Rita Coolidge ~ You 1978 Disco Purrfection Version

In the fall of 1978 we kids were moved to a foreign language country to stay with our relatives while attending school as our parents prepared to move to meet us in the spring of 1979. This was our very first separation from them and the transition was difficult. Our parents would send us care packages, homemade peanut butter blossom cookies, all kinds of bad for you goodies from the US you could not get in Canada, some of the latest fashion wear and several LP's of then current hits, which I immediately took control of. I still have this LP and a Linda Ronstadt Gold Vinyl LP "A Southern Belle". Linda took my breath away, visually and vocally too since I usually pass out from lack of oxygen about a third of the way in to her note holding goodness! The lungs on that chick put her in the league of Stevie Nicks and Ann Wilson two of the greatest female rockers ever.

INow onto our song this week, I have loved the sound of Rita Coolidge's voice from her previous hits of "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher", "We're All Alone" and "The Way You Do The Things You Do". Her plaintive vocalizations were warm and comfy like an easy chair. I hopped on the gifted LP of Rita's 1978 "Love Me Again" because I had already heard the song "You" on WKBW, a station from New York on the AM radio that came into range after the sun went down and faded away when the sun came up in the morning. It was a beacon and my only cultural tie to the US. I went to sleep many times listening to their Top 40 music in the fall/winter of 1978.

Rita had been around for years, I knew about her through Kris Kristofferson when he starred with Barbra Streisand for the remake of "A Star Is Born", but that was about it until her run of late 70's hits I have already listed above. I knew she had a Cherokee Indian heritage. She graduated from Florida State University and quickly became involved with the musical community by singing jingles and was then taken under the wing of the legendary folk duo Delaney & Bonnie as a background vocalist.

Soon, she was backing stars like Stephen Stills, Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Graham Nash and Leon Russell, who dubbed her "The Delta Lady". She began dating Stephen Stills, who was then band mates with Neil Young, David Crosby and Graham Nash. Coolidge famously abandoned Stills for Nash in early 1970 and has often been cited as the main reason the super group splintered that same year. Later on in 1970, a chance meeting at LAX for a flight to Tennessee saw Kristofferson get off in Memphis with her rather than his intended destination of Nashville. They quickly set up a home life and a recording career together then married in 1973.

In 1974 they won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with vocal for the song "From The Bottle To The Bottom" and again in 1976 for "Lover Please". The disco flavored "You" was previously recorded by Australian singer Marcia Hines in 1977, peaking at #2 on their survey and became her biggest hit to date. Rita's version went top 30 in 1978, peaking at #25. After that she experienced a dry chart spell until 1983, when she reached #36 with the John Barry and Tim Rice penned main theme of "All Time High" from the Bond movie "Octopussy". She became one of the original VJ's on VH1.