385) Thomas and Richard Frost — “Fairy Tale Affair”
Another cut from the Frosts’s magnificent Visualize album– this time a horn-driven stomper (see #209, 211, 247). Let me quote Bryan Thomas again:
[By 1970,] Thomas and Richard Frost had already recorded a handful of classic pop singles for Imperial and Liberty, including “She’s Got Love,” which charted at number 83 on Billboard’s Top 100 singles chart. Each subsequent single was a step further toward what was sure to be their artistic tour de force [but] plans to release [the Visualize] album were inexplicably aborted in the 11th hour by Imperial’s decision-makers, even though the master recordings were already in the can . . . . Imperial was in disarray, and the Frosts were, unfortunately, victimized by what was going on behind the scenes.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/thomas-richard-frost-mn0000592334/biography
The album wasn’t rediscovered and released until 2002. Anyway, Richard Frost recollects that “Tom and I wrote [“Fairytale Affair”] because we were really into Tony Macauley at the time. We were also both especially fond of ‘Everlasting Love’ by the Love Affair and big Hollies Fans. I think you can hear the influences of both.” (liner notes to CD reissue of Visualize). Oh, come on, you know “Everlasting Love”, or you have never danced at a wedding! But who the hell is Tony Macauley? Well, his website informs us that:
[His songs] have sold more than fifty-two million records/CDs worldwide. Thirty-eight of his songs have made the Top Twenty in the UK — eight made Number One. Sixteen of his songs have been hits in the USA — three making the Number One spot in the single charts there. His songs have featured in four chart-topping movies. . . .
In 1970, Tony became the first-ever ‘Songwriter of the Year’ – an award bestowed annually, ever since, by the British Academy . . . . He won the award again, seven years later – beating the Bee Gees in the year they had five singles in the Top Five in the USA. In all, Tony has won nine British Academy Awards. In 2007, Tony became the first-ever non-American recipient of the coveted Edwin Forrest Award for ‘outstanding services to theater’.
Macaulay’s best-known songs include such classics as ‘Baby, Now That I’ve Found You’, ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’, ‘Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes’, ‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, ‘Last Night I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All’, ‘Smile A Little Smile for Me’, ‘You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me’, ‘Kissing In The Back Row of The Movies’, ‘Number In My Little Red Book’, ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’, ‘Silver Lady’, ‘Sorry Suzanne’, ‘If I Get Home On Christmas Day’, ‘That Same Old Feeling’, ‘Something Here In My Heart’ and ‘Home Lovin Man’.
He has written songs for Elvis Presley, Gladys Knight, Sonny and Cher, Donna Summer, Tom Jones, Olivia Newton John, Englebert Humperdink, The New Seekers, The Fifth Dimension, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, The Foundations, David Soul, The Temptations, The Drifters, Andy Williams, The Hollies, Glen Campbell, James Ingram and Alison Krause. Tony’s co-writers include, amongst others, Sir Elton John and Sir Tim Rice.
(http://www.tonymacaulay.com/biography/).
Oh. Man, I know some of those songs, and I loath them! But I love “Fairytale Affair.” Go figure.
Here is “Everlasting Love”! —
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