of the disco era, but it's still a cool piece of music that I still enjoy. It could also be the one that got away for Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.
GRADE: 8/10
IN POP CULTURE:
Unfortunately, I have to accept the fact that this part of my reviews can be super difficult. This is another case of that, but I did manage to find a pretty good cover by Andy Abraham that was modeled after the Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes version. This was as good as I could do, but here's that cover:
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