To the minimal extent that '70s-pop fans know Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds at all, it's for either the 1971 Top 10 hit "Don't Pull Your Love" (sometimes given as "Don't Pull Your Love (Out)," which makes it seem like a "Rock Me Gently"-esque ode to being pegged) or the 1975 No. 1 hit "Fallin' in Love" (which their diction renders "Fawwin' in Love"). Since I'm a wannabe music historian who's had today's song stuck in his head for three days now, I'll point out a few more tidbits.1. Several years before the hit under their own name, they scored a Top 10 surftastic novelty instrumental as part of the T-Bones with 1965's "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)".
2. They had one additional Top 40 hit, following up "Fallin' in Love" with the vaguely similar-sounding "Winners and Losers". It's kind of a nondescript song, but kind of catchy, and it somehow evokes a late-'70s sitcom in its melody. "It's a Living," maybe? Its sheer earworminess demanded that I share it here.
3. By the time "Winners" and "Fallin'" were hits, "Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds" was a misnomer, Tommy Reynolds having left the group over two years prior. So one of the credited artists does not appear on the tracks at all, which puts them in a league with the Pips (who are absent from Gladys Knight's reading of "Help Me Make It Through the Night" but credited all the same) and Cliff Nobles (the lead singer of Cliff Nobles & Co., whose sole hit was the instrumental "The Horse").
And that's about enough trivia for one day. Enjoy "Winners and Losers" and let me know if it sticks in your head as well. (Or in your craw.)
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