Bubbling Under: Chi Coltrane

Chi Coltrane - "Go Like Elijah" (CBS)

One of our favorite one-hit wonders is Chi Coltrane, singer/songwriter from my home state of Wisconsin, whose “Thunder and Lightning” is all kinds of awesome. But “Thunder and Lightning” was merely her only Top 40 hit, back there in the fall of 1972. Another song from her acclaimed debut album bubbled under the Hot 100 a few months later, and you really ought to hear it.

Coltrane’s father was a violinist, and his daughter (whose first name is pronounced “shy”) was trained as a pianist from childhood. She played in clubs around Chicago starting around 1970, got a record deal, and wrote all the songs for her self-titled debut. She didn’t stop learning after that, going to music school in California before cutting her second album, Let It Ride. When that one failed to catch on, she got religion and put her recording career on hold. In the late ’70s, she moved to Europe and has been based there ever since, still performing and recording.

Coltrane’s musical chops were notable in the early ’70s, an era when women in rock were generally singers and not players. Her debut album contains some terrific songs apart from “Thunder and Lightning,” including “I Will Not Dance” and “Go Like Elijah.” The latter was her second single, which made it to #107 during a two-week run on the Bubbling Under chart in January 1973. Here’s a live performance from 2009. What she had back in the day, she’s still got.

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