Locomotion by Ritz

Every New Zealand #1 single…

Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be a New Zealander. We’ve held the world record for the lowest test cricket score since 1955. We have one of the worst rates of child abuse in the developed world. And somehow a generic disco cover of ‘The Locomotion’ topped the charts for seven weeks in 1980. Let’s look at how it happened.

The Loco-Motion

The Carole King and Gerry Goffin songwriting partnership was phenomenally successful in the early 1960s. The married couple wrote hits like ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’, ‘Take Good Care of My Baby’, and ‘Go Away Little Girl’, all US #1s.

Goffin and King wrote ‘The Loco-Motion’ for Dee Dee Sharp. When Sharp turned it down, they offered it to Little Eva – she was also the couple’s babysitter!

‘The Loco-Motion’ was part of the era’s dance-song success. Chubby Checker’s ‘The Twist’ and Dee Dee Sharp’s ‘Mashed Potato Time’ were also hits in the early 1960s.

The song became the second to top the US charts with two versions when Grand Funk Railroad hit #1 in 1974. The first was also a Goffin and King song – ‘Go Away Little Girl’. Kylie Minogue also had a top-ten hit with ‘The Loco-motion’ in 1988, with a Stock-Aitken-Waterman-produced version.

The Decline of Disco

Arguably, disco peaked in 1977. It was the year of Saturday Night Fever, Chic’s debut album, and Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’.

By 1979, the tides had changed. Disco had become ubiquitous, explored by washed-up artists like Rod Stewart and Yes. 12 July 1979 was Disco Demolition Night. The Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were scheduled to play twice in one night. In between games, a crate filled with disco records was blown up. The explosion damaged the field, so the second game wasn’t played.

This is now officially the world’s largest anti-disco rally! Now listen—we took all the disco records you brought tonight, we got ’em in a giant box, and we’re gonna blow ’em up reeeeeeal goooood.

Steve Dahl, DJ

Disco was already fading from preeminence by 1979, but Disco Demolition Night hastened its demise. Some interpret Disco Demolition Night as having nasty significance – music critic Dave Marsh wrote that it was “your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead”.

Given disco’s demise, it was surprising that New Zealand’s biggest single of 1980 was a discofied version of ‘The Loco-Motion’.

Ritz

Ritz are probably the most successful band on the New Zealand singles chart not to have their own Wikipedia page. Information is scant, but here’s a 1980 tour programme courtesy of the Comedy Kings website.

The best of British, that’s Ritz

The best black talents in Britain today, together in one three-piece group. Ritz began as an idea in the mind of producer Ken Gold. The idea was as simple as all good ideas should be, and as sound as they have to be to work.

Ken wanted to find the best black voices in this country, and by combining them in one band, come up with a unit that could beat the world’s. The band would be aimed specifically at cracking the American stranglehold in disco music with a homegrown group that could get down with the best of them.

He approached manager Brian Leahy with the idea, and together they began putting names together to see if the magical combination would suggest itself. The search was on.

Looking for a beat that satisfied both Ken and Brian was not easy, but in the end they found two of Britain’s most in demand session singers, Tony Jackson and Ruby James, who together with a virtual new discovery, Kofi Missah, became Ritz.

Puttin’ on the Ritz

Their first album ‘Puttin’ On The Ritz’ includes their highly acclaimed re-make of Little Eva’s sixties smash, ‘Locomotion’ which New Musical Express described as ‘The best in its class’ and Black Echoes called ‘a dance floor killer’. The band were making a lot of friends around the UK with a string of personal appearances, when the single took off in France. Within a couple of months it had sold a million in territories as far apart as Australia and Holland.

To further enhance their vocal sound they added old friend Jimmy Chambers to the lineup, and their worldwide success helped them win a weekly television slot as the regular group on the popular comedy series ‘Cannon and Ball’.

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My Verdict

Ritz’s cover of ‘Locomotion’ isn’t without merit. It’s well sung, especially the male falsetto vocal. But it’s such a bland hit single – strapping a glossy disco arrangement onto a 1960s chestnut is predictable. There’s zero personality, it’s workmanlike and perfunctory.

There were more interesting songs around – Bob Marley is huge in New Zealand, but never had a #1 single during his lifetime. He released ‘Could You Be Loved’, the lead single from his final album Uprising, in July 1980 – it would have been a worthier #1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjwPDhhYLGE

The Members of Ritz

Ruby James

Ruby James’s musical roots trace back to her childhood when she first discovered she wanted to be a singer and, steadily pursuing her goal, began to take voice lessons. She explains “I was asked to sing with a band that was gonna be called The Stacks, then it became Ruby James and The Stacks, and since then I’ve gone on to record and/or perform with Rod Stewart”, Cat Stevens, Jimmy Cliff, Linda Lewis, Heatwave, and quite a few others.

“Just before joining Ritz,” she continues, “I was on tour in New Zealand and Brian heard about the Ritz project and suggested I go ahead and try that. It was like a homecoming because although I had never met Kofi, I had worked with Tony and Jimmy in a croup called “Midnight.”

Kofi Missah

Kofi Missah, on the other hand, is the youngest member of the group and therefore has the least experience of the three. “I haven’t been out there quite as long as Ruby and Tony, but I’ve been going for quite a while now because I started as a dancer when I was 12.”

“A few years later a friend of my father’s needed a lead singer and he knew I sang. So I joined the group and I was their lead singer until my father moved from Germany to England, where I finally joined a group called Sugarcane through whom I met my personal manager who put me in contact with Ritz.”

Tony Jackson

Tony, who is the senior member of Ritz, begins his story with a modest statement. “I don’t want to sound flashy,” be grins, “but if someone in London were to say they need a black voice to do such and such a thing, my name would automatically be mentioned.

“But” he continues, “it’s take years and years to work up to this standard. You know, years of doing jingles, TV adverts and voice overs. It all really started when I first left my native Barbados to go to London in 1965. I got to London and began doing all kinds of sessions with various groups. The first big thing I did was The Sammy Davis Show. It was a charity show, but my God! working with Sammy Davis Jr – who cared about money!! Apart from that were a lot of tours with people like Ray Charles; Cleo Lane; Billy Preston, Stevie Wonder – that was one of my best gigs – Edwin Starr and The Three Degrees.”

Jimmy Chambers

Jimmy Chambers came to England from Trinidad in 1964 and while still in college he began working in groups. One band, called Dada, including Elkie Brooks and Paul Korda. Like Tony he was much in demand for advertisements (Martini, Cadbury’s etc.) and for session work. As well as singing, Jimmy writes songs and loves arranging music. Having worked with Tony and Ruby in Midnight he was a natural choice as the fourth member of Ritz.

All of this talent has been pulled together to form Ritz, a fresh stylish English group certain to add a new dimension to the market. Believe me, before too long, everybody is gonna be putting on The Ritz.

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• 1970s album reviews
• NZ #1 hits