Hit Revival of Charlene Version
In 1982 Scott Shannon, a disc jockey at Tampa radio station WQRB, began playing the "I've Never Been to Me" track off the Charlene album, and response from local listeners was such as to motivate Shannon, a former Motown employee, to alert Motown president Jay Lasker to the track's hit potential. Lasker located Charlene who, discouraged by the poor performance of her 1977 Motown releases and by the label's decision to shelve a second album she'd recorded, had left the music industry and met and married an Englishman, subsequently accompanying him to his native land and taking a job at a candy store in Ilford. Lasker located Charlene and personally telephoned her with the invitation to re-sign with Motown Records to facilitate the re-release of her "I've Never Been With Me" single, which was done - with the addition of a newly-recorded spoken word bridge - in the spring of 1982.
The Billboard Hot 100 dated March 6, 1982 showed "I've Never Been to Me" by Charlene debuting at #84 - thirteen notches higher than the peak of its 1977 original release - to ascend to the Top 40 in four weeks and subsequently rise as high as #3 on the Hot 100 dated May 22 1982. The track had even more chart impact internationally attaining #1 status in Australia (six weeks), Canada (four weeks), Ireland (three weeks) and the UK. "I've Never Been to Me" also afforded Charlene a Top Ten hit in Belgium (Flemish Region) (#7), the Netherlands (#7), New Zealand (#5) and Norway (#5). In 1982 Charlene's "I've Been to Me" was also a hit on the Easy Listening Chart (#7) and a minor C&W chart crossover (#60).
As Charlene was unable to successfully follow up the success of "I've Never Been to Me" - her only subsequent Hot 100 entry "Used to Be" (a duet with Stevie Wonder) stalled outside the Top 40 at #46 - she remains a high-profile one-hit wonder: on the 2002 VH1 special 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders, "I've Never Been to Me" by Charlene was ranked at #75.
A Spanish language recording of "I've Never Been to Me" entitled "Nunca He Ido A Mi" was recorded by Charlene and was one of two B-side tracks featured on the re-release of "It Ain't Easy Coming Down" - the followup to the 1982 release of "I've Never Been to Me" - in its UK format (in other territories "It Ain't Easy Coming Down" featured only the one B-side "If I Could See Myself").
Charlene re-released the song in the form of a dance remix via download music in 2008.
| Preceded by "Goody Two Shoes" by Adam Ant |
UK number one single 26 June 1982 |
Succeeded by "Happy Talk" by Captain Sensible |
| Preceded by "Mickey" by Toni Basil |
Australian Kent Music Report number-one single June 21, 1982 - July 26, 1982 (6 weeks) |
Succeeded by "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock of Seagulls |
| Preceded by "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder |
Canadian RPM number-one single 25 June - 17 July 1982 (4 weeks) |
Succeeded by "Abracadabra" by Steve Miller |
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