Are you sure that’s Bryan Adams? It sounds more like Justin Bieber!

You’ve certainly heard of Bryan Adams.  Rock singer, popular in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  Not to be confused with Ryan Adams.  No way should he be confused with Ryan Adams.  Or Amy Adams.  Or John Quincy Adams…

Bryan Adams has amassed a stunning catalog of amazing rock hits, and some day he may actually end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as soon as the Rock Hall acknowledges that there are acts from Canada – Rush, the Guess Who – that deserve enshrinement.

But what if I told you that at one time, Bryan Adams actually had a hit on the disco charts?

Right, you say.  Bryan Adams had a disco hit.  Come on, Chuck, you can do better than that.

Okay, you don’t believe me…

Let me tell the story.  Trust me.

Back in maybe 1978 or 1979, Bryan Adams had just replaced Nick Gilder as the lead singer in the Canadian glam band Sweeney Todd.  Sweeney Todd had a #1 hit in Canada with a song called “Roxy Roller,” and it was re-recorded with Gilder’s vocals wiped and Bryan Adams’ vocals installed.  In fact, for a while both the Gilder version and the Adams version were battling it out on Canadian pop radio stations.

Now eventually Nick Gilder recorded his own #1 pop hit, “Hot Child in the City.”  But today’s blog isn’t about Nick Gilder.  Sorry, Nick.  Maybe another time.

Back to Bryan Adams.

After Adams left Sweeney Todd, he embarked on his own solo career, and eventually wrote a rock song he called “Let Me Take You Dancing.”  The track was released on A&M Canada, and would have been Bryan Adams’ first solo hit.

The track eventually found its way into the hands of a New York City producer named John Luongo, who thought that the song was okay… but it needed some panache.

Luongo thought the track was a bit slow, so he remixed the song – adding a disco backdrop and a girl chorus. Now, in order to make the song really work, he had to compress the running time of the song. That had the unintended effect of knocking Adams’ vocals up a half an octave, giving him the vocal range of a 15-year-old.

And lo and behold, “Let Me Take You Dancing” became a #1 disco hit! Every club in New York City played the song until the grooves wore out, and then they got new copies and kept on playing!

And you still don’t believe me.

Do you think I find these YouTube clips just for my own personal edification?

Click here and be amazed.

I should note that “Let Me Take You Dancing” actually got Bryan Adams a worldwide recording contract with A&M Records, where he eventually notched many of his hits – including “Straight From the Heart,” “Summer of ’69,” “Run To You,” “Everything I Do (I Do It For You),” etc.

So, you ask, why hasn’t this song appeared on any “Greatest Hits” package, why hasn’t it been heard on oldies radio, why hasn’t Bryan Adams even acknowledged that this song exists?

Supposedly, Adams was not consulted about the remix, nor was he asked to re-record his vocals so that he didn’t sound like some goofy disco singer. With that in mind, the song has remained buried in a vault, only existing on vintage 12″ dance singles. The only CD release the song has ever enjoyed was on an obscure disco compilation package; and the Bryan Adams version of this song does not appar on iTunes; there does exist a copy of the song with vocals by Vicki Shepard on the download service, however.

The song’s co-writer and longtime Bryan Adams collaborator, Jim Vallance, has three versions of this song on his webpage – the original A&M Canada promotional release, the remix by John Luongo, and the sped-up version that became the disco hit.

I actually used this track when I did a seminar at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2003, and yes, the title of the seminar was “Bryan Adams Does Disco: Collecting Records from Beyond the Fringe.”  And during the seminar, I joked that if Bryan Adams was anywhere in the state of Ohio during the seminar, he’d probably drive to Cleveland and break my neck for even mentioning that this song exists.

Good thing I didn’t bring up the fact that he also had a duet with Barbra Streisand… nah, I wouldn’t post that on my blog…

Or maybe I would.  Hee.