War was a long-running funk-rock band from southern California, who was commercially viable, at least into the 1990s. Eric Burdon, formerly of The Animals, was the lead vocalist on their first hit, Spill the Wine, back in 1970, but others took the reins shortly after that.
On the Billboard 100, the very peaceful tune called Summer, which was appropriately released on June 21, 1976, debuted on the chart on July 10 and spent 16 weeks there, eventually getting to #7. On the soul charts, it also started moving on July 10, and spent 14 weeks, reaching #4. It was declared a gold record, selling over 500,000 units.
Here is Summer, by War. The band “is not happy about being slighted for a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band was nominated but lost out… War is most annoyed about losing a spot to The Beastie Boys.
“Vocalist and founding member of War Howard Scott told TMZ, ‘We were cranking out gold records when they were still in diapers. How could the Beastie Boys get in before us when they sampled War’s music on their first album?! I’ll eat their platinum records!’ and added, ‘Felt like I was kicked in the back of my britches.'”
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Sad to read about the death, at the age of 68, of composer Marvin Hamlisch. Writer Mark Evanier said: “I can’t recall ever hearing a bad word about Marvin Hamlisch, not even from Theater People… He was the guy who wrote the tunes for A Chorus Line, after all. And so many other fine works. The first time I saw him or heard his name was when he was Groucho’s pianist for those sad one-Marx shows near the end of the comedian’s career.” To paraphrase a song of his: Nobody did it better.