Song:Dance With Me
Album:Dance With Me: The Best Of Orleans
Dance With Me was the first of two top ten hits for 70s group Orleans. These days group leader John Hall is better known for his political career. In the late 60s, he was just another aspiring songwriter living in New York trying to make a living in the music business. In 1972, he formed Orleans with guitarist Larry Hoppen and percussionist Wells Kelly. Hoppen's brother Lance Hoppen played bass and drummer Jerry Marotta completed the group. They signed with ABC Records and their 1973 debut album Orleans was produced in Muscle Shoals by Barry Beckett & Roger Hawkins. Hall produced their 1974 album Let There Be Music himself. ABC rejected it and dropped Orleans. They were signed to Asylum Records by recording engineer and producer Chuck Plotkin. He reworked the album and it was released in 1975. Dance With Me reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Like a lot of Orleans songs, Hall wrote Dance With Me. Still The One was their other top ten hit in 1976 and is the better known song because ABC and other TV networks used it in promotional campaigns. Hey, royalties are royalties. Soon after, Hall left Orleans to go solo. The band continued without him and had a top 20 hit with Love Takes Time. They split up after MCA Records closed the Infinity label in 1980. You can get all of Orleans' hits on this budget comp. Orleans reformed after Wells Kelly died from a 1984 drug overdose. Lance Hoppen still leads them today. John Hall was part of some of those reunions. But he got into political activism as one of the organizers of the No Nukes concert. His involvement in opposing a nuclear plant in the Mid-Hudson area of New York led to his election to the US House Of Representatives in 2006. He was defeated in 2010. Here's Orleans performing Dance With Me on The Midnight Special 1975.
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