England's The Sweet only had a few hits here in the US. For example, "Ballroom Blitz" might be better known for actress-singer Tia Carrere's cover in "Wayne's World" in 1992. 20 years earlier, the Sweet peaked at #3 here in the US with their first American hit, "Little Willy".
A little bit about Top of the Pops, from whence we get this clip. If the set looks even remotely familiar, well, it was the inspiration for MTV's Club MTV, which launched some 15 years later at New York's Palladium nightclub. "Downtown" Julie Brown, a former dancer on Pops, served as the host of Club MTV for virtually its entire run, and likely put the bug in the producers' ears to put in all those television monitors.........! Around the same time that Club MTV launched, CBS tried an American version of Pops, with Nia Peeples as host in a late night format. That lasted a year, and we'll discuss that another time.
Right now, here's "Little Willy".
I first discovered "Willy" on a K-Tel album I had in the mid-70's. What shocks me is that no one's tried covering it in the 44 years since its peak period.
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