Here's the latest from our Forgotten Hits Professor of Hit Music History, Chuck Buell ...
This week in 1976, “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith entered Billboard’s Top 40, where it would go on to become a Top Ten Hit in early 1977.
Inspiration for this song was . . . ah . . . inspired by an old Western Colorado incident when a heavy-set, bowlegged cowboy shuffled into a dusty, rundown, wooden clapboard drug store and said to the proprietor, “After ridin’ the Range for weeks on end, I need me some talcum powder.”
The slender, young store owner stood up straight and tall from his chair behind the well-worn wood counter and drawled, “We’ve got that,” and started walking towards the back of the store saying, "Walk this way."
The old cowboy grimaced and said, "If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the dadgum talcum powder!"
Badda Boom!
And with that, let’s walk our selves this way over to the Forgotten Hits Music/Video Department for this Rare, But No Less Special, Audio-Video version of my “Chuck Buell Walkin’ This Way Minute Medley!”
CB ( which stands for “Cavorting Boy!” )
LOVE that video!!!
Aerosmith had a bit of a rough go of it early on ... which is to say, it took them a little while to catch on ... but thankfully their record label believed in the band and stuck with them. It has since blossomed into a fifty year career.
But things didn't always look this rosy fifty years ago ...
For example, their first chart hit, "Dream On," barely made a ripple when it was first released in 1973. (Personally, I LOVED the song the very first time I heard it ... but it only went to #59 in Billboard that year.)
Its history kind of paralleled that of "Layla," in that the original released was a "shortened" version of the LP cut. (Probably because this is the way I first heard this song, it is my preferred version ... I just don't feel that the longer version adds that much to the song overall. "Layla," on the other hand, is a MUCH different story, since the original edit eliminated the entire ending, which has gone on to become one of the most identifying factors to the song.)
Their next single, "Sweet Emotion," fared a little better, breaking into The Top 40, ultimately peaking at #36 in Billboard.
To Columbia Records' credit, they had not given up on the band and felt that now that America was a bit more familiar with them, they would re-release "Dream On" again ... only this time in its full album-length edition.
Before they did, however, they issued "Walk This Way" as a single (Columbia 10206) and it COMPLETELY bombed, failing to chart at all.
They persevered, however, and THIS time "Dream On" went all the way to #6.
Encouraged, they gave "Walk This Way" another shot, releasing it again in November of 1976 ... and this time it exploded, even making The Top Ten (as Chuck explains above.)
While that should of been it, it wasn't ...
In 1986, ten years later, rappers Run D.M.C. cut a version of the track, but instead of simply sampling Aerosmith's original recording, they invited guitarist Joe Perry and lead vocalist Steven Tyler into the studio to record new, fresh versions of their now classic hit.
It worked ... Run D.M.C.'s version shot up to #4, besting Aerosmith's original chart showing! (Whodathunk???) kk
