* (.... featuring General Johnson )
Chart entered : 13 September 1986
Chart peak : 56
And so we come within the 30 year mark, starting with a surprise comeback hit that completely passed me by at the time.
Chairmen of the Board hadn't had a hit since "Finders Keepers" way back in 1973. They had started dissolving almost straight away with Eddie Custiss leaving the line up after their second album in 1970. When the hits dried up Harrison Kennedy bid adieu to the group in 1974. General Johnson and Danny Woods continued and toured the UK in 1976 disbanding after the last gig at Middleton Civic Hall. They then reformed the group in 1978 with newcomer Ken Knox in order to perform on the "beach music" circuit , a sort of equivalent scene to the UK's Northern Soul based in resorts on the Eastern seaboard. General set up his own label, Surfside, in North Carolina and started releasing singles under the name General Johnson and the Chairmen in the early eighties.
The original version of "Lover Boy" was released in 1984. I'm at a slight disadvantage here in having not heard that version but it found its way over here to what was left of the Northern Soul scene and from there reached the ears of The Style Council. As a group they were having a bit of a rest in 1986 and so they took charge of the song. Paul Weller re-mixed it and Mick Talbot superimposed a completely superfluous keyboard solo on it . They also persuaded the General that a change in billing was appropriate given that COTB's popularity in the UK had been more durable.
"Lover Boy" sounds like a routine Motown single from the mid to late sixties, like a lesser Four Tops single say. It's pleasant, tuneful pop soul , no more. Weller, never a producer of any imagination , keeps it bright and shiny and General's voice is in perfect nick. To say it got no airplay and scant attention in the music press, it did well to chart as high as it did.
The collaboration didn't continue. Weller and Talbot went back to their next album and General and his cohorts stayed in their comfy niche. The run of singles on Surfside continued intermittently right down to 2002. I haven't heard every one of them but if you ignore the fact that none acknowledge the passage of time, the quality is pretty high particularly 1987's "Don't Walk Away". 1995's "Summertime Groove" though is a bit too close to Young Rascals' Groovin for comfort.
The music stopped for General in October 2010 when he died of lung cancer aged 67 . Danny and Ken decided to go their separate ways and put the name to bed. Ken formed Ken Knox and Company to carry on performing COTB material although they have released a couple of retro-soul singles ( which sound more eighties than sixties though ) in "You" and "I'm Ready Willin And Able". He has rather reneged on resting the name and comes to the UK next month as "Chairmen of the Board featuring Ken Knox".
Danny still performs on the beach music circuit as a solo artist.
Harrison took a complete break from music after leaving the group serving with the US Air Force and working for the Allied Chemical Corporation. After thirty years he returned to music as a blues singer and guitarist on the 2003 album "Sweet Taste". His new music has received considerable acclaim and his seventh album "This Is From Here " won a Juno Award for "Best Blues Album of the Year" earlier this year.
I have no information on Eddie; I don't even know whether he's still alive.
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