#Bryan Madey

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Stories - "Brother Louie" GoodNoise Compilations Number Ones (1970-1974) Song released in 1974. Compilation released in 1998. Pop-Rock / R&B

Plays: 4.385M on Spotify // Too many to add up on YouTube 😅

Stories was a one-hit wonder band from New York City that gave the US "Brother Louie," a song that managed to top Billboard's Hot 100 chart for a brief couple weeks in 1973, and then failed to follow up with anything that resembled the lightning in a bottle that they had originally caught with it. They were founded by a pair of guys whose fathers had been professional violinist chums for a long time and who had decided to finally introduce their sons to each other.

Keyboardist Michael Brown had actually found a good deal of success before meeting lead vocalist and bassist Ian Lloyd, though, with a pair of top-20 hits from his baroque pop band The Left Banke in '66 and '67. "Walk Away Renee" went to #5 and "Pretty Ballerina" went to #15. And Lloyd himself had managed to cut a promo 7-inch on United Artists Records in '66 too, under the moniker Lloyd London. Once they decided that they wanted to form a Beatles-type band, though, they brought in two other guys to fill out the group: guitarist Steve Love and drummer Bryan Madey.

Stories' 1972 self-titled debut LP on Kama Sutra Records wound up faring okay. It peaked at #182 on the Billboard 200 album chart and it landed a single just outside the top 40 with "I'm Coming Home."

But the second album, About Us, produced by superstar record producer Eddie Kramer, actually did worse. And after its release, Michael Brown abruptly quit the band to go do something else. But soon after his departure, the group came up with "Brother Louie."

Now, if you've ever found it awkward that a band of white dudes would make a song whose titular character is a white guy with the earned nickname of "Brother Louie" because he's dating a black woman, it's because this song isn't actually originally by Stories. The first version is actually by black UK funk and soul band Hot Chocolate, who scored a top-10 hit with "Brother Louie" back home, but didn't chart across the pond with it at all. And a couple years later they'd make their indelible contribution to the 70s global pop music canon, with the sugar-catchy and sleekly dreamy absurdity that is "You Sexy Thing."

But while Hot Chocolate's version came with a deeper shade of funk to it, as well as a much deeper and gruffer lead vocal, Stories' take loaded itself up with dramatic, cinematic strings, rock guitar, a little piano, wavy rubber-band keyboard funk, and Ian Lloyd's own cartoonish, scratch-passionate high pitch. And despite not being attached to a forthcoming album, the single still managed to rise to #1 in the US. And just how Hot Chocolate's version didn't make a showing in the States, neither did Stories' cover over in the UK.

But the immediate US success of Stories' version ended up generating a significant amount of interest in the band. So, with re-pressings of the failed About Us, they tacked on "Brother Louie" at the end, sometimes even just stuffing a 45 of it inside the sleeve to go along with the LP itself. And then, on the sole strength of "Brother Louie," About Us managed to rise from a total commercial failure to a very respectable #28 on the 200 album chart.

So, it's funny that the band sheds its most famous and successful member, Michael Brown, and then achieves a top spot on the Hot 100 immediately after his departure anyway, which is something Brown never managed to accomplish himself. Not necessarily saying that one thing caused the other, because I really just don't know, but it's definitely interesting that it happened in the first place!

And another thing of note is how, by 1973, the US was able to accept a song like this about an interracial couple and help it reach  #1; because just six years prior, some radio stations, including a massive one like Chicago's WLS, had refused to play Janis Ian's debut single, "Society's Child," which also dealt with the topic of a scorned interracial couple. That song was a huge hit in some cities, but because a bunch of stations still opted to not play it, it only made it to #14 on the national Hot 100. However, Stories' version of "Brother Louie" didn't end up encountering those same obstacles, so I think that indicates a marker of societal progress, especially since it managed its way to becoming the top song in the entire country.

But Stories wasn't able to make another notable hit after "Brother Louie." "Mammy Blue," a cover of a French song that has absolutely nothing to do with the derogatory term for an enslaved black woman in the antebellum south, went to #50 in 1973; "It Feels Good" went to #88 in 1974, and then "Another Love," which contained controversial lyrics about bisexuality, didn't manage to chart at all. And apparently, its lyrical content played a role in its overall lack of success. So, the hurdles of singing successfully about straight interracial couples had been cleared, but a song about bisexuality still appeared to be a bridge too far for the US at that time. And then the following year, Stories decided to split up for good.

Although it was a song by white guys who were doing a cover of black guys, and, as a result, made the lyrics feel a little bit weird, Stories' version of "Brother Louie" was still a great, catchy, and also important hit that showed what the US was generally willing to accept in its pop music in 1973. A small mark of societal progress and a nice triumph for this ultimate one-hit wonder to score their sole smash. But their final single showed that we still had a hell of a way long way to go 😕.

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Stories - Brother Louie 

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Brother Louie by 'Stories'

Brother Louie by ‘Stories’

The one hit wonder of 1973… (more…)