Chart entered : 11 November 1978
Chart peak : 14
Number of hits : 14
David Van Day ( born 1956 ) and Thereza Bazar ( born 1955 ) met in 1974 when both passed auditions for a new six-piece harmony group Guys n Dolls. The auditions were run by the Ammo songwriting team with David Martin becoming their manager They achieved immediate success with their first single "There's A Whole Lot of Loving", a catchy bit of Eurovision pop which reached number 2 in March 1975 helped by its use in a biscuit commercial and the publicity around one of the other girls being Bruce Forsyth's daughter. The single was actually recorded by session singers with Martin himself doing the lead vocal backed by Tony Burrows and Claire Torrey of The Great Gig In The Sky fame amongst others.
Thereza got to do a few lead lines , in her excessively saccharin tones on the soporific follow up "Here I Go Again" which brought them down to earth somewhat by stalling at 33. The nauseating variety show pop of "Let's All Get Together " which makes Culture Club's The War Song sound like a Dylan number missed the charts altogether and it took a surprisingly acceptable cover of "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" to restore them to the Top 5. Still their next single Tony Macauley's "If Only For The Good Times" on which lead singer Paul Griggs sounds like Scott Walker was another flop and the title of their next single "Stoney Ground", which peaked at 38 was proving a little too apposite. Their routine cover of "You're My World" bombed here but was a number one in Holland and Belgium in 1977 and the former country thereafter became their most lucrative market.
By this time David and Thereza were a romantic couple and after the next single, a cover of Weill and Mann's "Mamacita" which reached number 5 in Holland, David decided to quit the group. Thereza intended to continue in the line up but they decided having a spare girl wouldn't work and preferred to continue as a four piece. They continued to have hits in Holland until 1982 despite further changes in personnel. Thereza meanwhile had no choice but to join David in his new venture as Dollar.
I don't think Dollar's success owed anything to Guys'n' Dolls; I certainly didn't recognise them when they did "Shooting Star" , their first single, on Top of the Pops. It isn't what you might have expected from them. The song was written by Leo Sayer's writing partner David Courtney and anticipates a friendly alien visit with definite echoes of Joe Meek's futurology. Musically it's a lush synth pop ditty riding on a simple insistent bass line with producer Christopher Neil working in some ambient synth noises in a way that anticipates William Orbit. David takes on the bulk of the vocal duties , his high reedy voice just about adequate but that doesn't really matter. This is an anticipation of the next decade and works just swell.
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