Sanford & Townsend

Sanford & Townsend - Duo-Glide

I was feeling adventurous the other day, and when I found a still sealed copy of Duo-Glide I figured, "Why not, it could be good." Looking closer the top right corner of the cellophane had been removed. Flipping the cover over I saw a small inscription on the back top corner of the jacket. Apparently this was a gift for Denis from his friends Bruce and Sally back in December of '82. Apparently Denis must not have been impressed as it was never opened.

The cover sported a goofy duo flying (I resisted saying gliding, you're welcome) through the air on a touring bike with a sidecar. The guys looked like they had a sense of humour. This didn't scream rock and roll, especially given the somewhat matching Hawaiian shirts. This could be disco (please, don't be disco) or more likely a pop album in the vein of Player, Little River Band, or Hall & Oates.

Well, it wasn't disco. Thank goodness.

This era of mid '70s soft rock wasn't my forte, but I will admit this was more akin to the blue eyed soul and pop rock that would eventually morph into yacht rock. In short it was pretty darned enjoyable. The duo of John Townsend and Ed Sanford wrote all of the songs and were credited as vocalists on all of the songs, except for the ballad "Sometimes the Wind Blows" that was credited to John Townsend. It's a pretty stock song, but he does have a really good voice, and it is a good song - it's just that over the years this type of song has become more or less generic. Maybe it wasn't in '77 and I'm just looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Most of the songs featured keyboards by Ed Sanford, and a host of crack studio musicians. Jeff Porcaro and David Hungate appeared on most of the tracks, and even David Paich shows up on the Fender Rhodes. Those guys were still a year out from the first Toto album. Otis Hale played guitar on most of the tracks on the album, and from what I can see out there, he was a member of the band when they would waffle between Sandford & Townsend, and Sanford Townsend Band ... he was also a hell of woodwind player. His sax solos were pretty awesome.

While there weren't any obvious killer tracks that jumped out at me ... yeah, here I am pretending that I'm a retrospective genius who can magically pick out singles from a album that came out forty-five years ago. Having said that, this was actually pretty enjoyable, and there weren't any songs where I wanted to get up and move the needle. I don't know how often this will get pulled down and played, but it was pretty good for all that. I can't help but wonder why Denis never opened his present. His loss, my gain. I may not play it a lot, but I got to play it first.

They don't have the deepest discography, and Duo-Glide was coming on the heals of their only charting single, "Smoke From a Distant Fire" that cracked the top ten in the US and it helped them earn a spot opening for some pretty big acts - notably Fleetwood Mac on their Rumours tour. While Duo-Glide would crack the top 100 and peak at 92 their final album Nail Me to the Wall in 1979 didn't make any ripples.

My copy of is stamped 1977 on the jacket and the vinyl, but when you look up the album on discogs or the band's wiki they say it was released in 1978. Allmusic says 1977 ... I'm going with '77 ... not that it matters.

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