Debby Boone - You Light Up My Life

I'd read the stories about Joe Brooks (though not the Wiki page) and I remember all the horrible things I'd read - but I don't remember anything about the "plastic bag" thing. Now I'm sure to go to the Wiki page.

It's a bit strange that Debby says she only spent 2 hours with him - when she recorded songs of his on 2 separate albums. Probably wanting to separate herself from him more. I met her when when the 'You Light Up My Life' album finally came out on CD and she had a CD-signing event. I was always curious about the last chorus melody, which is so different from the actual melody, that I asked her if she imrpovised/ad libbed any of that. She responded, "No. Joe made me sing every note you hear on that record."

But back to music, IIRC, there was never a follow-up single from this LP. So strange when there were so many good songs to choose from, including a re-release of "Hasta Manana" which I think would have fared much better after "You Light". Also, "Your Love Broke Through" would have made a great follow-up single if they wanted a second ballad. (It later became a Christian hit, and perhaps staple, as a number of artists recorded it. I never noticed the God angle of the song, or for that matter, with "You Light Up My Life" either.)

Also, we may never know why the B-side was made midstream, or rather, early stream. I think "Hasta Manana" became the B-side pretty quickly and that MOST 45s have that as the B-side.

Edited by EdisonLite

On a side note of the 1977 top 10 songs in my collection I don't think I ever heard a non-hiss master of this song. The hiss is bad at the beginning even off CD copies that I wonder is there a nice clean copy in existence? Or is the 45 that hissy too?

50 discs it is on and such a huge hit can anyone point me to the best sounding copy?

Edited by PopArchivist

crapfromthepast wrote: Thanks to Mark M, I can confirm that the CD 70's Hits (Curb 77317, 1990) does not have the reverb version. Pat updated the database, and it looks like the reverb appears on just some of the Reader's Digest collections and some of the Time-Life discs (plus some newer collections). I don't have the release dates for these, so I can't definitely pin down the source of the reverb, but I'd bet a nickel that it's one of the Reader's Digest collections.

If Readers Digest is to blame, it would have to be well before 2011. (S) (3:35) Reader's Digest SSTC07791 Lite FM/Late Night Ballads From The '70s & '80s (Box Set) is a set with
a 2011 date stamp on it. I had never broken the seal on this box set thinking it wasn't going to be very impressive. In fact, I don't even remember buying it. So, as I see it they
must have cleaned up their act by the time this collection was released.

I kept listening and expecting to find the added reverb, but I didn't hear it. After that, I pulled down the Time-Life Am Gold Mellow Hits CD, and there it was. I noted that this
box set is properly listed in the database too. If I happen to pass across an older compilation on Readers Digest that has the reverb, I'll note the date.