Ready ’N’ Steady - D.A.
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8596
Printed Date: 27 June 2025 at 12:18am
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Topic: Ready ’N’ Steady - D.A.
Posted By: Paul Haney
Subject: Ready ’N’ Steady - D.A.
Date Posted: 11 July 2016 at 11:40am
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After 37 years, the "phantom record" has been found!
Thanks to Ron for having me on his show this past Friday night (7/8/16) to listen to and talk about some "lost" gems from 1979, including the most "lost" of them all! Here's the link: http://archive.org/details/cftp-2016-07-08 - https://archive.org/details/cftp-2016-07-08 |
Replies:
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 11 July 2016 at 1:23pm
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We've all gotten used to just about every song being available (or at least mentioned) somewhere on the internet.
And, still, "Ready 'N' Steady" by D.A. was nowhere to be found, 37 years after it peaked at #102 in 1979. Paul and the research team at Record Research have unearthed the full story behind the rarest title ever to appear on a Billboard chart. Take a bow, Paul! You've earned this one! ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 11 July 2016 at 1:44pm
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Fun listening to the segment! Ron, it's great that you have the show archive and keep it updated. Thanks for that! ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Santi Paradoa
Date Posted: 11 July 2016 at 1:48pm
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I listen to Ron's program every weekend and I always enjoy the obscure tunes and rare versions. BTW, that is quite a find. Barry Scott swears he has every lost 45 but I bet he doesn't have that gem in his collection. ------------- Santi Paradoa Miami, Florida |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 11 July 2016 at 2:48pm
| Ron, thanks again for having me. It's always a fun time to sit in on my favorite radio show. Between the D.A. world premiere and the Shamus M'Cool song we played last September, I think we've got the truly obscure stuff covered! |
Posted By: padj79
Date Posted: 11 July 2016 at 7:53pm
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This is a very enjoyable episode of Crap From The Past.
Thanks Paul for your story on this one! |
Posted By: 80smusicfreak
Date Posted: 12 July 2016 at 4:48am
| Just listened to the entire 90-minute show. As a (now) 35-year chart guru myself, it was certainly fascinating to hear this newly-discovered info on "Ready 'n' Steady" and actually get to listen to the song as well! After 37 years, who'da thunk D.A. was really "Detroit Ace" Bob Seger under an alias?!? (Okay, so I just made up that nickname on the fly, lol.) :-) Great work, Paul, and fun show, cftp - some good picks among the other songs, too (my favorite probably being "Too Late")... |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 3:23am
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I listened to the show and was fascinated by the story
- but it raises several questions. How exactly did the Bubbling Under charts work? If the song was never pressed on vinyl, how did the promoter get stations to play it - or was it just a "paper add" at a handful of stations, enough to get it on? I know there were a lot of regional hits that bubbled under over the years, but they'd usually have popularity in a specific part of the country and be well known in that area. I agree with what the others have said - the song's not bad! |
Posted By: Chartman
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 5:52am
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The Wikipedia page was updated minutes after the post in this forum! There is a youtube video for song.
Why don't we all just watch this video over and over again. That way it will generate enough streams so the song can make the Billboard charts again! Song is much better than most of the current songs that make the charts based on streams - I'm talking to you Kanye. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 5:59am
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To "80smusicfreak":
Yeah, it does sound like Bob Seger in a fun mood! To everyone: Wasn't there also an elusive CashBox (or Record World) charter? I can't think of its name. (Not thinking of "The Letter" by Wayne Newton.) Andy |
Posted By: Chartman
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 7:59am
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The Cash Box song was "Mother Tone" by Truce (Voodoo Music 127077) which was listed for two weeks in 1992.
Billboard listed the song “Tunnel Power” by Triumph on two Mainstream Rock charts in 1983. No evidence either song existed - RR doesn't include either in their books. |
Posted By: 80smusicfreak
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 8:13am
I SWEAR it's sandwiched in between "Hollywood Nights" and "Old Time Rock & Roll" on my Greatest Hits CD, lol... :-)
Yes. You're thinking of 1992's "Mother Tone" by Truce. (Or is it "Truce" by Mother Tone??? Not sure.) Paul Haney posted about it http://www.top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7813&KW=mystery+song - here in a thread he titled "Mystery song" back in December of 2013. (Oops - looks like Chartman just beat me to it!) Funny, I was actually thinking the same thing just after making my previous post yesterday... I, for one, never gave up on the possible existence of either of these songs, as over the years I've found all kinds of stuff that ISN'T shown in any highly-regarded price guides, chart books, memorabilia guides written by hard-core fans, or have any apparent documentation on-line when using Google or other search engines. In fact, I once tried making that argument here on Pat's board re: the possible existence of a promo 45 for Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely", but was slammed for it! My point: In my 30+ years of collecting music now, we really don't know as much as we think when it comes to what's really out there, people, and this unearthing of D.A.'s "Ready 'n' Steady" proves it. (Oh, and aren't we currently awaiting a report from jimct on the possible discovery of a 4:40 edit of Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry" after 33 years???) Yes, I agree it's now time to tackle this "mystery" Cash Box song as well! (*steps off soapbox*) |
AndrewChouffi wrote:Posted By: Glenpwood
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 11:50am
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Was great to finally hear the mysterious "Ready N
Steady"... Not to sidetrack into the also rare Shamus M'Cool territory but the mentioning of him upthread made me just notice something interesting concerning "American Memories" brief journey up the chart in 1981. The common story is that this song got onto the chart due to Shamus getting Los Angeles DJ's to playlist it and those stations market share being big enough to force it to chart. However, upon reviewing the Singles Radio Action sections in Billboard I found this didn't get added at the L.A. stations that were posted in the magazine at least. Instead it shows as getting playlisted in markets as diverse as Portland, Dallas, Detroit, Cleveland, & St. Paul. It never shows up as moving up those stations charts - just the paper adds. It also surprisingly is listed as an overall Breakout in the Pacific Northwest region on 7-11 (the week it got the Dallas add) and the Midwest on 7-18 (the week it got the St. Paul report). Since Perspective was essentially Shamus pedaling his own record this gives me hope that he at least had to have pressed up more than ten copies to get this record into different areas of the country to wind up on their playlists. That or he somehow paid the right promotions guy to get it going just enough to chart even if there were no actual record in those markets to buy. It also should be noted that M'Cool tried to keep the record going the week after it fell off the Hot 100 by buying a full page ad in the magazine hyping the song. He also bought his own smaller self congratulatory ad at the end of the year noting the success of the song as well as the flip side in the 12-12-81 issue as well. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 3:35pm
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It took us 37 years to get to the bottom of the D.A. situation and the "Mother Tone" mystery is "only" 24 years old, so we've still got 13 years to figure that one out! Maybe that should be my next "investigative" project.
As for "Ready 'N' Steady", let's just say that the promo guy is the one that initiated getting the song on the chart. I don't feel comfortable sharing ALL the details, let's just all be happy that the song has been found. I truly think it's better than a lot of charted stuff from 1979. |
Posted By: prisdeej
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 4:21pm
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Great news! Just listened, it's catchy! ------------- DJ L. |
Posted By: JFive
Date Posted: 13 July 2016 at 9:50pm
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I never thought I'd ever hear this, so cool to hear it
and that it's a real thing. Anyone else thinking of David Lee Roth while listening? |
Posted By: Underground Dub
Date Posted: 14 July 2016 at 2:49am
| This made my week... Thanks for all of the research and for sharing it with us, guys! |
Posted By: JL328
Date Posted: 14 July 2016 at 8:15am
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I just listened and think this is amazing. It sounded really good. What
a find. Out of curiosity, was the ending of the song on the tape as abrupt as it sounded on the show? Wasn't sure if that's just the way it was or if Ron accidentally hit a button or something. I've also never heard about the Mother Tone/Truce issue since I never paid much attention to Cash Box. This is interesting to me since it really wasn't that long ago and you'd think that people who know about this or could answer questions are still alive. There was an early 90s all male R&B/gospel group called Truce. I assume they've been asked about it and ruled out? |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 14 July 2016 at 8:45am
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Thanks Chartman & everybody else that answered!
I am now interested in the story behind "Tunnel Power" charting on Top Rock Tracks! If anybody has any info/reasons I will be interested. (I'm assuming, if ever found, the lyrics AREN'T "I'm young, I'm wild, I'm free. Got the tunnel power of the music in me") Andy |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 14 July 2016 at 9:23am
Jim Franks (co-writer of the song with Dennis Armand "D. A." Lucchesi) sent Paul a CD-R transferred from a cassette, and it sounds like Jim inadvertently truncated a bit of the fade during the transfer. I let the CD-R end fully before we started talking. Jim's cassette is likely the only source of the song, anywhere, and I'd bet that the cassette includes the full fadeout. I think that cassette may include other D.A. tracks recorded at the time, in addition to "Ready 'N' Steady". ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 14 July 2016 at 9:39am
We have assumed that the whole "Tunnel Power" thing was some sort of mistake on Billboard's part. Perhaps they somehow confused the 1981 Triumph song "Magic Power" with their 1983 album Never Surrender. As for the D.A. song...it DOES fade just a hair at the end and it does end rather abruptly (I guess what we'd term a 'truncated fade'). It's my understanding that the cassette dub was made directly from the session tape in 1979, so it is what it is. I still can't believe how great it sounds for a 37 year-old recording! |
Posted By: JL328
Date Posted: 16 July 2016 at 11:15am
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My edition of Joel Whitburn's Rock Tracks (1995) says that "Tunnel Power"
was available on the cassette version of "Never Surrender." Is that wrong? |
Posted By: Chartman
Date Posted: 16 July 2016 at 12:26pm
I'll help Paul out here - Triumph never recorded a song named "Tunnel Power". In fact, I don't think anyone did?! Record Research books do contain a small number of errors (more so for the early books which were compiled without nifty software) - they are hard to find but some avid chart enthusiasts have found them and I'm sure they e-mail Paul about them. |
Posted By: Chartman
Date Posted: 16 July 2016 at 12:38pm
Does this mean that charted song should have been "Magic Power"? Or should it have been another song from the "Never Surrender" album? Three songs from that album made the chart including "A World Without Fantasy" the same week that "Tunnel Power" was listed. One question I always had - didn't Joel have a great working relationship with the Billboard staff, particularly the charts department? Always wondered why back in 1979 he just didn't make a call and say "what's up with this D.A. song?" Wasn't he collecting songs back then? |
Posted By: Chartman
Date Posted: 16 July 2016 at 12:47pm
A forthcoming book titled Just Remember: Field Notes from a Music Biz Life has some interesting comments about pop music charts. Excerpts can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae l-sigm an/singles-charts-and-the-ba_b_6054944.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae l-sigm an/how-to-win-charts-and-ali_b_6100952.html Pop charts are probably more of an art than a science driven by not always 100% reliable data - that's a nice way of saying "suspect"... |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 17 July 2016 at 3:19am
That information was supplied to us by a customer who swore he had a copy. We later found it to be wrong and removed it from further editions. Lesson learned...always double-check everything. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 17 July 2016 at 3:24am
Correct. Triumph never recorded a song called "Tunnel Power", therefore it was removed from future editions. As I always say, we strive for 100% accuracy, but with literally millions of data points in our books, an occasional mistake is bound to slip through. We're still human after all. I sometimes wish our customers could see everything we DO catch in the editing process. Even the computer has weird glitches from time-to-time. I was one of those customers that used to send in corrections...that's partially how I got the job in the first place! |
Posted By: JL328
Date Posted: 17 July 2016 at 4:42am
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Interesting. Sorry for the multiple questions, but what song was
supposed to be listed on the chart instead of "Tunnel Power"? It doesn't appear to have taken the place of another Triumph song. In the February 5, 1983 chart, "Tunnel Power" was at 43 while "A World of Fantasy" was at 8 and "Never Surrender" was at 23, so it didn't replace either of those songs. "Magic Power" was 2 years old and long off the charts at this time. If it was a typo and Billboard just listed the wrong title/wrong artist for an otherwise real song with real data, I get how that could happen, especially in 1983. But if they accidentally inserted a completely fictitious song into the chart (for multiple weeks) without having any data/reports for it, I don't get that unless it was a plant. Or, I suppose with the mainstream rock tracks chart back then, a big enough station was probably powerful enough to get a song that far down the chart by itself? So if one big station listed a bogus song (either due to a typo, an inadvertent mistake, or I guess on purpose), I suppose that Billboard would just take that info at face value and stick the song on the chart? Curious to know what exactly happened there. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 17 July 2016 at 4:53am
Bottom line is we're not exactly sure what happened there. We first started researching the Rock Tracks chart in the 1990s and even by that time the "song" in question was already over 10 years old. It's not like Billboard keeps records of these things lying around, especially for a Rock Tracks chart from 1983. We just have to assume that it was some sort of mistake and move on. (BTW, I've amended my post up thread for clarity). |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 21 July 2016 at 1:27pm
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The Onion's A.V. Club picked up the Ready 'N' Steady story on July 21, 2016:
http://www.avclub.com/article/mystery-ready-n-steady-phantom-billboard-hit-final-239905 - http://www.avclub.com/article/mystery-ready-n-steady-phantom -billboard-hit-final-239905 Great job, Paul! ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 21 July 2016 at 3:07pm
Yep, the story is making worldwide headlines, LOL! Glad to see Crap From The Past getting its just due too! The YouTube video is already over 4,000 views and climbing. |
Posted By: jono
Date Posted: 21 July 2016 at 5:07pm
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Congratulations to Paul for uncovering the story behind the song, in
addition to the song itself. Great to hear it on your show, Ron. I didn't get to listen to the whole show yet, but what I heard I enjoyed a lot. You actually opened and closed the show with 2 of my all-time favorite songs, "Don't You Write Her" and "Too Late", so I was probably just as excited to listen to those songs as I was "Ready 'N' Steady". Great work and much appreciated, Jon O. |
Posted By: Santi Paradoa
Date Posted: 18 June 2017 at 12:16pm
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For anyone who wants to hear this entire tune all the way to the fade plus three more tracks by D.A. and the Dukes then you have to listen to Ron's May 19th show with special guest Paul Haney. They even had co-writer Jim Franks call in to chat with them. Pretty cool stuff. ------------- Santi Paradoa Miami, Florida |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 18 June 2017 at 1:02pm
Thanks, Santi! Jim was a great sport, especially considering the little technical problems we had getting him on the air. It's always a treat to "talk shop" with Ron. We even delved into the "Roxy Roller" saga. Here's the link: https://archive.org/details/cftp-2017-05-19 |