Bubbling Under: Dan Hartman- "Relight My Fire"

One of those songs that makes you want to do an "Instant Replay".

Welcome to Bubbling Under. Each week I cover a musical artist who charted outside Billboard’s Hot 100. This week: Dan Hartman.

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When I presented the idea to cover Dan Hartman for Bubbling Under in my July poll, I was pleasantly surprised and happy with the positive reception to “Relight My Fire” as a possible future post.

Dan Hartman is one of those musicians that even if you’ve never heard the name, I can guarantee you likely know one of his songs. “Free Ride” by the Edgar Winter Group? Him. (And he sang lead on it too!). The seminal late-period disco banger “Love Sensation” by Loleatta Holloway? He wrote it. “I Can Dream About You” from the cult film Streets Of Fire? Yep.

“Love Sensation” without a doubt is one of my favourite disco tracks. Because the song was released in 1980 and people were ridiculous enough to buy into the anti-disco backlash, “Love Sensation” didn’t dent the Hot 100. However, it became a #1 dance smash. It does have staying power. I recently heard it in an Old Navy commercial. Further proof of what I’ve said in the past about chart positions not always being indicative of how remembered a song will be years later.

“Love Sensation” opens with thundering drums, and catches you right away with strings and Holloway’s soaring vocal. The song contains a catchy chorus. There’s an instrumental break in the middle where Holloway starts belting:

“You get down, you get down
You get down to the real nitty-gritty”

There’s a story that Hartman made Holloway record the vocals thirty times before he got a take he was satisfied with. Allegedly Holloway lost her voice as a result and recovered by putting Vick’s VapoRub in her coffee.

The song is already a banger and she takes it all the way to the top without adding too much to the mix. “Love Sensation” is almost six minutes long and it doesn’t drag or feel boring at all. It’s easily Hartman’s finest hour as a writer and Holloway’s as a performer. This deserved to be bigger than it was.

Legendary remix pioneer Tom Moulton also released a popular mix of the track. It’s Moulton’s version that was the dance hit:

By the early 1990’s, people started to rediscover “Love Sensation” and it popped frequently as a sample. Two major hits that sampled the song are the most notable examples. “Ride On Time” by Black Box sampled the track first, without permission from either Salsoul (Holloway’s label at the time), Hartman, or Holloway. A legal dispute followed.

Most people know it from Marky Mark Wahlberg’s debut hit “Good Vibrations”. I was going to say something snarky, but at least Holloway was given a “Featuring” credit this time around, so I’ll go easy on the guy:

It’s no surprise that after “Love Sensation” Hartman would team up once again with Holloway. This resulted in this week’s song, “Relight My Fire”.

Unfortuntely, Holloway is nowhere to be seen in this video and I feel like she should have been a credited vocalist here too. The song is as much of a banger as “Relight My Fire”. In it’s entirety, though, it’s an absolute classic. I know that length is a bit much for most people, usually myself included, but Hartman knew how to utilize longer running times without them dragging or becoming overly repetitive. As much as I love the edit of “Relight My Fire”, I feel like it’s success on the dance charts can be attributed to it being the entire version with “Vertigo” leading things off. On the 7”, “Vertigo” was relegated to the B-Side. I feel like something was lost in translation. The fact that this is hardcore disco likely didn’t help much either.

If either of these songs sounds like it could be the theme to something, you’re right on the money. It was used as the new theme to Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show. I’d read mention of it being used before but had a rough time scouring YouTube and Dailymotion for even a show opening. A 27-minute interview with Rick Nelson played the track at the start while providing context on the appearance. That seemed a little extreme to post (plus Nelson himself will be popping up at some point in a future instalment). Here’s an opening from 1979 before it started being used. Just sync “Relight My Fire” to the video and you get the point:

Obviously, Dan Hartman had other, bigger hits besides “Relight My Fire”. Hartman had been in music since 1964 when at 13, he joined a band called The Legends. Hartman was more interested in Motown than he was in The Beatles and the band became more soul-oriented in sound. Gradually, he became more influenced by psychedelic and hard rock, eventually winding up in The Edgar Winter Band, which fused all three styles. As mentioned, the band’s follow-up hit to their Winter-penned #1 “Frankenstein”, “Free Ride” was written by Hartman and he also performed the vocals. “Free Ride” is a bona fide rock classic and a prime example of how Hartman was able to adapt to other genres.

I also like this cover by Tavares:

The group had other hits with Hartman at the helm. Years ago, I picked up a $3 cut-out bin CD of glam rock called Wham Bam Thank You Glam. A lot of it was undecidely glam rock, veering more into punk territory, but it opened me up to a lot of interesting artists including Patti Smith (“Redondo Beach”), so I let it slide. Anyway, The Edgar Winter Band featured with their later hit “River’s Risin’”. I saw a “D. Hartman” credited as the writer and realized it must be the guy who sang “Instant Replay”.

By 1976, Hartman had become a solo act. His debut album Images, largely built on the material he had recorded with Winter. His early singles, such as “High Sign” built largely on his rock background, though he did dabble in more R&B-sounding material as well.

Another single, “Lighthouse” hints at things to come with a softer rock sound that almost leans into R&B during the chorus.

Because Hartman was also working as a producer for 38 Special and Foghat, he took a while to follow his debut up. Instant Replay eventually followed in 1978. The title track, a classic disco single, was a hit, peaking at #29. It went even bigger in the UK where it hit the Top Ten.

I’ve read pieces, including this very well-written article, that mention people being horrified about Hartman having gone disco. Because radio was extremely segregated at the time, this likely had a lot to do with Hartman’s difficulties in following up “Instant Replay” with another hit. Thing is, Hartman wasn’t cashing in. Hartman might have “gone disco”, but he had always been interested in various forms of soul music and R&B. Because rock tastemakers of the day tended to have a myopic view on things, Hartman’s music wasn’t taken as seriously as it should have been.

In the UK, where there weren’t different radio formats to worry about, Hartman was able to land an immediate follow-up hit with “This Is It”.

More singles followed, most of them minor hits at best. There’s some real gems in there though. “Boogie All Summer” reminds me of The Jacksons, while “Chocolate Box” sees Hartman dive head-first into Funkadelic territory.

These singles were the work of someone who clearly loved music moving into funkier territory rather than a rock musician “going disco”. Sadly, his music wasn’t taken seriously and it suffered accordingly. I vaguely remember a review back in the late 1990s for one of the soundtrack volumes to the film 54 where the reviewer dismissed the inclusion of a full-length version of “Instant Replay”.

Hartman struggled with his 80s label MCA later on over musical direction. He was unable to release the music he wanted. In his personal life he was going through a similar struggle. A closeted gay man, Hartman was unable to come out for fear of his career, which had picked back up in the mid-1980’s being ruined.

After “Relight My Fire” failed to cross over into the pop charts, Hartman, like many other artists who had been huge in the disco genre, moved into a more rock/pop-oriented sound. Gradually, he managed to score a trio of hits in the 1980’s before his death from an AIDS-related brain tumor in 1994 at the age of 43.

Prior to his death, “Relight My Fire” was a massive UK hit for British boyband Take That when they teamed up with Lulu who sang the Loleatta Holloway part:

Dan Hartman appeared on the Bubbling Under charts again during 1981 with the #110 peaking “All I Need”. Because Hartman had a second wind in the 1980’s and there is so much ground to cover in regards to his prolific career which ended far too soon, he will be popping up once again in the future.

Next Week: Beyond The Guess Who returns to 80’s pop duo One To One after they changed their name and went grunge.