Thursday, September 5, 2013

Celebrity Rock: Whenever I'm Away From You (1976)

One year before "Saturday Night Fever", John Travolta was making the rounds to promote his first album, recorded during a break in taping Welcome Back, Kotter. Most of you know he landed on American Bandstand, but that wasn't the only ABC variety show he did.

The Captain & Tennille Show welcomed Travolta in 1976. Travolta teamed with the titular hitmakers to cover Elton John & Kiki Dee's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", which Elton himself would re-record several years later with RuPaul. However, the spotlight gets turned on Travolta for "Whenever I'm Away From You", which sounds like a cover of a 60's soul number, but, well, judge for yourself.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

There's a reason Travolta never burned up the charts after Grease - he's just not good of a singer! Not a great lip syncher either!

The song isn't bad - reminds me of something the Chi-lites probably would have recorded 5 years earlier.

hobbyfan said...

I was thinking of either the Chi-Lites or Stylistics myself. At least Travolta had the good sense to quit while he was behind as a singer.........