Topic: New Chords Postings
"Painted Ladies" was Ian Thomas's first, and biggest, hit single. It was drawn from his 1973 self-titled debut album (pictured), which reached #30 on the Canadian RPM Chart. The single itself climbed to #34 on the Billboard Chart and rose all the way to #4 on the RPM 100 Singles Chart in December of 1973. This success earned Thomas the 1974 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist.As often happens, though, having a huge hit single proved to sometimes be as much of a curse as a blessing. Thomas recounts why on the biography page of his website:
"'Painted Ladies' was a good ice-breaker. The only problem was that everyone wanted to hear more of the same, and by the time it was released (which was a year after it was recorded), I'd already compositionally evolved past that. I'd outgrown that stage in my musical development. I had evolved dramatically in my musical thinking, yet the crowds continued to clamour for 'Painted Ladies'. As a result, I quickly lost my young Top 40 following and it took a long time to attract an audience that appreciated both lyrical and musical content." (ianthomasband.com/biography.htm)
No surprise, of course, that crowds would clamour for that song. People always want to hear an artist's biggest hits. What did surprise me, though, was that when I looked this song up at YouTube to link to it, one YouTube user had taken the song from an album called Super 70's One Hit Wonders. Ian Thomas a one-hit wonder?! Well, I guess it was a US album, and true enough, "Painted Ladies" was his only Top 40 hit in the US. Here in Canada, though...very different story. There was "Come The Son", "Pilot", "Long Long Way", "Time Is the Keeper", "Mother Earth", "I Really Love You", "Julie", "Liars", "Right Before Your Eyes", "Coming Home", and others. Not to mention that other artists like America ("Right Before Your Eyes") and Manfred Mann ("The Runner") scored big hits with Ian Thomas-penned songs. The guy was a veritable hit machine back in the 70's. And naturally, "Painted Ladies" is on both of his greatest hits albums, The Best Of Ian Thomas (1980) and Looking Back (1993).
The chord chart:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/crd/thomasian-paintedladies.txt
Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Daxx9dFiD8Y
Posted by planet/zerofret
at 1:50 AM EST
Updated: Monday, January 19, 2009 1:53 AM EST
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Updated: Monday, January 19, 2009 1:53 AM EST
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