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Whether you've been following my Great Songs blog for 3 weeks or 3 years, you've most likely noticed that I often include Canadian chart stats.
There are 2 reasons for this:
#1: There are many Canadian groups and artists who have crossed over the border to influence American musical tastes.
#2: Vice versa.
Of course, sometimes the chart numbers are virtually identical, and sometimes they're wildly different. Then there are songs that don't cross the border at all--and that goes both ways!
Today, we're highlighting a rarity: a Great Canadian Song that took 6 YEARS to cross the border and become a Great Song in the US!
In 1983, Arnold Lanni, keyboardist for the Canadian group Sherriff, met and fell in love with Valeri Brown. For Valentine's Day, he wrote her a song that melted her heart.
She married Arnold 2 years later, but before that happened, Sheriff recorded and released "When I'm With You."
You'd think that would be the end of it...and it almost WAS, especially after Sheriff broke up in 1985.
But then, in November of 1988, Brian Phillips, the Program Director at KDWB in Minneapolis and WKTI in Milwaukee, decided to start playing the song on both stations...and by early 1989, other stations in the Midwest...and then the rest of the country... had started playing it, which led Capitol Records to re-issue the single.
This time, "When I'm With You" went to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary Charts...but failed to chart at all in Canada!
Many people thought Sheriff should reunite and go out on tour to back the song, but the ex band members refused, and that was that.
So in the end, Sherriff became a one-hit wonder TWICE...with "When I'm With You:" A Great Song of 1983 in Canada and 1989 in the US!
Tomorrow: Back to the 70s....for an almost forgotten #1 Country Crossover.
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