Silver Convention | |
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Also known as | Silver Bird Convention Silver Bird |
Origin | Munich, Germany |
Genres | Euro disco |
Years active | 1974–1979 |
Labels | Jupiter, Durium, Midland International |
Past members | Linda G. Thompson Penny McLean Jackie Carter Ramona Wulf Zenda Jacks Rhonda Heath |
Silver Convention was a West German Euro disco recording act of the 1970s. The group was originally named Silver Bird Convention or Silver Bird.
The group was initiated in Munich by producers and songwriters Sylvester Levay and Michael Kunze. The group was named after Levay, "Silver" being Levay's nickname. Kunze had in the late 1960s been a pop lyricist who wrote protest songs in German; when these tunes went out of style, he began producing pop records and commercials. Levay had developed a taste for American music while growing up in Yugoslavia, eventually becoming a music arranger and lyricist.
Using female session vocalists Gitta Walther, Lucy Neale, Betsy Allen, Roberta Kelly, and Jackie Carter for their first recordings, they scored a successful single in the United Kingdom in 1975 with the song "Save Me", which peaked at #30. They were only a studio group, and realized then that they would need to find professional entertainers for presentation to the public.
As Silver Convention they scored two major US and Canadian hit singles. "Fly, Robin, Fly," of which the complete lyrics consisted of only six different words (Fly, Robin, Up, To, The, Sky), maintained three weeks at #1 in late November and early December 1975, and won the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in December 1975. Initially the song was titled "Run, Rabbit, Run", changed by the writers moments before the recording took place. Their next success "Get Up And Boogie", which also consisted of only six different words (Get, Up, And, Boogie, That's, Right), hit #1 in Canada on June 15, 1976, had 3 weeks at #2 in the U.S in June 1976 and also peaked at #7 in the UK, in May 1976. Their next release, "No No Joe," only scored #60 in September 1976. The further singles released by the trio attempted to duplicate the sound that had made them successful briefly, but they were only minor successes. At this time, Linda G. Thompson left the group and was replaced by New York Cityer Rhonda Heath, who was chosen over other hopefuls at an open casting call to become the newest singer for the group.