Bubbling Under: David Essex and “Gonna Make You a Star”
David Essex, whose face launched a thousand posters onto the walls of teenage girls in 1970s Britain, still brings the handsome at age 64. (Getty Images/Gareth Cattermole)
Each week, Billboard magazine’s “Bubbling Under” chart features singles that rank below its famous Hot 100 chart. Each weekend, we spotlight at least one of them.
As 1973 turned to 1974, David Essex scored an enormous hit in both America and the UK with “Rock On.” Essex followed “Rock On” with several major hits in the UK, but none of them had a similar impact in the States. After the jump, the rest of David Essex, as heard by American listeners.
Essex followed “Rock On” with “Lamplight,” a British top-10 hit which crept into the stateside Hot 100. His next single slathered on the reverb that had helped make “Rock On” so distinctive, but “America” was a relatively minor hit in the UK and could only bubble under in the States, reaching #101 in September 1974.
After that, however, “Gonna Make You a Star” ended up one of the top singles of 1974 in the UK, spending three weeks at #1 that November. If glam rock had made more headway in the States, it might have done better over here. As it was, it managed only a four-week run on the Bubbling Under chart, eventually reaching #105 in early December.
Here’s Essex performing “Gonna Make You a Star” on the British TV show Top of the Pops in 1974.
Jimi LaLumia
January 1, 2012 1:53 pm
America got screwed by uptight radio programmers who were freaked out by Glam rock/Glitter Rock, or as some called it “Fag rock”…as we a result, we lost out on hearing great stuff from Mud, Suzi Quatro,Gary Glitter, Slade, T.Rex,”Ziggy Stardust” era David Bowie, Sweet, David Essex, Arrows, and so much more…so of these artists managed to squeeze in ONE U.S. hit before the ‘blackout wall’ came down on early 70′s glam…that was AMERICA’S LOSS!!