The band Hot Chocolate had a handful of hits in the US over a short period in the 70s. But they had more than a score of hits in the UK over 30 years, which has to be of interest to those who track popularity. Or unpopularity.
Hot Chocolate’s singer, Errol Brown, died yesterday.
I’ve written about Hot Chocolate here. And here. And elsewhere.
But I didn’t really know the story. The Guardian has a bit of a story today about Brown and the band, and why they meant so much to England.
I want to leave this post with the song that got Hot Chocolate signed by the Beatles to Apple Records, which I learned about today. It’s a wacky Carribean version of Give Peace a Chance that John found out about, and which led him to sign the band. Crazy.
This post scrapes the surface of Hot Chocolate and Errol Brown. If you hear anything you like, dig deeper.
This Mojo piece from October 2013 also has some interesting context on what made Hot Chocolate a little bit different:
http://www.mojo4music.com/7547/happy-birthday-to-hot-chocolates-tony-wilson/
And if I may engage in some brief self-promotion (for something I don’t get paid for), I played about an hour’s worth of mostly non-hit Hot Chocolate songs on my radio show tonight that you can listen to via the streamable archive:
http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/60599
(The click-to-listen links aren’t posted yet, but they’ll be added within the next 20-30 minutes.)