FERN KINNEY – "Together We Are Beautiful"

Does she even manage to convince herself? It’s a fragile, vulnerable song and I l

I’ve drawn a complete blank on this one, I remembered what even the Lena Martell sounded like but this one has been totally wiped from the memory banks. Not a good sign, but off to YouTube I go.

From January to September 1980 there were 18 number ones of which only three lasted as long as three weeks. That rate of turnover, as rapid as we had until the late 90s, does suggest that there’ll be a few “minor” ones and some that have largely been forgotten. I shouldn’t think I’ve heard this one more than twice in the intervening 28 years. Perfectly nice song, nice shimmering sound, I quite liked it at the time, but not a great deal you can say about it. Sorry Fern.

P^nk Lord #1 – I know how you feel. I was speaking to someone from Barclaycard on Saturday and when they asked me as a security question how old I was next birthday I hesitated for a moment, thought how much pressure there was on me to get the answer right, and had a nervous giggle before giving the answer – hope they didn’t have the lie detectors running.

While we’re not discussing Fern Kinney too deeply just yet – hello Rosie, hope you didn’t get hit too badly by the weather at the weekend!

No recall whatsoever – and this bang in the middle of the period when I was obsessed with pop and the charts. Having just checked it out on youtube, I have to say it’s not awful but is exactly the kind of thing you might immediately forget. It just sounds kind of generic.

As it happens, “Coward of the County” was the first #1 since “Baby Jump” that I couldn’t hum in my head without external prompting. During the first half of 1980, I had no access to a record player, and could never watch TOTP as it was late opening at the toy shop. To plug the gap, I selectively taped the Sunday Top 40 and as many nightly Peel shows as I could. Thus if something duff like “Coward” came along, it was perfectly easy to edit it out of my life altogether.

“Together We Are Beautiful” was quite a different story, though. Drippy, but likeable. Slight, but memorable. Silly, but strangely sincere. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for it. Especially those Minnie Riperton-esque squeaky bits. My head says 5, my heart says 6.

I’m out of step again!

Only because I remember it very well. I thought I liked it a lot at the time but listening again after all these years suggests that I’m less out of step than I thought. Yes, it’s a nice song, but not an earth-shattering one. Maybe I’d remembered it as being more ripertonesque than it actually was.

To be fair, if everything is exceptional then nothing is, and there’s always been low-key number ones like this scattered amongst the gems (and, for that matter, the turds. As I say, it’s a perfectly nice song and I guess a lot of people thought so at the time. Me, I was just feeling well-disposed to everything in March 1980.

Shortly after I moved to Barrow, a young friend from London came to stay with me for a week. She observed, rather apositely I thought, that London people were beautiful on their own but ugly in numbers and Barrow people were just the opposite: ugly on their own but beautiful in numbers. This song ties in nicely with that notion.

Mike @ # 14 : “and could never watch TOTP as it was late opening at the toy shop”

Thank goodness I read your previous entry about ” Brass in your Pocket ” because I thought you might be a frickin’ elf !!!

That script font shouts “VIRGIN RECORDS!” at me in a very loud voice and I’m not sure why. I can’t remember it being on their record labels. Did they make extensive use of it in their record shops in the early ’80s? Is this just a random piece of mentalism on my part?

I have no recollection of this reaching number 1 at all. I’ve always thought it had a ‘lovers rock’ feel – but perhaps I’m thinking of another version. It’s quite pretty and appropriately shortlived in it’s time at the top – like a sorbet to cleanse the palate between courses.

Actually, I remember this one quite well – although I’m struggling to see how it would really justify a place in the Pop Canon. It does have a distinctiveness, but it teeters way too close to a cloyingly sentimental feel to be regarded as more than a curio now.

It seems a bit irrelevant to have charted just at this point in time – and it seems equally irrelevant as to when it charted. it’s one of those songs that breaks through to an audience and could easily have been a couple of years earlier, or several years later, but would still have had a chance of making it. As doubtless did many records of similar vintage that didn’t make it then and aren’t remembered now.

I’m struck really by how well this illustrates that the charts aren’t/weren’t about the zeitgeist – there are so many fantastic acts of this era that this blog simply won’t mention – but throw up these odd records that simply succeed. Does it fit the 1980 narrative we (or I) want to tell – no – but was it a no. 1 – yes.

For all of that I don’t dislike it. It’s got a sort of character, the vocal is distinctive and I’d rather hear it again than all sorts of over played AOR shlock. So there…. Can we give it 6, please

I remember this one all too well. I hated it. It’s the very epitome of a ‘Radio 2 record’; the kind of thing my mum would have nodded along to during TOTP while I grated my teeth. I seem to recall it had a stomach-turning cheesy organ solo too. 5 is very generous, I’d say.

In a week we go from total horn to total corn. A slight number whose melody has stayed surprisingly clear in my memory it’s notable for having an organ break that comes straight from the Blackpool Winter Gardens ballroom dancing class.
“I am the rain he is the sun and now we’ve made a rainbow” is indicative of the faintly embarrassing lyrical content but who cares? I haven’t heard this song for years and years but I could sing the first few lines and chorus immediately. An affectionate 5 from me.

The worst part of it is the dreadfully embarassing lyrics, the best, the horribly ugly Bontempi-style organ break. Not a record I could love.

I’d still stick up for cheesy late-period wally disco, though; “Dance Yourself Dizzy” was great! Same goes for Ottawan, The Nolans (“Who’s Gonna Rock You”, with that killer reference to “party people freaking in their groove”) and Coffee’s “Casanova”, amongst others (including at least two forthcoming 1980 Number Ones).

However, I’ll agree that this was all eclipsed by the sharp turn which the classier end of the genre took, almost bang on cue as 1979 turned into 1980. Early 1980s soul/funk (or “boogie” if we must) produced so many timeless classics…

I would add Hi Gloss “You’ll Never Know” to the classy category.

And for early ’80, I love “Dance Yourself Dizzy”. It reminds me of Baccara but less luxurious, more ecstatic.

Along with “Cuba” and “Stomp”, Spring of 1980 produced some great disco-Top 40 crossover hits, like Narada Michael Walden’s “I Shoulda Loved Ya” (great bass intro) and Rodney Franklin’s “The Groove” (more jazz-funk admittedly).

As for Fern, it’s ok – I disliked it at the time, it doesn’t offend me now. 4 for me.

Suddenly realised I hadn’t commented at all since we hit the eighties. Don’t worry (or do?) I haven’t retired yet.

I think I remember what this sounded like, though not from the time obviously. As a result I’m neither curious nor excited enough to research it, but the record I remember was alright.

TOTPWatch: Fern Kinney performed ‘Together We Are Beautiful on 2 occasions; February 22nd 1980 and December 25th 1980.

Also in the studio on February 22nd were; Shakin’ Stevens, The Beat and Iron Maiden, plus Legs & Co’s interpretation of ‘And The Beat Goes On’. The host was Peter Powell.

Surely No 39 is a wind up.Kinney Parking was originally a mob owned company from the north-east (New York?) which after a few transformations and being bought by a more legit businessman bought the ailing Warner Brothers music. Fern Kinney was a black woman from the south (Jackson,Mississipi) who made her living as a session singer and who returned to that after her solo disco career finished.

Erithian beat me to it!

The lyric in question was: “Life was in a ruin, she loved Johnny Fruin”.

B.A. Robertson was an Asylum recording artist. Asylum were distributed by WEA. “Bang Bang” was the singularly uncharismatic Robertson’s first hit, seemingly appearing from nowhere. Draw your own conclusions!

Answer to No. 45

Rob Dickins. in Orinoco Flow by Enya.

Rob Dickins was CEO of Warners from the mid-1980s to mid 1990s.

We can steer, we can near
With Rob Dickins at the wheel
We can sigh, say goodbye
Ross and its dependency
We can sail, we can sail (sail away, sail away, sail away)

Another big hit seemingly appearing from nowhere, in Mike’s words. Chin-strokingly curious.

It may be that “Good Times” was as far as disco could go, and “Rappers Delight” a fitting beginning of another time, but “Together We Are Beautiful” is a disco hit which seems to be deliberately looking backwards towards the days of Philly – and there was another one to come virtually on its heels – though in this particular case only up to a point. The gentle shuffle and serenading strings suggest a return to “When Will I See You Again?” but the underlying rhythmic looseness, together with the spaces between shimmering organ and clipped guitar, are strangely redolent of lovers’ rock; the track is one heartbeat away from a skank.

Like Anita Ward, Kinney was a jobbing soul session singer who struck lucky only the once. The overall impression from her performance is one of quietened awe; she has found her Other and swims in reveries of reverence. “I don’t need love affairs any more,” she reflects, and it seems an effort to express adequately the utter joy she clearly feels – “Can’t you see? It’s the chemistry.”

The song celebrates love as a noble purity; witness her blushing aside of “I’ve gone with better looking guys/He’s gone with better looking girls/But now we’re beautiful” (and, just for the record, I have NEVER gone with better looking girls, oh no…)…but you get the picture; it’s a more sophisticated and reflective take on “My Guy” as filtered through elements of Minnie Riperton: “I am the rain, he is the sun/And now we’ve made a rainbow.”

It’s nowhere near as profound or transcendent as Minnie at her highest (“Inside My Love”) but neither is the record as corny as other commentators have sometimes made out; the sustained chords bring us back to the rosary and hymn book, and the minor key subtext to the “together” of the title as sung in the chorus implies a kind of worship, as spelled out in the final, face-the-world verse: “And if the whole world fell in love/Just like me and my man/This would be beautiful.” As with “Welcome Home,” the personal scenario is transformed into the universal; and as a number one single I think it’s similarly underrated.