Woah, this one was news to us, but then we weren’t one of the thousands of kids who bought Racey’s Smash & Grab album in ’79 on the back of the massive hits “Lay Your Love On Me” and “Some Girls”.
Were you? If you were, then maybe you knew that Toni Basil’s iconic 1981 #1 hit “Mickey” was indeed a cover of a song first released by Racey on that album. The song was called “Kitty” when Racey did it, and it was written by Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman – the famous Chinnichap hit-making factory of the ‘70s.
Racey’s version is not as great as Toni’s version – it doesn’t have the cheerleader call out that we’ve alluded to in our title here for starters (that was Toni’s invention) - but we’re kind of dumbfounded as to how we’ve never heard this before. Anyway, have a listen to them both and see what you think. We’ve tacked on Racey’s couple of big hits too; both also written by Chinn & Chapman. Did these guys write catchy songs or what??? (And yep, stay tuned for an ILYOS Chinnichap feature soon.)
Racey “Kitty”
Toni Basil “Mickey”
Racey “Lay Your Love On Me”
Racey “Some Girls”
And don’t forget you can you can hear Racey and loads of other fun stuff from back in the day on our Hits of the ‘70s playlist on Spotify.
-DL
