UK Top 40: 10th March 1979

Roxy Music, Peaches & Herb, The Shadows, The Pretenders, The Cars and more.

In The 1970s The Cars

The Cars were from the New Wave style of band and came from the U.S. in fact from Boston.  It was 1978 that the group launched their first album called The Cars and that went PLATINUM. Ric Oasek was guitar and lead singer for the group and he joined the group when it was called Cap'n Swing. Benjamin Orr died of cancer in 2005 in his mid forties.

bbc news September 2019

Ric Ocasek, lead singer of 1980s US band The Cars, has died aged 75.

He was pronounced dead at home in Manhattan after family called to report he was unresponsive, New York Police Department said. The cause of death remains unconfirmed.

The Cars helped kick-start the new wave movement.

The band was formed in Boston in the mid-1970s by Ocasek and band-mate Benjamin Orr after they met at high school.

Merging guitar rock with synthesizer-based pop, their early hits included Just What I Needed, My Best Friend's Girl and Good Times Roll.

Other members included Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson.

Surprisingly despite having Gold and Silver albums the group only had two top thirty single hits in the 1970s and both in 1978. The first was Just What I Needed from The Cars album on Elektra. The song became a hit because it was played on a demo tape by an American radio station that forced the company to release it as a single.

     

The second hit that year was My Best Friend's Girl a song all about the love of a girl for his best friend, but she use to be his.

It was 1985 that the Cars would ave a huge global hit with Drive thanks to a Canadian TV News channel putting on a BBC news film about Ethiopia. The song was shown at Live Aid during the David Bowie performance.