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Randall's One Song - Please Don't Go, by KC & The Sunshine Band Randall Abrahams · Drive with John Perlman

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's do something that we do every Friday. We
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: look forward to it. We always enjoy it and we're
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: delighted to welcome, as always, Randall Abrams. for Randall's one song. Randall,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we're going way back. Casey and the Sunshine Band. I
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: don't think I've listened to a Casey and the Sunshine
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Band song in decades, literally in decades, but you've got
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: one for us today. Tell us why and what the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: song is.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, John. Well, Casey and the Sunshine
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Band were an extremely successful act. They had five number
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: ones on the Billboard charts between 1975 and 1980. which
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: hadn't been done since The Beatles. And I'm sure that
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: the songs that you're thinking about are the disco songs.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: So Get Down Tonight, Shake Your Booty, That's The Way
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I Like It. And they were actually really great records.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I bought a CD for like 10 rand. I put
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: it on. And I was like, wow, the production is really,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: really good. I mean, everybody can certainly play. And they're very, very,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: very catchy songs.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: But the song that I've chosen is the last of
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: those five number ones. which came in 1980. It was
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: the first number one on the Billboard chart in the 1980s.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: And it was revised as a kind of up-tempo song
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: by a group called W. But the thing that I
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: thought about it when I listened to it after all
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: the disco songs was that quite similarly in the way
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: that you know, I Will Always Love You, actually was
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: written by Dolly Parton when she was going through a
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: litigious feud with Porter Wagner, actually.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: But it was a goodbye song to him. And in
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: many ways, this song, obviously, it's a romantic song, Please
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Don't Go, but it can also, you know, be seen
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and interpreted as a kind of a parting, as it were.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's say.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Rather than only a romantic parting.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's take a listen to that. As you mentioned,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: W did a remake of it and gave it a
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: different treatment. But here's the original. Casey and the Sunshine Band.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Please don't go. Don't go.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Don't you hear me, baby?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Don't leave me now. Please don't go, the sound of
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Casey and the Sunshine Band. I'm wondering, Randall, and I'm
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: sure there's no single answer that covers every single group
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: in the same category, but there was the disco era
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: and then music changes and shifts and other things start
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: becoming more popular. Is that why bands like Casey and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the Sunshine Band kind of you know, have their time
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and then that time is over? Or do those musicians say, well, actually,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: we don't want to keep doing that stuff ourselves anyway.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Let's go on and do something else.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I think, John, in the case of Casey and the
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Sunshine Band, I think it was a bit of both.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, they were very, very successful in
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: that disco era. They were then able to, you know,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: have a number one hit with a ballad. and kind
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: of move past that defining disco period. But I think
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: sometimes you burn really bright and then you just run
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: out of hits. And I think in their case, that
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: was what happened. Because they certainly produced records after Please
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Don't Go, but they just weren't that successful. And the
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: other thing is that music then changed quite dramatically. You'll
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: remember from You know, synthesizers came to dominate, and that
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: was the sound of dance music, as it were, and
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: they weren't able to make that progression.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I'm just looking at pictures of them. I mean, what
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: do you do with a cupboard full of white trousers?
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: And silver shoes.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And silver shoes. Well, I was going to say you
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: take up lawn bowls if you maybe are in South
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Africa or cricket, but I'm not quite sure what you
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: do in Florida. But I guess that would probably have
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: been the least of their troubles. Thank you so much,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Randall Abrams, with Randall's one song. And we will have
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Randall back a little later to talk to us.