Shalamar – The Second Time Around (released October 12, 1979)
Co-written by producer Leon Sylvers III, Shalamar's massive hit featuring new lead singer Howard Hewett knocked MJ's "Rock With You" off the top of the R&B charts.
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On October 12, 1979, Shalamar released the second single off Big Fun, the first LP featuring their new lead singer Howard Hewett. With an irresistible groove, “The Second Time Around” went to #1 on both the R&B and dance charts.
Shalamar started out as a disco studio project masterminded by Soul Train creator Don Cornelius and the show’s booking agent Dick Griffey, who together launched the label Soul Train Records in 1975. See our earlier post on Soul Train’s debut episode for more on Cornelius and the show’s cultural impact.
Uptown Festival (1977) was the first LP under the Shalamar name to be released on the Soul Train label. It featured a title track disco medley of sixties Motown classics. Original Motown Funk Brothers Jack Ashford and Eddie “Bongo” Brown were among the medley’s backing musicians, alongside the coke-fueled producers Mike Lewis and Laurin Rinder of El Coco fame. “Uptown Festival” became a #2 dance chart hit, also reaching #10 R&B and #25 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its B-side was the catchy disco instrumental “Simon’s Theme,” written by Simon Soussan, who co-produced the album.
The single’s success led Griffey and Cornelius to assemble an actual vocal group, pairing Soul Train dancers Jody Watley and Jeffrey Daniel with singer Gary Mumford. None of them sang on Uptown Festival.
Mumford was quickly replaced by Gerald Brown, who appeared on their second album Disco Gardens (1978). But before long he also left the group after confronting Griffey over being insufficiently paid. By this point, Griffey had bought out Cornelius’ share of Soul Train Records and reconstituted it as SOLAR (Sound Of Los Angeles Records).
Howard Hewett joined the group as his replacement in the beginning of 1979, although he had met Watley and Daniel three years earlier in Los Angeles. While working on a solo LP for Funkadelic's Eddie Hazel, he got a call from Daniel and joined just in time to record their third album Big Fun with producer Leon Sylvers III.
Sylvers co-wrote “The Second Time Around” with William Shelby of Dynasty, the group he had put together after becoming the in-house producer for SOLAR Records in 1978. See
of Micro-Chop’s excellent in-depth interview with Sylvers (Parts 1, 2 and 3) for more on his career and prolific production work.Big Fun was released on August 30, 1979. Its first single was the stellar jam “I Owe You One,” which stalled out at #60 R&B. But when “The Second Time Around” dropped two months later and shot up the charts, the album became a hit, going Gold and peaking at #4 R&B and #23 on the Billboard 200.
In the winter of 1980, “The Second Time Around” hit #1 R&B, knocking Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” out of the top spot where it had been for six weeks. It also went to #1 on the dance charts, and peaked at #8 on the Hot 100, becoming their most successful crossover single ever.
Further info:
“The Reinventions of Shalamar,” by Eric Grigs, Pop Trash Museum, May 30, 2020.
“Mixmag is 40: An Interview with our first ever cover star, Shalamar,” interview with Jeffrey Daniel by
, Mixmag, March 17, 2023.#soul #funk #disco #Shalamar