Songs
Among the album's notable songs were four charting singles. Peak among them at #3 on the Black Singles, #18 on the Pop Singles charts and #22 on the UK Singles was the Holland–Dozier–Holland song "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", which had previously hit for Marvin Gaye in 1964. Not far behind, "(I'm a) Road Runner", by the same songwriters, reached #4 on Black Singles and #20 on Pop Singles, while suprassing "How Sweet It Is" to reach #12 in the UK. "Pucker Up Buttercup" did not crack the top 10, but reached #11 Black Singles and #31 Pop Singles. A distant fourth, Junior Walker & the Allstar's cover of the 1959 Barrett Strong hit "Money (That's What I Want)" reached #35 Black Singles and #52 Pop Singles.
The album is titled for "(I'm a) Road Runner", which had been previously released on Junior Walker & The All-Star's 1965 debut album, Shotgun. It proved so successful in its March 1966 single that it was included and singled out on the band's follow-up. Although "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" surpassed it in two out of three charts, "(I'm a) Road Runner" is regarded as a superior offering from Junior Walker & The All-Stars, one of three songs by the band (along with "Way Back Home" and "Shotgun" included in 1999's Da Capo Press publication The heart of rock & soul: the 1001 greatest singles ever made. Ranking it second of the three at #467, music critic David Marsh, identifying Junior Walker as "the one gutbucket star in Motown's heaven", says "even... never saw the like of this blend of booming bass, tanked-up tambourine, and gritty guitar. Much less Walker's fractured saxophone." Sometimes known as "I'm a Road Runner", the song has been covered by a number of rock bands, including Fleetwood Mac (on album Penguin) and Peter Frampton (on I'm in You), and also by comedian Bill Cosby on Bill Cosby Sings Hooray For the Salvation Army Band!
Read more about this topic: Road Runner (album)
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“In her days every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“O women, kneeling by your altar-rails long hence,
When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,
And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air
And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for all that sin I wove in song....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,
We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why,”
—James Elroy Flecker (1884–1919)