The sound and feel of "Easy To Love" mirrors the production touches on Boz Scaggs 1976 hit "Lowdown" and the reason why should be obvious, since Toto members to be, David Paich (who arranged and conducted the strings for this single) and Jeff Porcaro (who laid down the funky foundation with his drumming played on both. They completely mastered the bittersweet R&B sound here on "Easy To Love" and then perfected it with Toto's single "Georgy Porgy" featuring vocals from protege Cheryl Lynn the following year. Rounding out the professionals who played on this track are Ray Parker Jr and jazz legend Lee Ritenour on guitars, Michael Omartian on keyboards and Bobbye Hall, percussionist. This song was written by Leo with Albert Hammond after Leo's platinum success with the #1 hit "When I Need You" which Hammond had written with Carole Bayer Sager. Hammond is a British singer/songwriter who had a smattering of solo pop hits in the US starting with "It Never Rains In Southern California" (#5, 1972) and ending with 1975's atmospheric #91 pop hit "99 Miles From L.A." He had much more success writing for others, like Leapy Lee's 1968 #16 "Little Arrows", The Pipkins 1970 novelty hit "Gimme Dat Ding" which went all the way to #9 pop and "The Air That I Breathe" a #6 hit from 1974 as covered by The Hollies. "The Air That I Breathe" was originally recorded by Hammond for his 1972 LP, "It Never Rains In Souther California". Hammond continued his collaborative efforts, with talents like ex-Motown writer/producer Hal David on "To All The Girls I've Loved Before" as recorded by Julio Iglesias & Willie Nelson, then on to two major hits with the Queen of the pop hooks, Diane Warren on Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", Chicago's "Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love", then worked with John Bettis on the 1988 Summer Olympic Theme "One Moment In Time" as made famous by Whitney Houston. Leo relates that "Easy To Love" was also easy to write too, since all you had to do was to "show Hammond a piano and he writes a hit." In 1978, French Canadian R&B artist Boule Noire (which translates to "Black Ball" a sly play on words about his particular style of Afro) recorded a french version of "Easy To Love" as "Aimer D'Amour" with Nanette Workman as a duet. If you listen to this song, Leo sings the chorus in falsetto then drops a couple of octaves for the verses which made it a perfect fit for the Quebec based vocalists. Their version went triple platinum in Canada in 1978 and then they almost repeated the feat in 1990, when French and European DJ's resurrected the 12 year old song, resulting in 800,000 copies being sold in those countries. Some songs just never get old, this one still sounds as engaging and enticing as it was when I first heard it in late November of 1977.
6 апр 2015
