Among the many types of radio star that video killed were what I like to call the Faceless Narcissists – those acts of the pre-MTV era who felt compelled to name their acts after themselves despite the lack of stardom or even any apparent charisma. The Sanford/Townsend Band; Zager & Evans; Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds; Emerson, Lake and Palmer … you guys know who you are.
Once that little moon-man started flickering across the ether, those snoozer monikers were out the window. And particularly if you were a duo (unless you happened to be Daryl Hall & John Oates), you needed a name like Wham! or Yazoo or Outkast to get on the TV. (Dear readers, please don’t barrage me with boring duo names of the past 25 years; my point is my point, and I’m sticking with it.)
Anyway, the singles I’ve excavated for today’s column date from the peak years of Faceless Narcissism. They are stellar examples of the form not only because they came from duos who had no business naming anything after themselves, but also because they fairly reek of sublimated testosterone. One very nearly punctured the Bee Gees firewall to become a Top 10 hit during the winter of 1978; the other, while not achieving anywhere near that kind of chart success, remains one of the sweetest examples of the kind of turn-of-the-’80s midtempo AC that kept me riveted (and dateless) through much of high school.
Lenny LeBlanc and Pete Carr were high school classmates in Daytona Beach, Fla., whose musical ambitions danced around one another for nearly a decade. LeBlanc led bands in Florida and Cincinnati, while Carr focused on production and eventually settled in Muscle Shoals … zzzzzzzzzzz. For crying out loud, wake me when the backstory’s over! (I told you they had no business naming anything after themselves…) So these two guys finally hooked up and started recording together around 1975, and instead of giving themselves a cool name like one of the bands Carr had produced (Sailcat) or one of LeBlanc’s former groups (Whalefeather), they decided to go by … LeBlanc & Carr. Narcissists! (more…)
