Pure Pop For Then People: Brother Louie

Brother Louie was a Billboard number one hit in 1973 for Stories. It’s hard to have a number one hit. It’s usually an equal mixture of luck and talent.

The keyboard player in Stories was also in The Left Banke, which had another big hit with Walk Away Renee. Some people are like that. They cultivate the right friends, and drift from one success to another. But I find it interesting that Stories originally left Brother Louie off their album, because they didn’t like how it sounded. Or more to the point, they thought it sounded like someone else, and they didn’t think they wanted to — or could– sound like that all the time. Of course someone at the record company with more sense and cupidity re-released the album with the hit single on there. And we never heard from Stories — sounding the way they wanted to, or the way the record company wanted them to sound –again.