Rainy Days and Mondays...

Just to remind you how differently things are now in the music industry I have to remind myself things were not always as they are now.
If you had to run a mental list of the significant songwriters of the era, who would it be?
Elton John, Dylan, Lennon, Harry Nillson, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, Barry Gibb (but that's another story), Bruce Springsteen, Bacharach, Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Marvin Gaye, The endless amount of great pop songs from the Philly Soul..and in that revisionist view you might add Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson or even Christopher Cross, perhaps?


How long would it take you to get to this man? Paul Williams, along with Benny and Bjorn from Abba (That will be a different entry coming later) comes in very high on my charts as well as on the more traditional means of success...sales.

If I told you a 5 foot and change guy with a somewhat teddy bear freakiness would be one of the most successful songwriter/personalities of the era, you might with our present day obsessiveness over beauty, and vacile, empty talent laugh at me. This guy was one of the good stories of music. He singlehandly wrote some of the catchiest songs of the decade. His career took flight from the work he wrote that was performed by others.
Hmmm.
Where do we start. How about 'We've only just Begun', 'Rainy Days and Mondays', 'Waking Up Alone', 'Just an Old Fashioned Love Song' (Funny with that one. Through that weird passage of subliminal significance, I thought I wrote that song for years when I was 9 until 11. I just changed the words.
Oh..and He also wrote The Rainbow Connection for Kermit the frog as well as the cringe-inducing Love Boat Theme.

If I was just talking about his career as a tunesmith for 70's Lite FM that would be enough...but it isn't. Where Paul Williams really broke ground as a composer was his work for films.
There are some who would argue that Phantom of the Paradise (1974) is very derivative of ROCKY HORROR (Film 1975) and you most certainly are a little correct that the success the Theatrical version must have had Studio Executives salivating to get a like-minded idea on screen first. I just loved the idea of both and many other works like this being a part of a decade that really worshipped the song. I personally love POTP, but maybe it's more connected to memories of my youth, although there are some fantastic songs in the film. Such as The Hell of It, Old Souls, And Faust's Theme...I was not myself last night, couldn't set things right with apologies or flowers...It also features my favorite disappearing act of seventies acting...Jessica Harper (Stardust Memories & Suspiria) What ever happened to her.

I think Paul Williams masterwork is the soundtrack to Bugsy Malone (1976). For those of you who haven't seen BM you are really depriving yourself. It is a timeless film based around a typical Gangster Film made with an entire cast of children who use cream cakes instead of bullets. I am surprised it is not reprised more as a modern day musical. Made by Alan Parker it holds up very well. It has a very young Jodie Foster as a sassy Chanteuse and Scott Baio (Happy Days) as its protagonist.

Paul starred in our ultimate 70s connection film... Smokey and the Bandit as one of the two men betting on this cross-country fiasco on wheels. You know when you worked with Burt in the 70s that you were doing well.

People, take some time to discover his work. He really brings joy and sadness together well. I know he is not edgy or provocative, but he is a great songwriter. We tend to underestimate the power of catchiness.

He currently works in Nashville and has committed a lot of work towards addiction recovery.

Good Guy.


For Great Songs and his good spirit I will give Paul Williams
4 out of 5 Nerf Footballs...

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