Sunday, November 4, 2012

American City Suite by Cashman & West

Casey Kasem's AMERICAN TOP 40 often had those tantalizing teases to keep your interest between commercial breaks. Well, as I was listening to the November 4, 1972 edition this weekend, Casey mentioned that the artists coming up had charted twice before under different names, but were now recording under their REAL names. Oh, this had to be good. And when it came time, I learned Casey had been speaking of none other than...CASHMAN & WEST!

Who?

Yeah, I had never heard of Cashman & West either. Ditto for "The Buchanan Brothers" and "Morning Mist," which were their earlier combos. So "American City Suite" was wholly unfamiliar to me. That was their song that was on the chart the time.

I wasn't really adequately prepared for "American City Suite." Talk about a song that changes direction a few times. It's really three songs in one. What made this even more remarkable is that AT40 (then only a 3 hour show) played almost the entire thing. It clocked in at something like 8 minutes during the program, and the "album version" you will find elsewhere in this entry is over 10. Devoting that much time to such an obscure song blew my mind.

Terry Cashman and Tommy West have rather interesting bios. Cashman is responsible for at least one other "famous" song that is completely off my radar. The things you learn because of syndicated countdown show reruns!

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