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Harley Payette makes his case for the ten greatest comebacks in rock ‘n’ roll history. Do you agree?

There are few things quite as satisfying as a good comeback story. We all like to believe that we have it in us to change, that the stories of lives are not yet written, that we may come up with a new chapter that’s as good, or even better, than anything we’ve ever done. When a pop music favorite makes a comeback it’s especially satisfying to their original fan base because it underlines the enduring appeal of the artist – that the quality of their music is not bound to their original era of dominance.

Rock ‘n’ roll or rock ‘n’ soul initially seemed the least likely music to spawn a comeback as its appeal was tied to the fickle whims of youth. A record’s value was not expected to outlive its time on the charts. However, rock ‘n’ roll turned out to have a much longer shelf-life than generally predicted and many of its stars had more than one successful period. Here are my choices for the ten best comebacks in the history of the music.

10. Everly Brothers	9. Doo wop revival	8. Carlos Santana	7. Bob Dylan	6. Roy Orbison
5. Johnny Cash	4. Cher	3. Tina Turner	2. The Bee Gees	1. Elvis Presley

This may be the most controversial choice as many artists have made bigger commercial comebacks, but the Everlys’ resurrection was one of the most unlikely returns from the dead in pop history. In 1973, they went through an extremely acrimonious break-up. After an embarrassing onstage dispute, Phil smashed his guitar and stormed away leaving Don to finish the show alone. After the concert, Don told reporters “The Everly Brothers died ten years ago.”

Commercially, Don’s statement wasn’t far from the truth. Although, they received some critical praise for their early country rock album “Roots“, and scored a few successes in England, in the US the duo had achieved exactly one Top 50 single after 1964 with 1967’s “Bowling Green.”

The rock ‘n’ roll revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s saw new hits for Elvis, Chuck Berry, Ricky Nelson and Dion, but not the Everlys. The brothers had been joined at the hip since childhood. If it was sometimes limiting in their years of great success, they found it suffocating in those years of failure.

Don and Phil went several years without speaking. Fortunately, for them and us, they were brothers and family eventually brought them back together. After burying the hatchet following the death of their father Ike, the boys decided to give it one more shot in 1983. A reunion concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall was broadcast on HBO and the brothers’ harmonies seemed smoother than ever. The following year, they recorded a full-fledged reunion album produced by Dave Edmonds. Paul McCartney wrote the lead single, “On the Wings of a Nightingale.” It was a splendid update of the Everlys sound with an uplifting chorus. Unlike many of the other artists on this list, the Everlys tight two-part harmonies remained almost unchanged from their glory days, tying them to their era. Even with that handicap, the record made #50 in the US and #4 in the UK. The LP, “EB 84” (called The Everly Brothers in the UK), made #38 in the US, their best showing since 1962. The record got rave reviews including a ten out of ten rating by syndicated critic Rik Sefchik.

Everly Brothers – “On the Wings of a Nightingale” (live)

The Everlys would release two more excellent albums of mature music with success in the country market in the next few years. They were no longer in the center of popular culture, but the Everlys had come from beyond oblivion to once again find a national audience.

In the traditional telling of the rock ‘n’ roll story, 1959 is seen as a nadir in the history of the music. Buddy Holly was dead, Elvis was in the army, Chuck Berry was in jail, Jerry Lee Lewis was in exile. Teen idols ruled the charts. This is a distorted interpretation of history but the music had reached a point where fans felt a need to look back for the first time. A Los Angeles based DJ named Art Laboe sensed this and in 1959 on his independent label Original Sound, he collected a group of hits, mostly R&B songs from the previous five years or so including the Five Satins’ “In the Still of the Night (I’ll Remember)” and the Penguins’ “Earth Angel,” on an LP he called Oldies But Goodies. Many of the songs were making their LP debut. The album hit #12 in an era when barely any rock LPs even made the Top 200. Many of the tracks got airplay with the new release. Laboe released a series of sequels featuring a slew of hits, all past their moments on the charts, but still only a few years old. Nearly half a dozen of these reached the charts from 1959-1964.

Around the same time that Laboe’s LPs were released, a collectors’ market focused mostly around vocal groups was developing in New York City. The new movement was driven by young fans rediscovering or discovering hits from only a few years before. The new collectors placed premium value on original pressings of not only big hits but obscurities as well.

Soon there was a full-fledged revival. From 1959 to 1961, records like “Earth Angel,” “In the Still of the Night,” (twice) Johnnie and Joe’s “Over the Mountain, Across the Sea,” the Heartbeats’ “A Thousand Miles Away,” the Mello Kings “Tonite, Tonite,” and even non doo woppers like Shirley and Lee’s “Let The Good Times Roll” and the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have To Do Is Dream” all had new life on the pop charts. Old school records that had flopped the first time like the Capris’ “There’s a Moon Out Tonight” and the Shirelles’ “Dedicated to the One I Love” (itself a remake of an old doo wop hit) became legitimate hits the second time around. Individual artists like the Fleetwoods released full length LPs that paid tribute to rock’s first era. A new class of doo wop singers like the Marcels came to prominence. Old groups like the Penguins, who had disbanded, reformed to try their hands in the new market.

The Shirelles – “Dedicated To The One I Love”

Although the doo wop revival is probably the least known event on this list, it is arguably the most historically important because it provided a practical demonstration that a rock ‘n’ roll record could sustain relevance beyond the 12 or so weeks it was on the charts. For the fans that grew up with these tracks and bought the Laboe LPs, there was something worth revisiting. The fans discovering the hits for the first time showed that rock ‘n’ roll’s best efforts could speak to people who weren’t there. The very idea that there could be a “rock ‘n’ roll standard” or that a rock artist could have an artistic legacy has its roots here.

Santana’s re-emergence in 1999 was far more commercially successful than many of the comebacks listed here. “Smooth” was the biggest hit of 1999 and one of the biggest of its decade. The accompanying album “Supernatural” sold ten million copies domestically and 20 million internationally in just over 12 months. Its success and the string of singles that followed commercially dwarfed anything that Carlos did in his first run of success.

Carlos Santana – “Smooth”

Santana’s astonishing success was made even more remarkable because of how far he had come. He had not had a hit record since 1982 and was not even on the margins of the mainstream pop scene in the intervening time. I personally did not even know he was still recording. I placed Santana along with groups that had broken up like Led Zeppelin or the Doors – acts that would continue to find an audience on classic rock radio, but whose glories were from an era long ago. To see Santana remerge as the King of Top 40 was quite a trick.

That being said, I think Santana is the most problematic entry here. “Supernatural”, great as it was, was loaded up with collaborations with younger, hotter performers. The singles from the LP and the hits that followed were dominated by those performers. The listing on “Smooth” is Santana featuring Rob Thomas. The billing really should be flipped. Both the video and the record make the great Santana seem as if he were Thomas’ cool older sidekick. It was this marginalization that made the record palatable on Top 40 radio and the music video stations. The kids didn’t have to tolerate looking at a 50 something or hear him sing. There was a younger, prettier performer there to distract them. It’s one thing to have a younger, hipper songwriter or producer guide you on your way to a hit; it’s another to give them the center stage. “Supernatural” may have been bigger than anything Santana did in his halcyon days, but at least those early hits were done completely on his group’s own steam.

Still, you have to have Santana on any list of great comebacks. He had come from so far down and soared so high in his return to the charts. And whatever compromises he may have made to make that return, it was more than a free ride. His and Clive Davis’ production style on the comeback hits harked back to the classic Santana style. More importantly, while the reputations of young hip performers like Rob Thomas and Michele Branch may have gotten songs like “Smooth” and “Game of Love” on the radio, it was Santana’s guitar that kept them there. The astonishing fluidity of his playing made the songs feel fresh even when you heard them once an hour for months on end.

When the first All Music Guide to Rock came out in 1995, critic Ritchie Unterberger wrote: “For many fans, his (Dylan’s) work has declined precipitously since the mid-1970s. This is not a matter of wilful ignorance or inability to keep pace with Dylan’s growth, as some of his defenders charge, but a matter of heartfelt taste shared by millions of listeners.” Starting in 1997, many of those millions began a change of “heartfelt taste” when “Time Out of Mind” hit shops. Buoyed by great reviews and the release the same week of a new Rolling Stones record, the LP hit #10 on the Billboard Chart – Dylan’s best position since 1979.

Produced by Daniel Lanois, the album was a huge treat for folks lured in by the reviews. Anchored in the blues, intensely personal lyrics and a ten-minute story epic in “The Highlands,” the album had everything we associated with classic Dylan. But there was a lot more. The liberal use of a Vox organ to highlight certain tracks gave the album a modern or even post-modern feel. Coming off a life threatening illness, Dylan’s lyrics dealt with issues of mortality and regret in a concrete heartfelt way that was an advance of the work he did earlier in his career. While Dylan’s sense of humor remained intact (particularly when he was pointing it at himself), gone was the nasty albeit brilliantly wrought snark that defined much of Dylan’s classic sound. In its place was a humane, but not sappy, understanding of human nature.

The LP was even bigger than its chart position. It was played on radio and TV as no Dylan LP since “Blood on the Tracks.” Garth Brooks used one of its songs, “Make You Feel My Love,” for hit cover material. The LP won the Grammy Album of the Year award – an honor denied the great one’s 60s classics. If it had been the last thing Dylan ever did, it would have made a splendid valedictory. Instead, it sparked a full scale revival which included an Oscar win, two more hugely popular and highly acclaimed LPs, and one of the most vivid and piquant memoirs in recent memories. From an artist who seemed to have his best days behind him, he’s become, once again, an artist whose every new work generates anticipation and excitement.

In 1976 Roy Orbison played at an auto show in Cincinnati, Ohio that drew a crowd of less than 100 people. Rarely has a former superstar encountered such a complete display of public indifference. Like his original journey to the top, Orbison’s journey from has-been to rejuvenated legend didn’t happen overnight. It was a long slow climb back which sadly Roy didn’t get to savor.

Orbison’s first tentative step back came with a cameo in the 1980 film “Roadie.” “That Loving You Feeling Again,” a duet Orbison recorded with Emmy Lou Harris for the Soundtrack, made the middle of the charts and won the pair a Grammy. In 1982, Van Halen took the Big O’s classic “(Oh) Pretty Woman” to the brink of the Top Ten. In 1985, Orbison moved another step closer to the limelight when he subbed for the late Elvis Presley on a Million Dollar Quartet reunion called “The Class of ’55“. The LP made the middle of Billboard’s album chart. The big break though came in 1986 when filmmaker David Lynch prominently featured Orbison’s psychological classic “In Dreams” in his controversial sensation “Blue Velvet.” The film made evident the depth of the song and a lot of people who had written Orbison off as one of the softies who led rock ‘n’ roll astray in the supposed slump of the early 1960s took notice that he was once an uncommonly gifted artist. That artistry became even more evident in early 1987 when Bruce Springsteen gave Orbison one of the most impassioned tributes ever done in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. That year was one of great momentum for Roy. He got a new recording deal on the British Virgin record label and released a collection of re-records of his classic hits that made the British charts. He appeared with Dennis Hopper on Saturday Night Live and ended the year with a sensational concert filmed for Cinemax called “A Black and White Night.” The supporting cast included a group of then contemporary rockers including Springsteen, J.D. Souther (whose 1979 “You’re Only Lonely” is one of the great Orbison knockoffs), Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Elvis Costello, that underlined just how profound a role the Big O had played in developing the ’70s and ’80s pop scene.

Around this time, the suits at Virgin got the idea that an Orbison comeback album might be a success. One of the producers brought in to bring Roy up to date was Jeff Lynne, the ELO leader who had just led Beatle George Harrison back to #1 after a long drought. Having lunch with Harrison and Lynne one afternoon, Orbison volunteered to sing on Harrison’s next B-side. Perhaps inspired by the chance to sing with the master, Harrison got old buddy Dylan involved along with Tom Petty, who was also being produced by man about town Lynne. The result morphed into the off-hand super group the Traveling Wilburys, featuring the vocal talents of all five musicians.

The Rolling Stone Record Guide affectionately dismissed the Wilburys’ album as a group of “old fart singalongs.” It’s something more than that though. At its best, its music of unpretentious joy and surprising depth. Most of that depth was due to Roy, whose trembling vocals under girded the songs with passionate vulnerability. “I’m so tired of being lonely/ I still have some love to give/ Won’t you show me that you really care?” Roy sang with unguarded tenderness on the bridge of “Handle With Care,” the group’s first hit single. It was a typical Orbison moment of high drama, made all the more appealing because the song was so light hearted. The bridge seemed a direct appeal to the audience to reconsider what we had lost. The album and single were both smashes. Suddenly, as if by osmosis, everyone began to realize that Orbison’s voice was a genuine national treasure. There was widespread anticipation for his all new solo comeback album. Orbison was on the verge of a second bout of superstardom. Sadly, in December 1988, he died at age 52 before he could see the fruits of his slow but steady return. The posthumously released “Mystery Girl” LP and its lead single “You Got It” both deservedly made the Top Ten when they were released in early 1989. It was a bittersweet atonement for an audience that abandoned a great artist.

Roy Orbison – “You Got It”

When Johnny Cash died in 2003, he was many things – a legend, a great artist, one of popular cultures great characters, and even something of a humanitarian. He was also something I never quite expected him to be; he was hip. When I was a teenager in the 1980s, there was nothing less hip in the world than Johnny Cash. He wasn’t a has-been. He was one of those legends that always seemed to have been around, but true admirers were hard to find. There was a tendency even for fans of country to take him for granted.

Cash’s reputation amongst the general population had suffered a similar fate as late period Elvis. Sure, if most folks were pushed they’d admit he was a talent. But he was also weird. He wore black all the time. He seemed obsessed with prisons. When he was interviewed on TV, he seemed to go off into odd tangents. He hadn’t had a hit record in years. His family seemed to be much a part of his act as he was. And, perhaps worst of all, for the period, amongst all the country stars that had crossed over since the Sun Records stable defined how popular a country star could be, Cash never dressed up his rural roots in fancy city clothing. Elvis and Jerry Lee were drenched in pop and R&B. Glenn Campbell passed himself off as a sophisticated easy listening balladeer. Dolly Parton didn’t fully discard her roots but she was happy to obscure them with pop ballads and mainstream sex symbol status.

Cash’s status amongst the so-called cognoscenti was even in worse shape. Again, if you twisted their arms, they might admit something was there. In the first Rolling Stone Record Guide only two Cash LPs – the Sun greatest hits and Folsom Prison – receive a five star rating. Not even a best of Columbia years managed a top rating (though one Columbia greatest hits does get the top recommendation in the second edition.). That wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that only one (1977’s The Rambler) of Cash’s then dozens of albums gets even a four star (very good) rating. Just how far he was out of touch with pop culture’s edge can be seen in the savage parodies that SCTV would air from time to time in the period.

I’m not saying this perception of Cash as a legend but not artist was accurate. I’m just saying it was there. And to be fair, after his series of concept albums in the 1960s and then the two prison albums, Cash’s career was rather aimless. He came up with classic tracks from time to time, but there wasn’t any consistency. Not helping matters was the fact that his later pop successes – “Boy Named Sue” and 1976’s “One Piece at a Time” – were both novelties. As time wore on, Cash seemed to spend a lot of time dwelling on his past, with reunions of Sun era artists and even re-recording old classics.

Things improved a bit in the 1990s when he was elected into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. The big change though came when Cash was asked to sing a cut on U2’s 1993 “Zooropa” album. In the process, he met Rick Rubin, a producer associated primarily with heavy metal and rap artists to that point.

Rubin and Cash decided to work together on the producer’s American label. The first album , 1994’s “American Recordings“, did rather modestly, peaking at #110 on the Billboard chart. Still, this was the best placing of any Cash solo LP since 1976. It also brought Cash back into the Top 25 of the Country LP chart for the first time since 1981. The LP was the best reviewed Cash album in decades and it received airplay on alt country stations, some alternative rock stations and even MTV.

The most important thing about American Recordings was that it was the opening salvo in a genuine artistic and popular renaissance for Cash. Over the last decade of his life, he and Rubin would create the best series of albums in Cash’s career. Every album in the American series, save the second, would chart better than its predecessors, eventually with Cash posthumously returning to #1 in 2006. He won a slew of awards including MTV video awards, an award presented on behalf of a constituency young enough to be Cash’s grandchildren – a constituency he couldn’t even dream of a decade before. He was featured on more magazine covers than he’d seen since his television show was on in the 1970s. The music press was almost unanimous in its praise.

What Rubin did was focus on the characteristics that made Cash unique – his contradictory balance of iconoclasm and historical and traditional reverence, the sympathy for outsiders, the fierce sense of individuality – and stepped out of the way. Rubin’s production often was just Cash and his guitar. There were never any big arrangements, just compliments to that core of the lone pop warrior and his guitar. Every add on from Benmont Tench’s booming piano on “The Man Comes Around,” to Sheryl Crow and June Carter’s beautiful harmonies on “Field of Diamonds” kept intact the stark, intimate nature of the recordings. At the same time, Rubin was able to focus Cash in a way that he hadn’t been focused since arguably the 1950s. The material on the albums drew from an extremely varied base, including some quality Cash originals like “The Man Comes Around” to Beatles and Neil Diamond covers, songs the singer had recorded before, and folk standards like “Danny Boy.”

The choices that drew most of the attention were those by writers like Glenn Danzig (who contributed an original to Cash), Nik Cave and Trent Reznor, artists who defined much of the edge of post-punk music. Cash was able to bring a level of conviction to their lyrics and music that was beyond the experience of these artists. When the 71-year-old Cash sang on Reznor’s “Hurt” about everyone he knew fading away, you knew he had been there.

Cash’s age gave him insight into mortality alien to a younger artist. Death, age and sickness were the establishment against which he rebelled. He stood up to all three. Tracks like “Field of Diamonds” showed that age and illness didn’t mean there weren’t still things for a man to savor. Performances like “The Man Comes Around” and his remake of Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” showed a healthy awe of the hereafter, but little fear. Reznor’s “Hurt” provided the sad realization that even the greatest stories have to end. The ending to Cash’s story may have been the best part.

Johnny Cash – “I Won’t Back Down”

In one sense or another, Cher’s entire career has been a story of comebacks. Her initial chart run with Sonny (and occasionally solo) only lasted about three years. In 1971, after several years of no luck, Sonny and Cher landed their own prime time network television series. The momentum of the series brought Cher (and eventually Sonny and Cher) back to the attention of Top 40 programmers. Aided by Snuff Garrett, Cher was able to wring out a string of bigger impact hits than she had scored the first time around.

By 1975, the streak had died out, and she and Sonny were divorced. By 1978, all their various TV shows were defunct. With Cher now past 30, many assumed her Top 40 career was dead. Out of the blue in 1979, she scored a Top Ten smash with “Take Me Home,” after a half decade out of the Top 40. It was a one-off though and in the next few years Cher came very close to being a trivia quiz answer.

Like Frank Sinatra three decades earlier, Cher would use the movies as her portal back to the top of the charts. In February 1982, she landed a role in the Broadway play “Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean.” It wasn’t anything to jump up and down about, as many old television stars try and revive their flames on Broadway. The good news though was that the play’s Director Robert Altman used her in the film version later that year. It was a flop but Cher received good notices, and the next year she landed a major supporting role in “Silkwood” starring Meryl Streep. She received an Academy Award nomination for the role. This led to a string of good parts eventually culminating in the 1987 Best Actress award for “Moonstruck.” It was only a matter of time before her moribund music career was resurrected with the Bon Jovi produced “We All Sleep Alone” which went Top 20 in the summer of 1988. Cher had almost always been a multi-media star and it just didn’t seem right that she would come all the way back without being on the radio. And in 1989, she was on the radio all the time with “After All,” “If I Could Turn Back Time” and “Just Like Jesse James.” The video for “If I Could Turn Back Time” featured Cher in a revealing outfit before a battleship full of screaming midshipmen. Once again Cher was a flashpoint of sexual controversy. Once again, she was a flashpoint of fashion. It was as if it were 1973 all over, except she was not a movie star then.

Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time”

I’m not as enamored with the artistic merits of Cher’s comeback music as I am most of the artists on this list. I can see that tracks like “If I Can Turn Back Time” and “Just Like Jesse James” have many of the same characteristics of her more appealing ’60s songs – the go for broke sometimes clueless sincerity of her vocals, the sense of high camp and even higher melodrama, and that unmistakable personal charisma. On the other hand, they’re overproduced, overly and awkwardly sung, and close to mechanical.

Yet the power of Cher’s continuity can’t be derided or dismissed. Every time the public seems to weary of her, she finds just that right new wrinkle to make them crave once again for the specialty tastes of her music and personality. When she hit a decade after this third comeback with the No. 1 “Believe” you half expected it.

You just can’t keep this woman down. She’s the only artist in the rock era to have a Top Ten single in her teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. To paraphrase Little Richard, I don’t know what she’s got, but it’s got us.

The story of Tina Turner’s 1984 comeback has been told many times. We know of all the obstacles she had to overcome – leaving Ike, being a middle-aged woman in a male/youth oriented field, and not having been in the Top 40 for more than a decade. That’s just from a performing standpoint. Right after the divorce from Ike, when Tina was still learning the ropes of the industry without him, she was forced onto food stamps to feed her children.

As challenging an obstacle as any of these though was the fact that even during her glory days with Ike, Tina was never that big a star in her first bite at the apple. When Turner made her comeback onto the pop scene in 1984, her new success blew past anything she had accomplished in her career to that point.

Although her live shows with Ike were legendary amongst the people who saw them, that constituted a relatively small group of people. As record makers, Ike and Tina were only in the Pop Top 20 twice, once in 1961 with “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” which hit #14, and a decade later in 1971 with their rip-roaring rendition of “Proud Mary” which rode all the way to #3. Even on the R&B charts, they only scored seven Top 20 singles over a 14-year run – one less total than Peaches and Herb. The much vaunted collaboration with Phil Spector, “River Deep, Mountain High”, was a hit in the UK but barely made the Top 100 in the US. To the mainstream audience in 1984 Tina Turner was a name people knew without often knowing why, or she was something close to a one hit wonder. Unlike a Cher, there was not a sense of shared history to help ease her way back into the fold.

Turner was half a million dollars in debt when she met Australian Roger Davies who became her manager in 1979. Davies worked hard to get herr better bookings, including a tour with the Rolling Stones in 1981. The next year a gig at the New York Ritz and an endorsement by David Bowie got her a recording contract on Capitol UK. Late in 1983 the always more receptive to veterans British market sent a synth-drenched remake of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” into that country’s Top Ten. Its success convinced the Capitol label in the United States to release it as a single. It made the Top 30 and convinced them to release Turner’s new album “Private Dancer.”

The new LP, which featured work from a number of producers, was a tribute to Turner’s expansive and forward vision. It incorporated several new wave flourishes, specifically the use of keyboards and synthesizers, although sadly that ‘in the moment’ modernity dates some of the tracks today. She made use of then hot British musicians like Fixx guitarist Jamie West-Oram and culled material from up and coming writers like Mark Knopfler. And at a time when soul music was in its death throws, the album’s focus was on mainstream rock.

Turner had always seen herself as a more a rock ‘n’ roll performer than a soul performer in the first place and this album was where she verified that approach. Although it turned out to be a perspicacious decision from a commercial standpoint, it was also a risky stance. At 45 and mother of an adult son, it could have been embarrassing for Turner to try and stomp around a stage singing “Blister in the Sun.” However, Turner used rock’s muscle to make affirmative statements about universal issues like gender roles and concerns that increased with time, like differentiating between love and lust.

This was the subject of “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” the song that really made Tina’s comeback. This beautifully produced (by Terry Britten) and written record featured the most sublime vocal of Turner’s career. In her prime, even Tina’s admirers felt she could get a little carried away from time to time, descending into screeches at her worst. The 1980s Turner though became a supreme interpreter. Her vocal here is a model of artistic restraint, all nuance and implication. “Op-O-zits attract,” she says slurring the word “opposites” giving us just the hint that her new pragmatic view was born in tears. On the chorus, she threatens to break out on the opening line, but pulls herself back into a more measured reading. It fits in perfectly with the song’s portrayal of a woman determined to take the romance out of love, but fighting her own physical impulses. It was a phenomenal record and the public responded not just to it, but to Tina.

Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To Do With It

In an excitingly competitive market dominated by the most iconic works from Prince and Bruce Springsteen, “What’s Love Got To Do With It” hit #1 in the US (her first ever) and #3 in the UK. The album “Private Dancer” on which it appeared went to #3 in the US and to #2 in the UK. It sold more than five million domestically and more than 11 million worldwide by the end of the 1980s. The LP was just the beginning for Tina. From playing small clubs and being a half a million dollars in debt, Turner at age 45 and beyond had a run of hit singles that lasted almost a decade, a similar string of Gold and Platinum albums, roles in multi-million dollar action epics, a best-selling autobiography, and massive concert dates in front of more than 100,000 fans. Not only was she bigger than she’d ever been with Ike, she was an extremely influential artist in her second life. Along with Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and later Whitney Houston, Turner helped usher in a new era of Top 40 divas.

“I Might Have Been Queen” Tina sang on the lead track to “Private Dancer.” Little did she know when she recorded it, that destiny was still to come.

If the Bee Gees had disappeared after their run of hits from 1967 to 1972, they would probably be a group primarily of interest to oldies fans and period aficionados, not the icons they are today. Originally a five-man band (the non-family members split in 1969), there was certain distinctiveness to many of the Bee Gees’ early hits that often relied on minor keys and wordy lyrics. And a few of those hits – “To Love Somebody” and the dirge like “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” – have achieved iconic status over the years. But it seems wilful to argue that they were anymore important than other period artists like Gary Puckett and the Union Gap or BJ Thomas. They were overly derivative of the Beatles, too tame, and only in 1971 did they rank among the Top Ten Charting artists of the year. That year seemed to mark some sort of breakout, but after a decent year in 1972 when they scored two Top 20 singles, the group disappeared from the Top 40 completely.

Barry Gibb told biographer David Leaf that Atlantic Records (which owned the Bee Gees’ early label Atco) insisted the group endlessly repeat variations of “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.” The result disenfranchised Top 40 programmers. By 1974, the Brothers’ stock was so low that their latest album was rejected by their label, and at a gig at a London’s Batley Variety Club customers paid more attention to booze and one another than they did the once hot group.

That same year, their manager Robert Stigwood introduced them to legendary Atlantic Producer Arif Mardin (Stigwood’s label RSO was distributed by Atlantic at the time). Mardin tipped the group to the then burgeoning disco scene and recommended that the Gibbs head out to the nightclubs in Miami (one of the early disco centers) to hear what was going on. The first album with Mardin flopped. However, the Bee Gees were revitalized. They assembled a new permanent backup instrumental group and found an exciting style poised somewhere between the rhythm driven Miami sound and the slicker orchestrated soul disco coming out of Philadelphia at the time. This time, no one could accuse their sound of being too tame. The second incarnation of the Bee Gees would use rhythm as its main weapon, and the falsettos so achingly restrained on the ’60s hits, would let fly this time at the plate.

Despite what seemed to be a sure hit – “Jive Talkin’- in the new contemporary style, the second Mardin album, 1975’s “Main Course,” also came close to being a flop. The group hadn’t been anywhere near the US Top 40 since 1972 and they were so un-hip by 1975 that DJs and programmers rejected their new record without even giving it a spin. To get it played, the group used a trick to they used at the start of their career to help convince the establishment. They sent promotional copies around to radio stations with plain white labels that did not identify the artist. Once programmers, then audiences heard it, “Jive Talkin'” became the Bee Gees’ second US #1. It was followed a by a small row of disco oriented hits including the electrifying “You Should Be Dancing.” The group was back, but the big play was yet to come.

In 1977, Stigwood decided to produce a movie based on the disco youth culture then prevalent in New York City. He asked his suddenly hot clients to contribute a few original songs to the project. The result was “Saturday Night Fever.” The movie was a fabulous commercial success, but the LP driven by Bee Gees’ recordings, compositions and productions was an absolute phenomenon. The album yielded four number one singles, including three by the Bee Gees – “How Deep is Your Love,” “Stayin’ Alive,” and “Night Fever.” The fourth, Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You,” was a Bee Gees’ composition. The three Bee Gees records occupied the number one slot for 15 of 20 weeks in late 1977 and early 1978. In two of the five weeks where they were not at number one, their similar sounding younger brother Andy was in the top spot with a song co-written and produced by Barry Gibb. When the Bee Gees run was done, Elliman occupied the top spot for a week.

Based largely on the power of their songs, old and new (“Jive Talking” and “You Should Be Dancing” were also included), the soundtrack album stayed at #1 for 24 straight weeks. For a while, it was the top selling LP of all time. It is to this day, the all time top selling movie soundtrack. The Brothers Gibb were not done though. Their next three non-soundtrack singles also hit #1 and a slew of their songs written for other performers like Frankie Valli, Barbara Streisand and Samantha Sang also scored big. In a little less than three years, the Bee Gees went from a group that couldn’t get a record on Top 40 radio if it had their name on it to the biggest act in the business. Now that’s a comeback.

The Bee Gees – “Night Fever”

It’s kind of tempting to play down Elvis Presley’s late 1960s commercial and artistic resurrection. By a contemporary perspective, Elvis did not seem that far from the mainstream. He had been in the Top 40 in early 1968. He had a Top 20 LP in the previous year, and even his two-year absence from the singles chart Top 20 and three years from the Top 10 by contemporary standards does not seem especially long. Modern artists might go five years without releasing an LP. Artistically, as well, the dedicated Elvis fan can legitimately point to some very good work that the singer did in his darkest days before his 1968 television special fully recharged his career.

The Top 40 world though was much different in 1968 than it is today. Artists released up to three LPs and five singles in a calendar year. Six months without a Top 40 hit was a long time. More than a year was an eternity. And Elvis had been just barely hanging on for a then pop eternity. From November 19 1966 to December 7 1968, Elvis had spent a total of ten weeks in the Billboard Top 40, with a single week in the Top 30. Presley had songs stay at number one for longer than ten weeks in the 1950s. Perhaps worse for Elvis, the follow-ups to the muscular novelty “US Male” that briefly restored Elvis to the Top 30 in April of ’68, all missed the Top 50 by a considerable margin. Presley’s latest LP “Speedway” stuck at #82 – the first Presley long player to miss the Top 50 ever. Even the commercial success with “How Great Thou Art” in 1967 was in a niche market outside the mainstream. This is how many pop careers end, a string of flops, and one or two last records that touch the margins. Many of Elvis’ 1950s peers like Ray Charles suffered a similar fate, though few extended their time in the mainstream as long as Presley. Although, he still topped some UK polls, it looked as if “US Male” might be the end of Presley as a Top 40 hit maker, one last novelty that caught a few ears.

So while Elvis did not hit the levels of despair that an act like the Bee Gees or Tina Turner saw, he was definitely in big trouble. And the drop for him was much steeper. Artistically, the story was worse. In the previous few years the King did release some worthy work, including the aforementioned “How Great Thou Art”, a small series of collaborations with Jerry Reed, a fine Bob Dylan interpretation in “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” and a handful of strong soundtrack songs and flop singles. The vast majority of Presley’s output from 1965 to 1968, though, was movie soundtracks, LPs and EPs like “Paradise Hawaiian Style,” “Harum Scarum,” “Double Trouble,” “Clambake,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “Speedway.” The best a fan generally found on LPs like these was competence. Outshining the occasional gem was a litany of some of the most ill-conceived songs ever written. Elvis Presley, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll compiled a list of amazingly bad songs to rival any performer – “Yoga is as Yoga Does,” “Do the Clam,” “Dominic” (a song about an impotent bull), a version of “Old MacDonald,” “I Love Only One Girl,” “Clambake,” “Hey, Hey, Hey,” “The Love Machine,” “Petunia the Gardener’s Daughter,” “Queenie Wahine’s Papaya” (yes, there is actually a song with that title), “A Dog’s Life,” (a song about how great it is to be a dog), “Shake That Tambourine,” and on and on.

The titles tell you really all you need to know about these songs. This was the Presley known to most of the general public.

These were definitely desperate times and, in a desperate measure, Presley’s manager “Colonel” Tom Parker signed the singer up for his first ever network television special in December 1968. The show, which was shot in June of that year, was intended to be a Christmas show. Producer Steve Binder, who had produced the great T.A.M.I. Show a few years before, had a different vision. He wanted to build a show around Presley as a contemporary rock performer. After some prodding Parker went along with the idea, but the important thing was that Elvis bought into it. Thanks to Binder, Presley saw this as a chance to show his true artistic self. Although there were some big pre-planned productions, much of the show was done on the fly. The legendary sit-down shows were something of an after-thought and didn’t comprise much of the original broadcast. But in everything Presley was determined to prove to the audience that he remained a great artist worthy of the highest recognition. As a result, he pushed himself beyond any effort he’d ever expended in his career and came up with one of the most impassioned performances in pop history.

The special turned out to be the highest rated show of the year. The public didn’t really have an inkling of what the show was going to be. The novelty of Elvis on television in 1968 and the possibility that the performance could be a popular farewell was enough to boost the ratings. What people saw that though changed a lot of minds about Elvis Presley and where he stood in the popular landscape. While the now historic sit-down show only played a tiny part in the December 3 broadcast, what really sold the show was a stand up concert in black leather where Presley furiously recreated his hits of the ’50s and early ’60s. Presley, his pitch black hair dropping over his face, was a dynamo of erotic energy reviving the edge of his ’50s rock ‘n’ roll and providing a genuine majesty to his ballads. At the end of the show, Elvis confounded expectations by singing a new song, a protest song “If I Can Dream.” Very much inspired by the then recently assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, this was a song very much in tune with its moment. It was like nothing Presley had recorded before. He sang it like it was the truth.

Elvis Presley – “If I Can Dream”

Reviews of the show in the rock press were ecstatic and Top 40 DJs gave “If I Can Dream” more spins than any Presley record in years. It went to #12 in early 1969 (#9 in Cashbox). The soundtrack album peaked in the Billboard Top Ten in early 1969, Presley’s first Top Ten LP since “Harum Scarum” in early 1966. A suddenly energized Presley parlayed the momentum of the show by scheduling a series of recording sessions in Memphis in January and February 1969 with producer Chips Moman. It was Presley’s first session in his hometown since his days at Sun in 1955. The sessions produced four million selling singles including the all time classics “Suspicious Minds” which returned Presley to #1 in November 1969, “Kentucky Rain” and “In the Ghetto.” The singles from the session, along with “If I Can Dream,” made Elvis Cashbox’s singles artist of the year in 1969. The Memphis recording sessions also produced what many consider Presley’s finest album “From Elvis in Memphis.” Some list the recordings Presley laid down in these sessions as his attempt at blue-eyed soul. They really represent the kind of genre busting fusion that typified Elvis at his best.

By now, Elvis was a juggernaut. He scheduled a series of live performances in Las Vegas in July and August 1969. The engagement received great reviews and broke attendance records. From being on the verge of slipping into irrelevance, Presley had re-established himself on television, on record, and on the concert stage.

Unlike Tina Turner or the Bee Gees, Elvis was not bigger or as big second time at the top as he was in his first. (Who could be?) He was also not as influential this time out. (Again, who could be?) There are two things though that make Elvis’ comeback reign at #1. The first is the fact that even though Elvis was not as big as he was in the 1950s, his new work set a bar of excellence by which to measure greatness. The 1968 Special won a Peabody Award, arguably the highest honor a television program can obtain. Over the years, its reputation has only increased. In 1989 TV Guide named it the greatest single rock ‘n’ roll moment in television history. It continually places in polls of the medium’s greatest moments. Greil Marcus thought so much of Elvis’ singing in the sit-down portions of the show that he called it “Very likely the greatest rock and roll ever recorded.” The current rating of the ’68 special on the Internet Movie Data Base is a staggering 9.1 out of ten.

The phrase ’68 Comeback has even become a catchphrase to identify crucial career defining moments. In 1992 a garage band decided to use the phrase as its name. “Suspicious Minds” has become the Elvis single, certainly the post-1950s Elvis single. In 1971, the song was voted the Outstanding single recorded in Memphis by Memphis musicians. In 1987, USA Today conducted a telephone poll that found “Suspicious Minds” was the most popular Elvis song. Over the years, the record has made countless all time best polls including the 1987 Rolling Stone listing of the best singles from 1963 to 1989. In 1999, the record was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Elvis Presley – “Suspicious Minds”

Beyond enduring popularity, the purpose, intensity, passion and dignity that Elvis brought to songs like “Suspicious Minds,” “Kentucky Rain,” “In the Ghetto” and album tracks like “True Love Travels on a Gravel Road,” “Any Day Now,” “After Loving You,” “Stranger in My Own Hometown,” “It Keeps Right on a Hurting” and “Long Black Limousine” is eye opening even to the most jaded and casual listener today. It is incomprehensible that this is the same man who gave us “Old MacDonald,” “Dominic the Impotent Bull,” and “Yoga is as Yoga Does.” That disparity between the spectacularly bad and the truly sublime is one reason Presley’s rebirth still stands above the rest.

The second is that it ensured Elvis’ permanence in American popular culture. Many had said that Presley would fade within a year or two of his arrival on the pop scene. Many had said that two years away in the army would do it. They were wrong. However, bad movies and a significantly altered pop music universe had threatened to do what the army couldn’t – make Elvis Presley disappear. What the TV show and the string of hit recordings that followed it displayed was that while sometimes Elvis’ act wore thin, the pop audience never really tired of him. If he could only hook up with the right vehicle the audience would happily embrace him once again. This became evident when Presley’s hit streak ran out in 1971. The following year he played a much hyped gig at Madison Square Garden and recorded one of his all time best songs in “Burning Love” and once again Elvis was back on top. Part of what made his death at 42 in 1977 so sad was that it seemed logical to think that sooner or later there would be yet another comeback. As it turned out, there was. Elvis’ record sales skyrocketed after his death. In the 33 years since he left us, he’s had more chart LPs than virtually any still recording performer in the business.

When Steve Binder was trying to sell Elvis on his idea of the 1968 special, he told Elvis if the show didn’t work out Elvis would be seen as that phenomenon from the ’50s who shook his hips and had a great manager. Elvis’ comeback assured that didn’t happen. Elvis is not tied exclusively to the 1950s. Along with Sinatra, he became one of the few permanent unavoidable figures in American popular music. Even in 2010, we still haven’t figured out a way to get along completely without Elvis.

Sources:

• The Billboard Book of Number One Hits – Fred Bronson
• Mystery Train – Greil Marcus
• Billboard’s Rock Movers and Shakers: An A to Z of People Who Made Rock Happen – Dafydd Rees and Luke Crampton
• Billboard Pop Annual 1955-1999 – Joel Whitburn
• Top Pop Albums-1955-1985 – Joel Whitburn
• The All Music Guide to Rock (First Edition, 1995)
• The Rolling Stone Record Guide – Edited by Dave Marsh and John Swenson (1978)
• The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll (Third Edition)