Music Box Dancer
Frank Mills' forgotten instrumental classic
Montréal-born musician Frank Mills was working as a pianist at the CBC while working on getting his solo career going. The song first appeared as an 1974 album track but didn’t become a hit until 4 years later, quite by accident.
It was the B side of a romantic lush song geared for easy listening stations called The Poet and Me. A copy was sent in error to a pop radio station in Ottawa and the confused program director flipped to the B side and discovered the song. He added it to the playlist and DJ David Watts, an acquaintance of Mills, played it regularly and that turned it into a gold record in Canada.
A news producer in Nashville (Bob Parker) hears it and decides to start playing it over the closing credits of the newscast. Nashville DJs pick it up and that broke it in the US market. It’s now sold over 6 million copies worldwide.
Not bad for a quirky little tune, huh? It was in many ways the last gasp of this kind of piano music, falling just as the music industry was changing in a big way.
Enjoy your song of the day!
Wow, this brings back some memories! A vivid memory of sitting around the family room table with my older sister as she showed off her new single on our little plastic suitcase record player. She was learning piano at the time and was so excited that a piano instrumental was so popular. I’d totally forgotten about this song, and that memory, but the first few notes brought it all back!