7 episodes

One Hit History asks music people, "What's your favorite one hit wonder song?"

One Hit History One Hit History

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One Hit History asks music people, "What's your favorite one hit wonder song?"

    BettySoo Loves the SUNDAYS “Summertime”

    BettySoo Loves the SUNDAYS “Summertime”

    Just like you described this really lovely, kind of girly voice. And then what she was saying was not, and I was like, Oh, I am into this. -- BettySoo on The SUNDAYS "Summertime"

    Think you don’t know The SUNDAYS? Chances are, if you listen to adult album alternative radio, you’ve heard them. Texas singer-songwriter BettySoo shares her favorite one hit wonder, The SUNDAYS song “Summertime,” with its charming vocal delivery yet darkly subversive lyrics. 

    So that's so interesting how, you know, different songs and albums come into people's lives at different times, but the ones that stick around...it's like, why does this particular album or song or band stick with me?

    On a deeper note, BettySoo and Sloane Spencer get into what makes certain songs, albums, and artists irrevocably linked to someone’s memories at a specific point in their life, no matter the quality or popularity of the music. Plus, they discuss the ups and downs of musicians’ decisions to no longer produce music or be a public figure and how it affects the fans.

    Without an external kind of exoskeleton of structure, it's really hard to know how to prioritize things.

    Known for life hacking support for her creative friends, BettySoo has to be so organized that she designs and sells her very own planner system, the Work Play Every Day planner, perfect for planning out Sundays and beyond. 

    Links



    BettySoo.com

    Nobody's Girl (feat. BettySoo, Rebecca Loebe, and Grace Pettis)

    BettySoo on Tour in 2022 

    Will Sexton 

    Michael Fracasso 

    Rosie Flores 

    What is AAA radio?

    Work Play Every Day planner



    Music Mentions



    “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”

    “Ain’t Living Long Like This” 

    “Wonderful Christmastime” 

    “Summertime” 

    One Hit History playlist of one hit wonders

    One Hit History playlist of guests



    Don't forget to subscribe to One Hit History in your favorite podcast app and leave those

    5 Star reviews!



    AI TRANSCRIPT

    Sloane Spencer: [00:00:00] All Sloane Spencer with you. You found us at our new podcast called One-Hit History Today, we're talking with BettySoo, a Texas songwriter who not only has her own solo albums that you need to check out in a couple of very cool singles out recently, as well also has a trio called Nobody's Girl, you can find them at We Are Nobody's Girl Dot Com and a number of other projects and live residencies, online info, all kinds of cool stuff. Welcome. [00:00:26][26.4]



    BettySoo: [00:00:27] Thank you. Good to be here. [00:00:28][1.3]



    Sloane Spencer: [00:00:29] My pleasure. So what in history is where we talk to music folks about their favorite one hit wonders, and often it leads to some interesting little associations, so I'm looking forward to hearing which one is your favorite. [00:00:43][14.5]



    BettySoo: [00:00:45] Well, it wasn't a number one single, but it was a hit single in the late 90s, and it's a song called Summertime by the Sundaes. [00:00:53][7.9]



    Sloane Spencer: [00:00:54] Oh, so I've been working in Triple J radio for the last many years, and this is still a staple of AAA radio playlists. When I pull up the sundaes, it's going to come up this one, and here's where the story ends from. Their first record are going to be the top two in those playlists. Absolutely. One you'll recognize. Even if you say, I don't know the sundaes, I don't know that song. Oh yeah. Pull it up. You'll immediately like, Oh yeah, one that sounds like it's wonderful Christmas time in the intro. It's that song [00:01:23][28.9]



    BettySoo: [00:01:26] I [00:01:26][0.0]



    Sloane Spencer: [00:01:26] never thought about, but that's really nice. Those first few notes. Here's where the story ends off of reading.

    LadyCouch Loves You…and Tag Team “Whoomp! There It Is”

    LadyCouch Loves You…and Tag Team “Whoomp! There It Is”

    "Whoomp! There It Is!" is talking about their particular art scene as a whole, even though it’s more T&A based.  -- Keshia Bailey and Allen Thompson, co-founders of jam band LadyCouch on their favorite one hit wonder by Tag Team

    The conversation bounces around so much between Sloane Spencer and the co-founders of LadyCouch (Keshia Bailey and Allen Thompson) that who knows where it is while they talk about their favorite one hit wonder from 1993. But the Nashville duo finally lands on “Whoomp There It Is” by Tag Team. But don’t confuse it with 95 South’s “Whoot There It Is”, though the trio chats about the differences and similarities between the two. 

    My philosophy is ‘hit’ is however you want to define it. It’s whatever it means for the conversation. -- Sloane Spencer, host of One Hit History, on how loosely the podcast defines "hit"

    Listen to see how the strip club scene in Atlanta in the 90s was essential to the music scene, the unlikely way the band got their party song on the streets, and how many musicians' favorite one hit wonders come outside of the genre in which they perform and write. 



    That recent Geico commercial has taken me back to the spring of ‘93.  -- Allen Thompson (LadyCouch co-founder)



    Links



    Blackbird Records label

    LadyCouch (6-12 members rotating, core is Keshia Bailey and Allen Thompson)

    One Hit History podcast playlist of show guests

    One Hit History playlist of one hit wonders

    Bonus episodes, outtakes, and sneak peeks



    Music Mentions



    The Future Looks Fine

    LadyCouch

    “Whoomp There It Is”

    “Whoot, There It Is”

    “Who Let the Dogs Out”

    “Ring my Bell” 

    Terence Trent D'Arby (who now goes by Sananda Maitreya)

    “Bittersweet Symphony”

    “Touch of Grey” 



    Don’t forget to give One Hit History a five star rating! 



    AI Transcript

    Sloane Spencer  Hey y'all Sloane Spencer here you found us. It's one hit history, the new podcast where we talk with music people about what's your favorite one hit wonder. We're fixing to jump in talking with our friends Keshia Bailey and Allen Thompson of the band LadyCouch. They got the new record out called future looks fun. It's on Blackbird records. You can find it in all your favorite places where music is available. We'll talk with them a little bit throughout the conversation about their own music as well and the cool stuff they have coming up. But first, let's just jump right in some y'all. What's your favorite one hit wonder.



    Keshia Bailey Oh my god. This is so hard.



    Allen Thompson So we've got a lot of favorite one hit wonders. But that recent GEICO commercial with tag team has taken me back to the spring of 1993. And made me really think about Whoop, there it is, by tag team versus Whoop, there it is by 95. Sell. The course is almost identical. Minus the spelling of the whoop and or WOOT in the title, subject matter. Kind of similar. I feel like tag jeans, the writings a little stronger. Lyrically, it's a little bit more poetic. Both of them are you know, pretty much worldwide sports Hanson's at this point. Yes, absolutely.



    AT Anybody that has been to a football game or owns any of the 385 editions have now That's What I Call Music, you've definitely heard



    SS both songs platinum at the minimum, in fact, the whoop version of it multi platinum and the WOOT version, platinum, both of them and not 100. And just absolutely successful in and of their own right. But it's been that continuation through sports and advertising that has made these songs of the millennium in many ways.



    AT I mean, they open the door for Who let the dogs out many other one hit wonder classics.



    SS We're gonna feature the song, who let the dogs out on another one hit history,

    • 16 min
    M Lockwood Porter Loves Mazzy Star “Fade Into You”

    M Lockwood Porter Loves Mazzy Star “Fade Into You”

    It might be the best a tambourine has ever sounded on a song…it just sparkles.



    “Fade Into You,” Mazzy Star’s mid-90’s MTV classic is the rare one hit wonder that transcends time and place. The song is such a warm blanket of sound that it was featured on countless mix tapes in the 90’s, then placed prominently on every mix CD made by a sensitive guy in the early 2000’s, and still lives on an immeasurable number of streaming playlists.



    (T)his song exists kind of out of time. It could have come out a couple years ago, or it could have come out in the 70s or the 90s.

    In the latest episode of One Hit History, Sloane Spencer sits down with musician M. Lockwood Porter to discuss a song that arose from the tail end of the Los Angeles music scene known as the Paisley Underground. Mazzy Star is fronted by the tantalizing wallflower Hope Sandoval and though the song was everywhere in 1994, neither Spencer nor Porter became familiar with the hit until years later. Porter shares details about his forthcoming fifth LP, which includes contributions from John Moreland.



    One of the things that makes this band so tantalizing is that my understanding is that Hope Sandoval is very shy and has stage fright…it just adds some mystery and depth to what you hear in the music.

    Be sure to subscribe to One Hit History podcast in your favorite app and

    leave a 5 Star rating! 

    Thanks to Charles Hale for this episode's show notes.  You can find his radio show at Ajax Diner Book Club and in an upcoming One Hit History podcast!

    The Playlists



    One Hit History -- The Songs

    One Hit History -- The Guests

    One Hit History -- The M Lockwood Porter Podcast Episode



    Music Mentioned in this Podcast



    M Lockwood Porter

    Mazzy Star

    Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions

    John Moreland

    The Dream Syndicate

    Rain Parade

    R.E.M.

    Opal

    Green on Red

    Chuck Prophet

    X

    The Jesus & Mary Chain (Note flashing images and strobes on home screen of this website.)



    Interesting Links



    Support One Hit History podcast on Patreon and hear outtakes, bonus episodes, and extras

    M. Lockwood Porter official website www.mlockwoodporter.com

    Buy M. Lockwood Porter's music on Bandcamp www.mlockwoodporter.bandcamp.com

    "Fade Into You" original video www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImKY6TZEyrI

    "Fade Into You" international video www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MkdplFbFdU&ab_channel=Telegenics

    A brief history of Mazzy Star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazzy_Star

    Hope Sandoval www.hopesandoval.com



    If you liked this episode, you may enjoy our partner podcast, Bubble Bottles, asking music people, "What's your favorite carbonated beverage?"



    AI Transcript

    Sloane Spencer  0:05  Well, hey y'all, this is Sloane Spencer, you found us at our new podcast one hit history. It's where we talk with music people about their favorite one hit wonders. Well, we're using the term hit really loosely, and we're using the term favorite pretty loosely. And we've come across some incredible songs got a wonderful guest with us today, Mr. Lockwood Porter, a number of fantastic records that you can check out at his website am Lockwood porter.com, or, of course, our favorite band camp at a fifth album on the way in 2022. Want to hear more about that? Hello.



    M Lockwood Porter  0:35  Hi, how are you doing?



    Sloane Spencer  0:36  I'm great. How are you doing? Great. What's up with this next record?



    M Lockwood Porter  0:40  You know, it's becoming a little bit of a cliche at this point. But it's one of those lockdown records. Like so many other musicians, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands over the last year and a half, two years or so.

    • 21 min
    Rachel Cholst Loves Cowboy Mouth “Jenny Says”

    Rachel Cholst Loves Cowboy Mouth “Jenny Says”

    The shows themselves have this glue of positivity, connecting all the songs, and this idea that you can do anything, and you can get through these difficult times.

    Some songs are so cathartic and just speak right into your heart at the right time in your life, as Rachel Cholst feels about Cowboy Mouth’s classic song “Jenny Says.” Listen and learn some obscure tidbits of info about the energetic, New Orleans-based band.

    I know they have a reputation that it's a frat boy band, but there are a lot of people out there for whom they've done so much. And I hope that also is a part of their legacy.

    Cholst, a well-known freelance writer and creator of queer country music zine Rainbow Rodeo and the Adobe & Teardrops blog discusses the effect the Cowboy Mouth has had on her life, music, and social justice-focused activities with host Sloane Spencer.

    90s college rock has a very specific sensibility where it's happy and sad at the same time. And when you're 12 going on 13 — yeah, that hits.

    Don’t forget to give One Hit History a five star rating! 



    Links:



    Adobe & Teardrops 

    Rainbow Rodeo 



    Music Mentions:



    Man on the Run video

    Cowboy Mouth

    Dash Rip Rock

    Fred LeBlanc (often spelled LaBlanc)

    Paul Sanchez

    JTG AKA Griff AKA John Thomas Griffith

    John Mellencamp (Jack & Diane)

    Indigo Girls

    Better than Ezra

    Toad the Wet Sprocket

    Sonia Tetlow Band (AKA STB)  (not the hip hop group)

    Ani DiFranco

    Drivin N Cryin

    Arms Akimbo (fantastic early 1980s Atlanta band, not to be confused with the late 2010s band of the same name, the main guy's dad or uncle was my dentist --Sloane)

    Mr. Crowe's Garden (band before the Black Crowes, you can see why we were all pretty surprised when they morphed into this Southern rock band a couple years later...)

    Mary Lasseigne, often credited as LaSang (recently known for playing in the Susan Cowsill band)

    Drive By Truckers



    Enjoy this playlist featuring some of the artists we talked about in this episode.

    Enjoy the on-going One Hit History playlist, featuring the songs featured on the episodes.



    AI Transcript

    Sloane Spencer  0:00  Hey y'all Sloane Spencer here you found us it is one hit history. We're real easy to find online one hit history.com or support us at patreon.com/oneHithistory. I'm talking with somebody today who is a music person that if you don't already know you should, behind some incredibly important and fascinating outlets, Adobe and Teardrops and Rainbow Rodeo the zine you definitely need to know. Rachel Cholst. Hello.



    Rachel Cholst  0:26  Hi. Thank you so much for having me and for that really generous introduction.



    Sloane Spencer  0:32  Well, absolutely. So real quick before we jump into the big question and the fun part of this, creatively, what have you been working on lately?



    Rachel Cholst  0:40  That is a rueful laugh. Because I've mostly been writing essays since I'm working towards my MSW. And after about five years of doing freelance journalism on tight deadlines, while working a full time job writing like a five page paper double spaced is like really nothing to me. No, but time and energy.



    Sloane Spencer  0:59  Definitely, definitely. So give people the quick rundown on what Adobe and Teardrops is.



    Rachel Cholst  1:04  Sure. So I began Adobe and Teardrops in part inspired by the band we're going to be talking about cowboy mouth around is a lyric from one of their songs Man on the Run. Yeah, that was always meant to be a space to focus on artists who were flying below the mainstream sonically, of course, I think it's sort of getting more of a resurgence. But in the early 2010s, there was a lot of crossover between punk and country tha...

    • 26 min
    Chad Cochran Loves Thomas Dolby “She Blinded Me with Science”

    Chad Cochran Loves Thomas Dolby “She Blinded Me with Science”

    One Hit History: Chad Cochran Nerds Out on Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science”

    Chad Cochran, AKA Cowtown Chad, is a noted rock photographer and visual artist from Cleveland. His latest project, I Didn’t Want to Tell You, focuses on normalizing the conversation about mental health.



    This week on One Hit History, Chad nerds out with Sloane over his favorite one hit wonder — “She Blinded Me With Science” originally released in 1982 by Thomas Dolby. Part of Dolby’s appeal is over his pure love of music in all its forms, which eventually led him away from the stage and into being an audio professor, and founding a technology company that created the iconic and polyphonic Nokia ringtone that was part of the soundtrack for the 90s.

    List of links



    Chad Cochran AKA Cowtownchad

    I Didn’t Want to Tell You featured in No Depression print magazine

    Thomas Dolby “She Blinded Me With Science”

    “She Blinded Me With Science” US long version video

    One Hit Wonders playlist on Spotify

    Thomas Dolby’s profile at Johns Hopkins University

    Challenging Audio to Take the Next Step

    The Nokia ringtone

    Max Headroom

    Science! Guy is Magnus Alfred Pyke, TV presenter and scientist 

    Outtakes, sneak peeks, and bonus episodes



    Music mentions



    Oingo Boingo

    Foreigner

    Soft Boys

    Chic/Nile Rodgers

    Orleans

    Roger Waters/Pink Floyd

    Def Leppard

    George Clinton

    Duran Duran — Annie Zaleski (author of Duran Duran Rio book)

    Flaming Lips

    Talking Heads



    Don’t forget to give One Hit History a five star rating! 



    Transcript

    Sloane Spencer

    I should maybe not tell a funny story on myself. So I got into a huge bar disagreement with somebody about “She Blinded Me with Science” because the person that was talking to me kept insisting that it was by Oingo Boingo, and I kept saying, “It's Thomas Dolby!” And I was like, ready to get in a fist fight in a bar with some huge dude that this was Thomas Dolby and not Oingo Boingo. I should probably be way more embarrassed about that than I am....



    This is Sloane Spencer.  Y'all might know me from my decades in radio, and you might know me from my pioneering podcast, long form interview, conversations with “musicians you don't know you love yet” called Country Fried Rock. And also I'm an adult living with ADD -- and that means that when I get inspiration, oh my God, I'm going to do four things, and I'm going to do them all in the next 48 hours.



    And that is where this new podcast is. It's called One Hit History, where I talk with music people about their favorite one hit wonder. So of course I hit up some of my favorite friends first to get us started. (I also like alliteration. If you don't know that already.) You can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/onehithistory, where you'll find bonus content and episode outtakes -- and no, I'm not afraid to make fun of myself.



    Or just listen on our website OneHitHistory.com or your favorite podcast app. It seems a little silly, but especially for a new program like this, those five star ratings and reviews really help.

    So we're going to chat with Chad Cochran. You might know him better as CowtownChad, a noted rock photographer and visual artist, been around the scene for quite some time with some amazing work and an incredible multimedia project called “I Didn't Want to Tell You.” Let’s have him tell you a little bit about what's going on these days.



    Chad Cochran

    Right. And Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited to do this One Hit Wonders. It's one of those things that I've always found completely fascinating. So when you messaged me and said something about this, you didn't have to say anything. I was immediately ready to go.

    • 14 min
    Holly G Loves Linda Martell “Color Him Father”

    Holly G Loves Linda Martell “Color Him Father”

    Holly G has been quite busy during the pandemic times — she created the Black Opry in April 2020, while the rest of us were still wiping down our groceries. With a goal of inviting everyone sitting outside the traditional Nashville music table, the Black Opry has taken off, from New York to an upcoming Nashville show in December. 



    Holly G discusses her favorite one hit wonder with Sloane Spencer, and shares an unlikely history of how Linda Martell came to record her one hit wonder, “Color Me Father.” Plus, they discuss the politics of country music in a musical scene where some got unfairly pushed aside over the years, and how the Black Opry hopes to diversify Nashville in short order. 

    List of links



    The Black Opry

    Black Opry on Twitter  

    Linda Martell

    Rolling Stone feature on Linda Martell

    Linda Martell's CMT award coverage in the Tennessean

    Plantation Records

    Shelby Singleton

    “Color Him Father” by Linda Martell  

    Documentary by her granddaughter Marquita Thompson  

    Grand Ole Opry  

    Hee Haw 

    Linda Martell on Hee Haw 

    Original “Color Him Father” by the Winstons  

    The Amen Break by the Winstons, most sampled drum break in music  

    The vocal version of “Amen” (similar to what Sloane Spencer grew up singing in church in Atlanta)

    “Amen Brother” by the Winstons

    Carolina Beach Music  

    Richard Lewis Spencer  

    Curtis Mayfield  

    Otis Redding  

    Frankie Staton 

    Black Opry Revue in NYC  

    Black Country Music Association article in Rolling Stone 

    Black Country Music Association’s old Blogspot site

    Exit/In Black Opry Revue show

    What is a songwriters’ round?  

    Jewly Hight’s NPR piece on AmericanaFest Black Opry House 

    AmericanaFest music conference and festival 

    Cam 

    Maren Morris 

    Leslie Fram at CMT  

    Darius Rucker  

    Jimmie Allen  

    UMG Nashville Cindy Mabe — the record label exec’s letter regarding Mickey Guyton, 2021 (full text at the bottom of the article)



    Music mentions



    Rissi Palmer’s  Color Me Country

    Lizzie No (who is a guest on our other podcast, Bubble Bottles) 

    Mickey Guyton 

    Miko Marks  

    Brittney Spencer  

    Reyna Roberts 



    Extras



    Listen to One Hit Wonders on Spotify!

    Check out our Patreon bonus episode featuring Charley Crockett's cover of Billy Swan's “I Can Help” 

     Don’t forget to give One Hit History a five star rating! 



    Transcript

    [00:00:00] Sloane: Hey, y'all, this is Sloane Spencer, and you found us at One Hit History. You might know me as the founder of the pioneering long form Americana podcast called Country Fried Rock, which these days is really just sort of my online Twitter persona. One Hit History asks music people, “What's your favorite one hit wonder?”



    [00:00:19] This has been my favorite backstage conversation for nearly 25 years. It always brings up incredible deep conversation and connections with music. It's a nice short story because the person that we're chatting with today, I found via Twitter, which has the great retweet feature and amplifies incredibly important content -- sometimes.



    [00:00:41] And I got lucky with this one. We're chatting with Holly G of Black Opry. Gonna have Holly tell you more about what they have going on these days. And if you're not already following them, stop by BlackOpry.com.



    [00:00:53] Tell me what you're up to these days. 



    [00:00:56] Holly G: Yeah, I just started Black Opry actually in April of this [00:01:00] year. Is it still 2020? Yeah. And everything kind of like spiraled out of control in the best way. I had all these plans,

    • 27 min

Customer Reviews

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4 Ratings

Need my gold stars ,

Love a non-ironic appreciation for one hit wonders

No guilty pleasure here, just genuine love for songs that happened to be popular. Lots of fun!

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