Fellows, may I present to you an early 70's power-pop album that's probably the most Beatlesesque album I've ever heard in my entire life! No, I'm not kidding. These three manage to emulate the Beatles' sound so precisely that John Lennon actually became a huge fan of them.
Sometime in the 1960's, the then-teenage Hudsons landed themselves a contract for Scepter under the \"New Yorkers\" moniker (so named after a certain Chrysler automobile) and had a few hits for that label. In the wake of their third single, Show Me the Way to Love, they found out their manager had embezzled thousands of dollars and responded by quitting touring. They reunited in 1968 and released a few singles on the local Jerden label....and, believe it or not, this was a time when they found themselves constantly switching between labels. Following their tenure on Jerden, they released a single for Warner Bros. and then signed to Decca, who encouraged the group to tour the East Coast in support of \"Love Is the World\", a single which they released as Everyday Hudson and which ultimately failed to sell, making Decca pull all its financial support for the group.
They re-badged themselves (again) as simply \"Hudson\" and signed to Lionel (a very short-lived subsidiary of MGM, home to such acts as One Man Electrical Band) in 1971. Records they released for the label included an earlier version of Straight Up and Tall, one of the tracks that would be re-recorded for this album in 1973/74. The following year, in 1972, the Hudsons three switched to Playboy and released their first studio album on that label.
In 1973, Elton John and his long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin discovered the group in Los Angeles, and signed them to the then newly-formed Rocket label, which AFAIK would arguably be the company that the band would remain signed to for the longest time. A year later, the Hudsons began starring in their own variety television show on CBS, known as the Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show. This is what the group are probably most famous for - quite a shame their best musical material didn't get widespread recognition (more detailed info below in my description of this album). In support of the show, they released an album for Casablanca named Hollywood Situation, another very cool Beatlesesque album which I'd also recommend checking out. Of course, Casablanca were the ones who obliged to put the Chucky Margolis sketch from their TV show in the tracklisting, kind of breaking the album's flow, but it's still great otherwise.
During their time as television stars, the Hudson Brothers would compile some of the material they had recorded for Rocket into this one album. As I already mentioned, Totally Out of Control sounds SO much like something that the Beatles would have done, that you could almost swear it was them had you ever heard one of the songs from here BEFORE you knew who actually performed it! \"If You Really Need Me\" reminisces of \"We Will Work It Out\"; \"Sunday Driver\" is like \"Drive My Car\" albeit with harsher lyrical commentary; \"Be a Man\" being akin to something from side two of Abbey Road; \"Isn't It Lovely\" and \"Lover Come Back to Me\" sounding a LOT like Badfinger songs (the latter of the two also reminiscing of ELO); and the seven-minute medley at the end of side two is almost like the Hudsons' own version of the Abbey Road medley.
Since then, the brothers have gone on to other things. Bill Hudson married actress Goldie Hawn and majored as a television/movie actor (the couple would go on to have two children, actors Kate and Oliver Hudson); Brett became a TV producer and writer and eventually the unlikely survivor of a car crash; and Mark Hudson became closely associated with Ringo Starr and Aerosmith, the latter of whom he co-wrote \"Livin' on the Edge\" for in 1993.
